The global economy runs on standards – but who gets to shape them?

Human progress is built on standards, so it makes sense that they are integral to economic development. International standards should be considered core development infrastructure – a “quiet catalyst” often unnoticed when functioning well but highly visible when absent or misused.

These international standards are increasingly central to trade competitiveness, policy delivery, climate and environmental action, health and safety, and digital transformation.

However, as highlighted in the World Development Report 2025 – the latest in the World Bank's annual deep dive into an issue critical to development economics – their role in driving economic growth needs to be better understood to harness their full potential.

Despite the immense opportunity to strengthen global participation and cooperation in developing international standards, one of the report's main findings is that many developing countries face economic and institutional constraints that limit their ability to participate in the process.

So, in an era of growing geo-economic, political, trading and environmental challenges, how do we ensure that standards continue to support development in all countries?

First, it's worth considering how standards support development. Perhaps one of the strongest associations people have with standards is their role in ensuring the quality and safety of products and processes, thereby enhancing consumer protection and trust.

The standardization of shipping container measurements, for example, ushered in untold efficiencies, enabled the seamless transfer of goods, eliminated repackaging and radically improved security.

By improving products and processes, reducing waste and cutting costs, standards contribute to economic growth. In creating a common, universal language, as well as benchmarks and measurements, they help businesses of all sizes compete more effectively and on a level playing field.

According to the report, this impact extends well beyond manufacturing. Standards support market integration for small- and medium-sized enterprises, enable emerging sectors such as services and digital and help diffuse innovation across borders and value chains.

Equally importantly, they support policy and regulation, which in turn underpins operations, including facilitating market access and enabling trade, simplifying compliance and enhancing coordination. In short, they make markets work better.

Notably, the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has produced more than 20,000 standards, which feed into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, highlighting how today’s standards underpin sustainability and the shift towards greener economies.

The World Development Report 2025 is the first interrogation of the role of standards in development. It identifies three critical functions of standards: measurement, compatibility, and quality, which, it argues, together “make standards a building block – sometimes even the foundation – of economic development.”

But what does this look like in practice? Shortly after its independence in 1947, India carried out its first National Sample Survey of living standards, which revealed a lack of standardization in weights and measurements.

With more than 180 different systems for measuring land area, creating a modern, functioning state was almost impossible.

By adopting the international metric system, India not only symbolically rejected its colonial past but also aligned itself with global systems for trade and science.

It was a complex, multi-year undertaking but one that supported national integration and helped set the country on the path to becoming the world’s fourth-largest economy.

Standards have arguably boosted economic development the world over but the report reveals several challenges that developing countries – arguably those that could do with the benefits standards offer more than any other – face in adopting and using them.

Research shows that this is the result of two key issues: typically, developing nations find themselves in the position of having to accept a standard as it is, rather than having the economic and institutional ability to be part of its development.

The second challenge is that, to establish an effective standard, market participation and forces (which, in a vibrant sphere, typically create voluntary measures) and government participation and forces are required.

In developing nations, the government almost exclusively takes the primary standard-setting role.

These challenges generally result from a lack of capacity, with the country in question lacking a workforce with the requisite skills or knowledge to participate in standard-setting.

The 2025 World Development Report recognizes the value of the ISO Action Plan for developing countries (APDC), the overall framework of technical assistance and training support.

The ISO Committee on Developing Country matters (DEVCO) develops and oversees the APDC and it aims to support developing countries to participate in the development, the adoption and the use of international standards.

The report suggests that developing nations take several steps. The first is adopting a progressive framework towards standards – a stepwise “adapt–align–author” pathway.

Countries can begin by adapting existing standards to local realities, then align domestic conditions with international norms and ultimately participate in the development of standards that reflect their priorities and constraints.

Once they have the requisite expertise, countries should help author standards so that their experiences, priorities, and the challenges they face can inform them, making the final product more robust and inclusive.

It’s also critical to mainstream standards into national development strategies earlier, ensuring strong alignment between international standards, policy and regulatory frameworks.

When standards and regulations work together, they can reinforce public policy goals without creating counterproductive compliance burdens.

Alongside this, ISO can serve as a learning environment, helping countries gain a deeper understanding of standards development through interactions with peers and experts in the field.

On an international level, there needs to be a push towards creating quality infrastructure. By this, we don’t mean bridges and highways but the factors that underpin a quality standard and importantly, taking action to ensure correct and consistent implementation.

There are a lot of moving parts, requiring action and engagement from the country in question, standards setters and the international community. As history shows, when standards work, they have a profound and lasting impact on growth and development.

As standards increasingly intersect with trade policy, climate action and digital transformation – and as geopolitical and economic pressures grow – they are becoming more visible and at times, more contested.

The World Development Report 2025 demonstrates how standards can be tools for competitiveness, resilience and inclusive growth. The task now is to ensure they are designed, governed and implemented in ways that truly serve development.