Strengthening the Compliance of the OIC Member States
to International Standards
72
quality infrastructure is less developed than Egypt’s. One development that is important is that the RMG
industry has developed some sectoral competence in standards, for instance with its own testing
laboratories. Bangladesh’s experience is therefore informative for lower income developing countries,
particularly those with sectoral expertise. It shows that developing standards capacity goes hand in
hand with sustained gains in export competitiveness, particularly in sectors where the GVC model is
important.
The third OIC case study is Senegal. Like Bangladesh, Senegal is an LDC, but it has less manufacturing
capacity and relies to a greater extent on agriculture within its economy. Senegal’s experience is
interesting because as a small, low-income country, it faces considerable technical and financial
challenges in developing quality infrastructure. It currently has relatively few standards, but a high
degree of international harmonization. Senegal is seeking to develop quality infrastructure in
collaboration with its UEMOA regional partners, in recognition of the fact that some elements of quality
infrastructure, such as testing laboratories, are relatively expensive, and so are best developed at a
higher level of scale than a single small country. Although there is still substantial work to be done at the
national and regional levels, Senegal is clearly aware of the role that standards and harmonization can
play in boosting export competitiveness, in particular in the key EU market.
For the non-OIC case studies, the report uses two examples, namely APEC and ASEAN. These two forums
have overlapping membership, but they approach standards and conformity assessment in quite
different ways, relating in particular to the extent of institutionalization of the issue, and the use of
legally binding instruments. It is also notable that both organizations include OIC member states. The
third non-OIC case study is East Africa. In keeping with the spirit of the other two case studies, the
approach will be regional in scope, focusing on the East African Community, where efforts have been
underway to harmonize standards. The choice of East Africa is motivated by its links to the African
membership of OIC, its inclusion of developing and least developed countries, and the importance given
to international harmonization by standards bodies in the region. An examination of the East African
case can inform a significant proportion of OIC’s membership that might be interested in pursuing
regional approaches to harmonization and standardization, due to limited technical and financial
capacity in country. In this sense, it provides a point of contrast with the example of Senegal, from the
different institutional context of West Africa.