Growing participation

Strengthening Involvement

In 2024, we welcomed Uruguay as an associate member, bringing us to 166 countries, consisting of 89 members and 77 affiliates.

In addition, we continued our work to harmonize our approach to agreements with regional bodies. In 2024, we signed agreements with the Council for Harmonization of Electrotechnical Standards of the Nations in the Americas (CANENA), the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the Gulf Standards Organization (GSO).

The IEC Mentoring Programme is designed to empower affiliate countries and enable them to learn from the experiences of IEC members and apply it to their own specific needs. The mentoring partnership between Saudi Arabia (mentee) and China (mentor) focused on enhancing knowledge of the IECRE Conformity Assessment System, in particular in the wind energy sector.

This partnership enabled Saudi Arabia to gain in-depth insight into China’s participation in the IECRE scheme, including its experience with national institutions, expert engagement and certification activities.

Thanks to the programme, Saudi Arabia significantly enhanced its technical knowledge and understanding, gaining extensive and practical insights into areas such as fee structures of certification and testing, the mutual recognition framework among certification bodies and testing laboratories, documentation and processes. What’s more, the experience laid the foundation for a fruitful collaboration which both countries decided to carry forward outside the programme framework.

IEC Mentoring Programme
Supporting developing countries

The IEC Affiliate Country Programme

enables developing countries to become a part of the IEC community and participate in its activities. Participants can join the programme free of charge upon invitation from the IEC Secretary-General & CEO. As part of the programme, participants benefit from a quota of free IEC International Standards, an online learning platform, webinars, training, capacity building events, mentoring arrangements and personalized support from the IEC Secretariat.
A total of 34 affiliate delegates attended the 2024 IEC General Meeting, participating in dedicated sessions such as the Affiliate forum and the Affiliate roundtable. The sessions gave them the opportunity to learn about and discuss issues such as how international standards and conformity assessment can help to address environmental sustainability challenges, as well as issues related to adopting standards and participating in standardization work.
In addition, 16 countries participated in the IEC Mentoring Programme, involving eight partnerships of IEC members and affiliate countries whereby four were concluded and four were started in 2024. The programme provides a solid foundation for affiliates to strengthen their participation in international standardization and conformity assessment work and focus on areas specific to them. Since its creation in 2013, 30 partnerships have been fostered.
In 2024, 77 countries participated in the IEC Affiliate Country Programme.
Emerging Voices

Empowering the next generation of standardizers

With a view to addressing the needs of future generations, the IEC Young Professionals (YP) Programme has welcomed almost 1 000 participants from 64 IEC National Committees (NCs) since it started in 2010.

Currently, 299 YPs have active roles in the IEC, and many more are active within standardization at national and regional levels in their countries.
At the 2024 IEC General Meeting, 85 YPs from 45 NCs participated in a workshop to deepen their knowledge about the IEC and its work, while at the same time providing valuable ideas and feedback on a number of IEC initiatives. In addition, for the first time, a YP was invited by the IEC to attend COP29, participating in a panel on inclusive innovation and standards for climate action.
IEC YP Programme development
participants overall
~ 0
IEC National Committees represented
0
maintain active roles in the IEC
0 %