Standards, developing countries and donors

European Journal of Development Research on 18 April published online a new paper by the DIIS team that has worked on standards and developing countries over the last few years. The paper entitled 'Challenges of agro-food standards conformity: Lessons from East Africa and policy implications is authored by Simon Bolwig, Line Riisgaard, Peter Gibbon and Stefano Ponte.

The paper points out that standards are used to govern an increasing share of global food trade and have been interpreted both as market access barriers and as opportunities for low-income country producers, exporters and workers. Donors have mostly chosen to treat them in the latter sense and today finance a variety of programmes and projects aimed at standards development and conformity. This article contributes to the critical literature discussing the challenges of conformity and supplies policy recommendations for future interventions. It summarizes the results of a recent DIIS research programme on conformity in East Africa. These show that most interventions underestimate the challenges faced and that significant impacts are achieved only under rather restricted conditions. The solutions lay in more selective support to standards development and in better-informed interventions that focus squarely on supply capacity and on ensuring welfare outcomes in project planning.

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