Strengthening the Compliance of the OIC Member States
to International Standards
45
Djibouti Senegal
Egypt Member Member Sierra Leone
Gabon Somalia
Gambia Sudan
Guinea Suriname
Guinea-Bissau Syria
Guyana Tajikistan
Indonesia Member Member Togo
Iran Member Member Tunisia Member Member
Iraq Member Turkey Member Member
Jordan Member Turkmenistan
Kazakhstan Member Member Uganda
Kuwait
United Arab
Emirates
Member Member
Kyrgyz Republic Member Uzbekistan
Lebanon Member Yemen Member
Saudi Arabia Member
Source: Author
4.4 Breakdown by Region
The preceding parts of this section have examined the participation of OIC member states in various
international standards organizations. It is useful to break down those results by region, so that
different patterns can be discerned. Figure 6 presents results. The first point that is evident is that
across all regional groupings, the ISO and the Codex have the greatest degree of participation among OIC
member states. This result is in line with their importance in the international standards system.
However, the contrast with the accreditation and metrology organizations is sometimes striking—a
point that suggests that these areas may be deserving of greater relative attention in the figure, given
that they represent an important part of standards and quality infrastructure.
The second point to note is that there is considerable variation in participation rates across OIC regions.
In general, the African group participates to a noticeably lesser degree than the Asian and Arab groups.
This result no doubt flows, at least in part, from the difficulties small, low income countries face in taking
part in the work of international standards organizations. Nonetheless, the need for technical and
financial assistance to support African participation in standards organizations is clear. Without this
support, there is a real risk that developments in the broad international standards community will not