WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/GC/46/Rev.1
16 July 2001
(01-3498)
General Council
ACTIONS TO INCREASE THE PARTICIPATION OF DEVELOPING
COUNTRY MEMBERS  IN THE WORK OF RELEVANT INTERNATIONAL
STANDARD-SETTING ORGANIZATIONS
Information from Financial Institutions
Report by the Director-General
Revision
1. You will recall that the General Council had requested that I "explore with the relevant
international standard-setting organizations and relevant intergovernmental organizations financialand technical mechanisms to assist the participation of developing countries in standard-setting
activities".
1  I have previously reported to you regarding our consultations with the standard-setting
organizations.2  Since we have established an on-going process, I will continue to report periodically
on this collaboration.  The present report is with respect to my contacts with the relevant
intergovernmental organizations which could provide financial assistance to developing countries.
2. In this regard, I have sent letters to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic
Development Bank, the Inter-American Developm ent Bank and the UN Development Programme.  I
drew their attention to the fact that one of the principal provisions of both the TBT and SPS
Agreements is to encourage governments to harmonize their national requirements with international
standards in order to facilitate trade.  I informed them that many developing countries were concerned
about their difficulty to effectively participate in the work of international standard-setting bodies,
which was due in part to their lack of technical expertise and of financial resources to attend meetingsof these bodies.
3. I requested each of these organizations to provide information regarding the kind of technical
and financial assistance that they may already be providing or planning to provide to developing
countries to facilitate their participation in the work of international standard-setting bodies.  I also
asked whether these organizations had scope to expand their assistance to developing countries.  Theresponses I have received to date from the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank, the
Islamic Development Bank, the Asian Developmen t Bank and the UN Development Programme are
summarized below.
World Bank4. The World Bank has an active programme of research and capacity building in the area of
standards, technical regulations, and trade.  This work centers on a programme in the World Bank
development research group, supported by the Bank and the Trust Funds established by the United
Kingdom and the United States.  The World Bank also offers support through their lending operations
                                                     
1 WT/GC/M/59, Minutes of Meeting of 18 October 2000.
2 WT/GC/42 and WT/GC/45.WT/GC/46/Rev.1
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for infrastructure modernization, export promotion and policy reform initiatives in a number of
developing countries around the world.
5. It is estimated that in FY99 World Bank proj ect funding with direct and indirect goals of
support for infrastructures related to standards totaled US$ 419.2 million.  Standards-related projects
included goals such as:  (1) adoption of international conventions and directives relating to the
standardization and simplification of documents accompanying trade in goods and services;(2) investment in standards infrastructure, including metrology, calibration and laboratory
accreditation systems;  (3) assisting firms in the adoption of international quality standards (ISO
9000) and environmental management standards (ISO 14000);  (4) supporting access to business
information technology and providing advice on packaging and quality control;  and (5) government
regulatory reform projects in the health, safety, and environmental regimes across industry sectors.
6. The World Bank is committed to capacity-building initiatives in standards from a
development perspective, including work with trade-related objectives.  In order to assist the WTO aspart of a continuing dialogue on standards, the World Bank has proposed hosting a meeting on
"Standards, Trade, and Development".  The objec tive of the meeting would be to allow interested
international institutions and other groups, along with  the WTO, to systematically review current aid
to developing countries and discuss with senior officials creative proposals for meeting trade-related
objectives in this area over the long-term.
7. A more detailed understanding of the economic, institutional, and policy aspects of standards,
technical regulations and trade is central to the Bank's new work agenda.  In order to expand
understanding of these issues, the World Bank launched new work on international standards,
technical regulations and trade policy in November 1999.  The overall goal of a three-year series of
initiatives centers on (1) increased understanding of the quantitative significance of standards andregulations as barriers to trade, and (2) analysis of trade policy aspects of governments' technical
regulations, with particular emphasis on developing countries.  These issues are of particular
importance to developing countries as they seek to strengthen industrial performance, increase
agricultural production, and expand trade opportunities in the world markets.  A series of workshops
and a conference in 2002 to enhance dissemination of the research and policy recommendations fromthis part of the work programme is under consideration.
8. With additional resources, the Bank is prepared to develop educational tools and sponsor
training seminars on international standards and best practices in standards and regulatory reform.
The goal of this part of the work programme would be to provide direct assistance from the World
Bank to developing countries on international standards development systems, information onprogrammes available for modernization of standards infrastructure, and other topics related to
understanding the role of standards on development.
Inter-American Development Bank
9. In the area of standardization, the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) is currently
providing several types of support.  In particular, borrowing member countries can access a series of
instruments geared towards strengthening key institutional aspects of international trade and regionalintegration.  The IADB's support mechanisms include:  (1) regular or special credit programmes;  (2)
non-reimbursable national and regional technical cooperation programmes;  (3) financial support to
the private sector through the Inter-American Investment Corporation (IIC);  and (4) non-
reimbursable national and regional technical cooperation programmes geared towards the private
sector through the Multilateral Investment Fund (MIF).
10. The IADB has also recently established a "Trade Facility".  This is a special trade facility by
which borrowing member countries can obtain a credit line for up to US$ 5 million through fast-trackWT/GC/46/Rev.1
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procedures for the strengthening of their trade institutions.  To date several countries, including
Guatemala and Honduras, have taken advantage of this facility.  These programmes have heretofore
not included TBT and SPS-related projects in a very significant way.  The facility, nevertheless, is
broad and flexible in nature so as to allow for the consideration of support programmes in such areas.
Islamic Development Bank11. The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has been providing technical assistance to its member
countries since 1998.  Its main aim is to assist member countries in understanding the various WTO
agreements and in meeting their obligations.  The IDB is also giving special attention to capacity
building in member countries in the context of WTO.   For this purpose, the IDB has organized various
training courses, issue-specific workshops and seminars.  A total of 34 programmes have been
implemented for the relevant officials in member countries. The IDB has made use of resource
persons provided by the WTO in some of its WTO related technical assistance activities.  In addition,the IDB is focusing its activities on preparin g member countries for future multilateral trade
negotiations.  To date, the IDB has organized four seminars related to the SPS and TBT Agreements.
Asian Development Bank
12. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) overarchin g goal is poverty reduction.  Technical
assistance provided by the ADB puts much emphasis on the promotion of economic growth ofdeveloping countries, human resources development, good governance and regional cooperation.  In
response to increased demand from its members and international organizations, and despite limited
financial resources, the ADB recently began to provide technical assistance in the trade sector.
However, the ADB does not provide technical assi stance related to the SPS and TBT Agreements.
UN Development Programme
13. The UN Development Programme activities are decentralized, and developed in partnership
with the client countries.  They are based on broad thematic programmes whose overall goal is to
reduce poverty.  Often, the national Minister of Plan ning or Minister of Finance ensures the overall
coordination and selection of core programmes.  These programmes usually cover a period of three or
four years, and involve several international agencies in their implementation.  The programmes couldinclude some support to standard-setting activities.
14. The UNDP cannot provide precise information regarding on-going assistance in this area,
because reporting on technical cooperation activities undertaken at the national level is made
according to macro categories which do not allow desegregation at the level required to identify
specific programmes related to standard-setting activities.
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