Terms of Reference

Regional Technical Committee on
Africa Regional Standards for Shea Kernel and Shea Butter

The meeting builds upon an institutional framework established during a three-day consultation of national standards agencies of 10 countries common to UEMOA and ECOWAS, i.e. Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger, Ghana, Nigeria, Gambia, Cote d’Ivoire, Benin, and Togo, with international and regional institutional representation by the FAO-IGGOOF, UNIDO; sub-regional bodies including ECOWAS, UEMOA, the Economic Community of Central African States (CEEAC), the Common Market of Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA); and regional bodies ARSO and the African Union, hosted by the GSB at Accra from 20 May to 01 June 2006.

The results of the 2006 meeting included

1. Constitution of a regional technical committee drawn from the national standards bodies represented, consisting of representatives drawn from all member countries, through the sub-regional institutions (ECOWAS, UEMOA, CEEAC and COMESA) with a mandate to:

• Circulation of draft standards for shea kernel and shea butter widely in the producer countries through public review and consultations, with direct involvement of the private sector and industry, both national and             international, in order to assess and record the perspectives of a wide variety of stakeholders;

• Collection and assembly all the results of this review for regional and international circulation (October 2006 through May 2007), consolidation and presentation to member countries for final review and consolidation (May 2007).

The Regional Technical Committee has been working since June 2006 to establish a regional standard for unrefined shea butter based on the UEMOA standard, and to develop a regional standard for shea kernel. This process will conclude with a fully regional and inter-governmental consultation to finalise regional standards for all 16 producing countries during July 2007.

The Committee received the nominations of 13 national standards bodies, with representation from all relevant regional and sub-regional institutions including ARSO, ECOWAS, UEMOA, CEEAC and COMESA.

The only countries invited to participate, yet not represented on the RTC are Cameroon, Chad and Ethiopia.

Input on the draft standards has been received from most of the RTC member countries, based on their respective national stakeholder consultations. These observations, comments and suggestions for editing the draft standards have been translated and distributed to all RTC member institutions.

In April 2007, draft Codes of Practice for the production and processing of shea kernel and unrefined shea butter have been elaborated, and submitted to all RTC member institutions for their review.

RTC members will reconvene to finalise draft regional standards for shea kernel and unrefined shea butter, as well as the Codes of Practice, at a meeting scheduled for 02 to 04 July, to be chaired by ARSO and the Ghana Standards Board, hosted by the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) at Bamako, Mali.