The ECOWAS Community Committee for Metrology (ECOMET) organized the first meeting of its Awareness, Legal Metrology and Thermometry Technical Committees. It was in Dakar on January 23 and 24, 2020. Proceeding to the official opening of the meeting, the Industry Director of the ECOWAS Commission, Mr. Mensan Lawson-Hechelli, stressed the importance of advancing the competitiveness of ECOWAS member states, as well as the exceptional role of metrology and quality infrastructure in this regard. This was confirmed by Mr. Ibrahima Sarr, Director of Metrology at the Senegalese Ministry of Commerce with whom he shared the official table as well as with and Mr. Laura Haeussler, representative of the PTB and Paul Date, the President of ECOMET.

Indeed, Mr. Sarr underlined the great importance of metrology and the harmonization of activities in the sub-region, before he congratulated ECOMET for the launch of its technical committees. A first meeting of the ECOMET Technical Committees which "symbolizes an important step that the 15 members of ECOWAS are taking to approach full membership of AFRIMETS" according to Ms. Haeussler.

One of the major achievements of the meeting is the appointment of the Chairmen and Vice-Chairmen of the various technical committees. This is how they were appointed for a two (2) year term, after a vote of members that have attanded the meeting:

- Mr. Sambujang Drammel from Gambia, has been elected as President and Mrs. Moussa Sama Mariama from Niger, as Vice-President of the Awareness Technical Committee, for a mandate of two (2) years

- M Ibrahima SARR from Senegal has been elected as President and Ms. Comfort Kunle from Nigeria, as Vice-President of the Legal Metrology Technical Committee,

- Mrs. Sylvia Agbesinyale from Ghana has been elected as President and Mr. Sawadogo Issa from Burkina Faso, as Vice-President of the Thermometry Technical Committee

After the presentation of the national reports, it emerged that:

- the countries are at different levels with regard to Thermometry and that few laboratories are accredited in this size (except the laboratory of Ghana and the Ivory Coast). Several countries such as Senegal, Cape Verde, Nigeria, then strongly expressed the wish that the new team works to support the least developed countries in the implementation and development of this size.

- the member states are not yet sufficiently equipped for specialized activities such as intercomparisons in the fields of temperature and humidity

6 Member states carry out similar activities, such as:

• The Celebration of World Metrology Day;
• The organization of fairs, open days;
• The organization of awareness workshops and
• Media show (production of advertising spots, documentaries, infomercials of television programs, making flyers, leaflets, etc.)

The overall impact of the communication on metrology within the member States 

the awareness of decision makers on the importance of metrology and their commitment to support initiatives;

a better understanding of companies, which translates into good cooperation during operations;

increased demands on holders of instruments for verification / calibration;

fewer complaints from consumers.

The Committees have developed the proposed activity plan. They then met in working groups to plan the activities and consolidate the plan, which they each presented and explained in plenary. A plenary which served to identify the activities selectable for the support of the ECOWAS-PTB program after the lighting of presented the objectives and indicators of the ECOWAS-PTB program and indicated which activities could be financed by the program

Activities have been recommended to be carried out in member countries. These are generally:

The extension of metrology awareness activities in all regions

The incorporation of training modules in schools

Improving cooperation with journalists for the proper dissemination of metrology information.

The main issues common to all member countries are the awareness of political decision-makers and the general public about the importance of metrology in the socio-economic field.

At the end of the exchange, the members expressed only one recommendation to ECOMET: consider and adopt the action plan approved by the meeting. The representative of the PTB presented the objectives and indicators of the ECOWAS-PTB program and indicated which activities could be financed by the program. She explained that the final decision on the activity plan, including a schedule for the ECOWAS-PTB program, will be taken at the next ECOMET meeting scheduled in Niger from March 3 to 5, 2020.

At the end of the Meeting, the President of ECOMET was pleased that after years of planning, the first meeting of the ECOMET Technical Committees (TC) has finally taken place. He assured TC members of his full support and expressed his best wishes for their work.

Let us recall that ECOMET is one of the 5 technical committees set up by the WAQSP / UNIDO within the framework of the Community Council of Quality (CCQ) of ECOWAS: The other Committees are: ECORAS (Regional Accreditation System), ECOSHAM (Committee Community for Standardization), ECOREG (Community Committee for Technical Regulation) and ECOCONF (Community Committee for Conformity Assessment). This Dakar meeting followed that of Accra Accra in Ghana (July 29 - August 1, 2019). The latter was a capacity-building workshop on calibration guides and harmonized procedures for verifying measuring instruments in priority quantities which brought together 48 technical managers from national metrology organizations (ONM), the majority of whom were present in Dakar (http: //www.waqsp.org/fr/node/1251)