The World Bank has called on developing countries to take a more active and strategic role in shaping global trade standards, warning that the rapid expansion of international rules is increasingly favoring advanced economies and large multinational corporations.
In its World Development Report 2025, the World Bank argues that standards governing areas such as food safety, labelling, digital technologies, environmental compliance, and telecommunications have evolved into a form of economic infrastructure that is as critical to development as transport networks, ports, and power systems.
While these standards have helped reduce transaction costs, harmonize markets, and expand global trade, the report cautions that they are also being used more frequently as non-tariff barriers.
According to the report, standards now influence about 90% of global trade, a sharp increase from just 15% in the late 1990s. This shift highlights their growing power in determining which countries benefit from globalization and which face higher costs and limited market access.
The World Bank noted that compliance with complex and overlapping standards often places a disproportionate burden on developing economies.
The report traced the historical role of standardization by pointing to the shipping container as a landmark example. Containerization, enabled by common standards, dramatically reduced costs and complexity in global logistics and did more to boost international trade than decades of tariff reductions.
Since the early 2000s, however, standards have increasingly been shaped by strategic, economic, and geopolitical considerations.
Indermit Gill, Chief Economist of the World Bank Group and Senior Vice President for Development Economics, said standards are central to modern economies yet often overlooked in development discussions.
He noted that countries that actively adapt, align with, and help author standards can transform them into tools for productivity gains, economic growth, and poverty reduction.
The report highlighted a surge in standard-setting activity worldwide. More than half of the over 20,000 standards issued by the International Organization for Standardization since its founding have been developed after 2000. In 2024 alone, more than 7,000 new standards were issued globally, reflecting rapid technological change.
Despite this growth, developing countries remain under-represented in standard-setting institutions. On average, they participate in fewer than one-third of ISO technical committees, constrained by limited financial resources, technical capacity, and institutional strength.
ISO Secretary-General Sergio Mujica said the focus on standards in the World Development Report sends a strong signal that they are no longer merely technical tools but key drivers of inclusive and sustainable development.
To address the imbalance, the World Bank proposed an ‘adapt-align-author’ approach. It recommends that lower-income countries adapt international standards to local realities, gradually align with global norms as capacity improves, and ultimately move toward authoring or updating standards as they gain technical and economic strength.
This progression, the report said, would allow developing economies to expand trade while gaining a stronger voice in shaping the rules that govern it.
POLICY & LAW | India Slaps Anti-Dumping Duty on Low-Ash Metallurgical Coke Imports
