Strengthening the Compliance of the OIC Member States
to International Standards
20
effectively locked out of the market. Indeed, even historical market success can be undermined if
standards are raised. Building quality infrastructure is therefore a key challenge for developing
countries looking to increase their degree of trade integration, particularly through the GVC model.
However, as the next box shows, it is important to keep the challenge in perspective, and to recall that it
only represents one aspect of an overall export competitiveness strategy.
Box 4: EU Aflatoxin Standards and African groundnut exports
Aflatoxins are naturally occurring substances that pose significant risks to human life and health if they
are consumed in sufficiently large amounts. In particular, they pose the risk of cancer. Some products,
such as edible groundnuts, can become contaminated with aflatoxins. As is often the case for food safety
issues, mandatory standards are used in many countries to limit the level of aflatoxins that can be
contained in shipments of groundnuts.
A number of African countries have traditionally exported significant quantities of groundnuts and
groundnut products to developed country markets, including the EU. In 1998, the EU adopted new
standards limiting the amount of aflatoxins in groundnuts and related products for human
consumptions. The new standards were stricter than those established by the Codex Alimentarius
Commission—an international food standards body; see further in Subsection 3.1 below—and were
seen as a potential barrier to trade by African exporters. Indeed, World Bank research released in 2001
suggested that Africa stood to lose substantial amounts of exports to the EU market as a result of the
new standards. Based on a highly stylized model, the World Bank authors concluded that African
exports to the EU could decline by as much as 64%, or $670 million.
The overall effect of EU aflatoxin standards remains highly controversial, however. Later work has
questioned the approach and findings of the initial World Bank study. In particular, it has highlighted
that only a very small quantity of African exports—no more than $1.5 million worth over the 2004-2006
period—was intercepted by EU authorities due to lack of compliance with aflatoxin standards.
Moreover, nearly 80% of the intercepted consignments would have failed the less stringent Codex
standard in any event.
Although African groundnut exporters have lost substantial market share in recent years, the latest
research shows that the challenges posed by aflatoxin standards are just one of the many
competitiveness issues that exporters face. The EU, along with other developed country markets, has
been on a consistent path of quality upgrading in this sector since at least the 1980s. It has been difficult
for African exporters to keep up with the trend.