International Organic Accreditation

In 1992 IFOAM established the IFOAM Accreditation Programme to provide a means of harmonising standards and certification worldwide. The programme offered independent evaluation of inspection bodies against the Basic Standards and the developed IFOAM criteria of organic certification programmes. In 1997 they licensed the International Organic Accreditation Service to perform this function. 

As the harmonisation of standards worldwide progresses, it is hoped that we will see the development of systems that can demonstrate equivalency become more generally accepted. IFOAM s International Organic Accreditation Service could play an increasingly important role in this area (IFOAM 1999). 

Box 2.5 The International Organic Accreditation Service definition and statement of purpose (lOAS 2001 >... 

The main purposes of the System of accreditation is to ensure reproducibility of measurements, harmonisation of rules and procedures of the National system of accreditation with guidelines of international organizations and national systems of different countries, creation of conditions for mutual recognition of the results of testing, calibration, attestation. 

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR STANDARDIZATION, Calibration and Testing Laboratory Accreditation Systems — General Requirements for Operation and Recognition — ISO/IEC Guide 58, Geneva, ISO, 1993. 

ISO/IEG (2004), Gonformity assessment—General requirements for accreditation bodies accrediting conformity assessment bodies, 17011 (Geneva International Organization for Standardization). 

Parallel to the development of ISO 14001 1996 - Environmental Management Systems - several organizations developed guides, draft specifications, and requirements for occupational health and safety management systems (OHSMSs). Most of this development has been done by management system registrars with the expectation that an OHSMS be accepted and issued by a national or internationally accredited standards body, that is, International Organization for Standardization (ISO), British Standards, and so on. 

Method evaluation in the clinical laboratory is influenced strongly by guidehnes. The National Committee for Clinical Laboratory Standards (NCCLS) has published a series of consensus protocols for clinical chemistry laboratories and manufacturers to follow when evaluating methods (see the NCCLS website http //nccls.org). The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has also developed several documents related to method evaluation.In addition, meeting laboratory accreditation requirements has become an important aspect in the method selection and/or evaluation process. In recent years, accrediting agencies have placed increased focus on the importance of total quality... 

As for the external quality systems, we deliberately avoided the description of official quality systems, such as the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (accreditation). International Standariza-tion Organization (certification), and European Federation for Quality Management (self-evaluation), because it would have been impossible to cover them all. Instead, we abstracted the topic of quality, and all these external quality systems will probably assume most of the things discussed in this article. 

American National Standards Institute (ANSI). 1819 L Street, NW, Suite 600, Washington DC 20036, U.S.A. Phone +1 202-293-8020. E-mail info ansi.org, URL http //www.ansi.org. ANSI is a private, non-proht organization which administers and co-ordinates the U.S. voluntary standardization and conformity assessment. It is the official U.S. representative to the International Accreditation Forum (lAF), the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), and the International Electrotechnical Commission (lEC). ANSI itself does not develop the standards, but rather it provides a fonun for over 270 ANSI-accredited standards developers representing approximately 200 distinct organizations in the private and public sectors. These groups work co-operatively to develop voluntary national consensus standards and American National Standards (ANS). eStandards Store provides access to the catalogs of ANSI, ISO, and lEC standards. 

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