Candidate assessors, accreditation focal points and resource persons of pharmaceutical inspection reinforced to the requirements of ISO IEC 17020

Candidate assessors, accreditation focal points and resource persons of pharmaceutical inspection reinforced to the requirements of ISO IEC 17020

A regional training workshop on the ISO 17020 standard of the candidate assessors of the accreditation bodies of the ECOWAS Regional Accreditation System (ECORAS), the national focal points of the fifteen (15) ECOWAS member States and the actors of the pharmaceutical sector, was held from July 11 to 13, 2018, at Bolton White Hotel in Abuja, Nigeria. Initiated by the ECOWAS Commission, as part of the implementation of the West Africa Quality System Programme (WAQSP) funded by the European Union and implemented by UNIDO, this training workshop aims to equip these participants and thus expand the critical mass of ISO / IEC 17020 assessors and pharmaceutical inspection actors in the region.

The opening ceremony was chaired by Mr. Francis ALANEME, representing the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment of Nigeria, in the presence of Mr. Mamadou TRAORE, ECOWAS Commissioner for Industry and the Private Sector Promotion, and Mr. Aka Jean Joseph KOUASSI, representing UNIDO.

At the opening of the ceremony, Mr. Aka Jean Joseph KOUASSI, Chief Technical Advisor of the WAQSP and representative of the UNIDO Regional Director in Nigeria, who was unable to attend, recalled that the workshop was part of a wider context of setting up of a sustainable Quality Infrastructure for the region. "Indeed, since the effective setting up of the regional quality structures, the capacity building workshop on ISO IEC 17020 is part of a series of activities initiated by the WAQSP to make these recent functional ", he said. Mr. Mamadou TRAORE, ECOWAS Commissioner for Industry and Private Sector Promotion, emphasized the importance of the issue of adulterated drugs circulating in the western African region. He said that in order to contain these oddities, inspection bodies working in accordance with the applicable international rules should be available. However, the number of accredited conformity assessment bodies still remains very low, with around 60 accredited throughout the ECOWAS region, while there are more than 100 on average per country. He therefore urged the ECOWAS accrediting bodies to work to fill this gap as soon as possible, particularly in the area of ​​inspection, which is one of the poor parents in terms of accredited conformity assessment bodies. In his opening address, Mr. Francis ALANEME, representing his federal minister, after recalling the international context that led to the adoption of the ISO / IEC 17020 standard, invited the inspection bodies of the region to appropriate the said standard in order to carry out inspections with competence, independence and impartiality.

The workshop was facilitated by the Tunisian expert Mr. Med Hedi BANNANI, accreditation assessor according to the ISO / IEC 17020 standard for several international accreditation bodies. It took place in the form of theoretical presentations and group work which allowed reviewing all the requirements of the ISO / IEC 17020. At the end of the training, participants gave their assessments on the achievement of the expected results of this workshop on the one hand, and the quality of the training on the other, which they considered satisfactory.

They also made suggestions among which: to organize other sessions, in particular on the reference standards ISO / IEC 17024, ISO / IEC 17065 and ISO / IEC 17025. 

This program is funded by the European Union with the technical support of UNIDO, the implementing Agency

The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of the Commision of the European Union

Copyright - 2019 - ECOWAS AGENCY FOR QUALITY

Candidate assessors, accreditation focal points and resource persons of pharmaceutical inspection reinforced to the requirements of ISO IEC 17020 | ECOWAQ

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