ISO, the world's largest developer of International Standards, has achieved a new record for membership of the organisation, which now comprises the national standards institutes of 160 countries.
Four new members from West Africa have enabled ISO to set the new record: Gambia Standards Focal Point (GAMSFP); Liberia Division of Standards (LDS); Direction de la Normalisation et de la Promotion de la Qualité (DNPQ) of Mauritania and Sierre Leone Standards Bureau (SLSB).
ISO's network of national members covers all regions of the world and includes 122 developing economies. The four new members of ISO are “correspondent members”, a category for countries which do not yet have a fully developed national standards activity.
ISO Secretary-General Rob Steele comments: “It's significant that even in these times of global financial crisis, the ISO family is growing. The benefits that ISO standards can deliver to business, government and society as a whole are increasingly recognised. Through membership of ISO, countries can contribute to and influence the standards that are most important to their economies and receive early warning of forthcoming standards.”
“Naturally, with a majority of ISO's members coming from developing countries, we have a strategic objective of assisting them to use standardisation as a lever for economic development, trading capacity and support for consumer, social and environmental protection.”
ISO helps developing countries through technical assistance and training activities based on the ISO Action Plan for developing countries, cooperating on specific projects with bodies such as the World Trade Organisation, the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation and the International Trade Centre.
Implementing ISO standards brings significant advantages to all countries:
– Avoiding the waste of resources by “reinventing the wheel”.
– Transferring state-of-the-art technological know-how.
– Supplying criteria for making reasoned choices when evaluating imports, whether of technology or consumer products.
– Safeguarding public health and safety by establishing a base of requirements for application to local or imported products in these regulated areas.
– Providing internationally accepted specifications that can be applied to the development, manufacturing and marketing of local goods and services, thus raising the country's ability to compete on export markets worldwide.
In addition to the above benefits, by participating in the development of International Standards, developing countries can realise others, such as the opportunity to:
– Acquire technological know-how directly.
– Influence the technical content of standards important to their economy.
– Gain “hands-on” experience in standardisation work that can be put to use in building up their national infrastructures.

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