Ensuring quality to gain access to global markets: a reform toolkit

In a modern world with rapidly growing international trade, countries compete less on the availability of natural resources, geographical advantages, and lower labor costs and more on factors related to a firm’s ability to enter and compete in new markets. One such factor is the ability to demonstrate the quality and safety of goods and services expected by consumers and to confirm compliance with international standards. To ensure such compliance, a sound quality infrastructure (QI) ecosystem is essential. Jointly developed by the World Bank Group and the National Metrology Institute of Germany, Ensuring Quality to Gain Access to Global Markets: A Reform Toolkit is designed to help development partners and governments analyze a country’s QI ecosystem, provide recommendations to design and implement reforms, and enhance the capacity of QI institutions. The toolkit’s 12 modules provide a systematic, holistic knowledge resource supported by practical case studies and examples for QI diagnostics, reform interventions and approaches, and monitoring and evaluation. Related diagnostic tools are also available online at http://www.worldbank.org/qi and https://www.ptb.de/qitoolkit.