G/TBT/GEN/230  
 
20 September 2017  
(17-4972) Page: 1/2 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade  Original: English  
 
 
ACTIVITIES OF THE INTERNATIONAL ELECTR OTECHNICAL COMMISSIO N (IEC)  
RELATED TO THE WORK OF THE WTO TBT COMMI TTEE  
STATEMENT BY THE IEC  
This document contains information provided by the IEC at the TBT Committee meeting of  14—15 
June 2017 under Agenda Item 4 (Technical Cooperation Activities) and Agenda Item 5 (Updating 
by Observers ). 
 
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1  AGENDA ITEM 4: TECHN ICAL COOPERATION ACT IVITIES  
1.1.  The IEC Regional Centre for Africa organized capacity building workshops in Sudan and 
Tanzania to structure a nd strengthen the national electrotechnical committees in order to enhance 
their participation in IEC work.  
1.2.  Within the IEC mentoring for Affiliate Countries, national events took place in Côte d’Ivoire 
and in Bhutan, with the technical participation of the ir mentors, respectively France and Sweden. 
Both events brought together the major stakeholders and national decision makers and focused on 
specific areas of interest in each country such as energy efficiency, rural electrification, electrical 
safety and u se of IEC conformity assessment systems.  
1.3.  A new mentoring partnership has been established between Senegal and France to reinforce 
the Senegalese national electrotechnical committee. It started on 1 June.  
1.4.  IEC international experts also shared their experti se in a national  conformity assessment 
workshop in Morocco and in a capacity building event on IEC International Standards in India and 
Sri Lank a. 
2  AGENDA ITEM 5: UPDAT ING BY OBSERVERS  
2.1.  IEC Regional Directors made use of the past three months to strengthen IEC’s collaboration 
with regional bodies such as ECOWAS, SADC and AFSEC in Africa; ASEAN in the Asia -Pacific zone 
and CANENA, CROSQ and COPANT in Latin America (details are given in our report).  
2.2.  Under the terms of the Affiliate Country Programme, Bhutan, B otswana, Ecuador and Ghana 
have declared additional national adoptions of IEC International Standards.  
2.3.  The first IEC conference on LVDC for electricity access was held in Nairobi, Kenya last month 
in partnership with the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) a nd AFSEC, the African Electrotechnical 
Standardization Commission. The LVDC Conference brought together all stakeholders to share, 
discuss and deliberate only one thing – how to bring adequate, clean and affordable electricity to 
1.2 billion citizens, in a  speedy timeframe. The conference was a success in terms of participation 
and high level speakers. Most of the delegates from Affiliate Countries attended the conference 
and subsequently the IEC plenary meetings on LVDC standardization. Getting developing countries 
involved and engaged with the standardization process for electricity access will be a key objective 
for the IEC in the coming years.  To follow up on this event, a special workshop on Access to 
electricity through LVDC will be held during the fo rthcoming IEC General Meeting to be held in 
Vladivostok, Russia in October . G/TBT/GEN/230  
 
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  2.4.  In the framework of SDG 7, IEC was panelist at the annual  forum of the Alliance for Rural 
Electrification (ARE) which took place in Lisbon, Portugal, in March. It gave the IEC the  opportunity 
to share its technical assistance approach for developing countries as well as the possibility to 
exchange with other organizations on the best way to support these countries to implement their 
rural electrification programs. IEC emphasized th e need for International Standards that are not 
always taken into account, even though they remain a major component of any national quality 
infrastructure.  
2.5.  For more details, I invite Member of the Committee to visit the IEC Website and to download 
our fu ll report . 
 
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