G/TBT/GEN/292  
 
20 April 2020 
(20-3110) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
RECENT ACTIVITIES BY  ISO  
INFORMATION PROVIDED  BY THE  INTERNATIONAL ORGANI ZATION FOR STANDARDI ZATION  
This document contains information provided by  ISO at the TBT Committee meeting  of 
26-27 February  2020 under Agenda Item 5 (Observers).  
 
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1.  Firstly, I SO would like to introduce the ISO Gender Action Plan. Acknowledging that the United 
Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 "Achieve gender equality and empower all women 
and girls " is gaining momentum among  trade -related organizations, ISO has initiated a Gender 
Action Plan through 2021, with five key priority areas:  
a. Collect data on gender representation  
b. Collect case studies and best practices on standards in support of gender equality  
c. Assess the gender resp onsiveness of ISO standards  
d. Raise awareness of standards in support of gender equality and women 's empowerment  
e. Develop an ISO policy on gender  
2.  We look forward to providing more updates in future meetings . 
3.  Second, ISO would like to recognize a workshop held  in December 2019 on the implementation 
of the TBT agreement for Caribbean countries. This workshop gathered representatives from trade 
ministries, trade support institutions, national standards bodies and the private sector, with a specific 
focus on how t o join forces to provide export -related services to the private sector. The workshop 
was hosted by the Bahamas Bureau of Standards and Quality, with support from the WTO, ITC and 
ISO.  
4.  Additionally, ISO has been making progress on the preparation of a tool kit on Standards 
Supporting Public Policy addressed to our members, particularly in developing countries. The toolkit 
aims at providing practical guidance to NSBs on how they can better contribute to an effective policy 
making process within the context of  Good Regulatory Practices (GRP) in their countries. Particular 
attention will be given to the importance and possible forms of collaboration with regulators. The 
toolkit will provide practical examples and best practices and will include a series of commo n 
questions/answers to assist NSBs in their work of promoting the benefits and methods of using 
standards among policy makers.  The toolkit is expected to be available in December 2020.  
5.  Furthermore, ISO would like to inform TBT members of recent changes ma de to improve the 
user experience when accessing the WTO ISO standards information gateway website, which can be 
accessed at TBTcode.iso.org.  
6.  The purpose of this gateway is to provide information on the standardization bodies that have 
accepted the TBT Code of Good Practice, as well as their work programmes. Standardization bodies 
should use the forms available on this webpage to submit notifica tions regarding their acceptance G/TBT/GEN/292  
 
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  of the TBT Code of Good Practice or their withdrawal, as well as to indicate the existence and location 
of work programmes.  
7.  In 2019, two standardization bodies notified the acceptance of the Code and 57 notifications of 
work programmes (existence or updates) were received from 31 different standardization bodies.  
ISO encourages TBT members to continue efforts to keep this information up to date.  
8.  Lastly, the ISO Research and Innovation (R&I) team has crea ted a network (an online 
community) to bring together ISO members, academic researchers, standards practitioners and all 
those with an interest in standards research. We would like the ISO Research and Innovation 
Network to be a facility for discussion, in formation exchange and the sharing of ideas. The R&I team 
will draw on inputs from this community as we develop the ISO research work programme in the 
coming years.   
9.  The impact of standards on trade is one research topic of great interest to ISO, so any re searchers 
working on this topic, or anyone interested to follow ISO 's research work more broadly, is welcome 
to join at research.iso.org . 
 
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