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ISO

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Adopted by all countries, ISO is the abbreviation for International Organization for Standardization. ISO is derived from the Greek term « isos » which means « equal ».


Founded in 1947, this association gathers together and coordinates the network of the national standards institutes of 157 countries, according to the principle of one member per country. The Central Secretariat is located in Geneva.


The role of ISO and of the national standards bodies is a double one: guarantee an official status to the standards within the framework of a validation process and produce new ones, if necessary. AFNOR is the French member of ISO.

 

AFNOR’s rank in the governance of ISO

AFNOR is the 5th contributor of ISO, according to the ranking established by the association itself. This position entitles it to permanently participate in the governance bodies of the international organisation. AFNOR’s Director General is a member of the ISO Council and its Standardisation Director is a member of the Technical Management Board (TMB).


Furthermore, up until 2010, AFNOR’s current Director General, Olivier Peyrat, is the President of the CASCO Committee, the ISO committee responsible for drawing up political orientations for conformity assessment. Thus, the important position which AFNOR occupies, its financial involvement, enable it to influence the political and strategic orientations of ISO and to defend the French socioeconomic interests at international level.

 

AFNOR’s role in the drawing up of the ISO standards

AFNOR provides its full support to the international organisation and its involvement goes as far as taking on a large number of responsibilities in the technical work. Whether it be a question of standardization programmes or of the drawing up of the standards.


As member of ISO, AFNOR is able, in France, to grant to the standards of the organisation (which by nature are international), the status of national standard, either by publication of an identical text, or by endorsement.

 

AFNOR and the dissemination of standards in French

Via its subsidiary AFNOR Publishing, AFNOR distributes the entire collection of ISO standards to its partners and customers. This distribution is conducted both in electronic or in hardcopy form.


French, English and Russian are the three official languages of ISO. As the principal French-speaking member of ISO, AFNOR has been entrusted with the responsibility of drawing up the French version of the ISO standards.


AFNOR is also a founding member of the Standardization and Francophone Network (Réseau Normalisation et Francophonie), which federates over twenty standards institutes of French-speaking countries. Its privileged position within ISO allows it to organize workshops and seminars in French.

 
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