Editor’s Note: For more information on how voluntary consensus and market-driven consortia standards are integrated into federal regulations, see here.
From: ANSI
The American National Standards Institute (ANSI) recently partnered with the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Southern African Trade Hub to carry out the “U.S.-Southern African Development Community Exchange on Good Regulatory Practice (GRP).” An activity of the ANSI-USAID Standards Alliance, the exchange took place June 1-2, 2015, in Johannesburg, South Africa .
The Standards Alliance is a funding facility that provides capacity building assistance to developing countries specifically related to the implementation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Agreement. Currently, the Standards Alliance engages 10 partner countries or regions, including the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
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Each SADC entity sent one representative from each of the 15 SADC member countries to the exchange, for a total of approximately 30 participants. SADCSTAN participants were largely from national standards bodies, while SADCTRLC participants were largely regulators. The U.S. delegation to the workshop included representatives from USTR, the Office of Management and Budget – Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OMB-OIRA), ANSI, ASTM International, Caterpillar, and the Distilled Spirits Council of the U.S.