What the World Bank Says About Standards, and Why Inclusive Participation Matters
In December 2025, the World Bank released its World Development Report 2025, focused on Standards for Development. The report aimed to frame the critical role of standards in successful economies: not just as technical rules, but the foundation for innovation and global competitiveness.
23 January 2026
“Standards are both central and unsung today,” says Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics. “When they’re set right, they go unnoticed: the ship sails through the canal, the building withstands an earthquake, a kilogram weighs the same in Kenya as in Canada, and no one gives the gains that come a second thought. The standardized shipping container might well have catalyzed more trade in manufactured goods than all the trade deals put together. Digital standards could do the same for the services trade. When countries are active in adapting, aligning, and authoring standards, they are a powerful tool for growth and poverty reduction. This report is the first assessment of the role of standards in economic development–and a call to developing nations to make them a core component of their development strategies.”
A key theme of the Report was enhancing the participation and voices from developing countries in standards development. For example, the report found that:
- Low-income countries participate in 7% of all active ISO technical committees vs high-income countries who participate in 84% of them
- On average, advanced economies send 525 delegates to ISO meetings per year, vs low-income countries who send only 9, lower-middle-income countries only 15 and upper-middle-income countries only 65.
This, the report concludes, means that standards are usually developed with scarcely any representatives from developing countries at the table: which inhibits the ability of those standards frameworks to effectively address development challenges.
In ASI’s Standards Committee, out of 24 multi-stakeholder members, 15 are collectively from Germany, USA, Netherlands, UK, Australia, Norway and Sweden; and 9 are collectively from India, China, Guinea, Ghana, and Suriname. Half are from industry and half are from civil society and Indigenous / local communities. ASI has worked hard to build this level of diverse regional and stakeholder representation in the Standards Committee, along with a culture of respect for the range of perspectives and lived experience that each member brings.
As the Foreword to the World Development 2025 reminds us:
Standards—the shared rules that underpin consistency, compatibility, and quality—are not mere technicalities. They are part of the invisible infrastructure of modern economies, as vital to prosperity as roads, ports, or power grids. Treat them as a springboard, and they propel development. Make them a straitjacket, and they will stifle it.
Next month, we’ll be opening up the first consultation stage for our current major Standards Revision process. We’re grateful for the work of the ASI Standards Committee, and recognise its importance as a forum for collaboration on critical issues for the global aluminium value chain.
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