The 34th CASCO Plenary was co-hosted by the Kenyan Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and the Kenyan Accreditation Service (KENAS) from 1-2 May 2019 in Nairobi, Kenya.

For the first time, in addition to the official reports and adoption of resolutions, the plenary featured two open sessions addressing strategies to enhance developing countries’ participation in standardization, with a special focus on CASCO. 

The CASCO Plenary closed with a Workshop on market surveillance and trade facilitation. The event featured 2 panels, with international and regional experts, and attracted about 110 experts, with a strong local and regional attendance. The CASCO week in Nairobi was one of the most attended CASCO Plenaries over the last 5 years. 

The 35th CASCO Plenary and Workshop will be hosted by the Deutsches Institut für Normung (DIN) from the 5 - 7 May 2020, in Berlin, Germany.

In the recent years ‘ethical claims’ on all kinds of products and services have grown astronomically all over the world. How do we know which claims are true? Do we always clearly understand what they really mean? 

Aiming to bring some clarity and offer a means for organizations to provide information that is credible, accurate and verifiable, ISO/TS 17033,  Ethical claims and supporting information  ̶  Principles and requirements, sets out internationally agreed principles and requirements to make a credible ethical claim. Developed in CASCO with the support of COPOLCO and inputs from the wider consumers community, this new Technical Specification is now available for purchase from your national ISO member or the ISO Store.

Processes can be specific to products or services or be more complex and take place in many sectors and areas such as in welding, food production, supply chain, construction design or data security. Recently, there has been significant growth in new types of sector specific process certification activities such as in information technology, sustainability, social welfare, blockchain technology, nanotechnology and smart cities. The trend of new processes that are emerging will not stop and they will need to be certified to ensure quality.
CASCO/WG52 completed its work on ISO/IEC TR 17032, Guidelines and examples of a scheme for the certification of processes, that will be published early September. It provides useful information on the application of ISO/IEC 17067 for processes and contains examples of existing schemes. It completes the serie of Technical Reports that were published on certification schemes for products (ISO/IEC TR 17026) and on certification schemes for services (ISO/IEC TR 17028).

WG23 is about to complete the revision of the Common Elements in CASCO Standards, that defines a set of common requirements to all conformity assessment standards. The second Committee Internal Ballot (CIB) has been approved and collected comments will be addressed by the WG at its last meeting in September in Geneva.

JWG36, set up between CASCO and TC34/SC17, started the revision of ISO/TS 22003, a sector application of ISO/IEC 17021-1, specifying additional requirements for bodies carrying out auditing and certification of food safety management systems (FSMS). The document reached the Committee Draft (CD) stage and experts are meeting at the end of September in Ottawa to address the comments and move the draft further. 

During this revision, a NWIP was approved to develop a Part 2 to ISO/TS 22003, to cover the approach in food safety based on product and process certification and using ISO/IEC 17065 as the base standard, but which also includes management system requirements. This new work will be carried out in parallel to the revision of the parent document by the JWG36 and with specific inputs of product certification experts.

WG46 has completed its work on  ISO/IEC 17029, a new standard in the CASCO Toolbox setting up general principles and requirements for validation and verification bodies. The standard reached the Final Draft International Standard (FDIS) stage and the FDIS ballot will close at the beginning of September. 

The Draft International Standard (DIS) ISO/IEC 17000, defining terms and definitions applicable to conformity assessment, has been approved in June. The WG49 is meeting in September in Geneva to review the DIS comments and decide the next steps. 

JWG54 was recently set up between CASCO and TC286 to develop competence requirements for auditing and certification of collaborative business relationship management systems (ISO/IEC 17021-12). Experts are meeting for the first time in August in Geneva to work on the Working Draft (WD) and agree on the next steps.

CASCO and IEC Members unanimously approved the revision of ISO/IEC 17030, specifying the general requirements for third-party marks of conformity. The revision is planned to start in November and will be carried out by the WG55.

This new CASCO Do's and Don'ts type of brochure provides guidance for ISO/TCs and SCs on how to draft scheme documents. Aiming to support a consistent approach to scheme development in ISO and ensure compliance with the ISO/IEC Directives and CASCO policy, it is primarily intended for ISO/TCs and SCs. Where applicable, it can be used by other scheme developers. This publication is now freely available from the CASCO resources page. 

The CASCO Educational Toolbox is a set of slides composed of 9 modules on conformity assessment developed by CASCO experts. It provides a basic understanding of the fundamentals of conformity assessment as well as the different conformity assessment activities and their appropriate use. These modules will be made available from the CASCO resource page at the beginning of September and could be used by anyone with a basic knowledge of conformity assessment. They can be used as a whole or in part, as inputs to presentations.

Within the framework of the ISO Action Plan for Developing Countries 2016-2020, the ISO Capacity Building unit, in collaboration with the CASCO Secretariat, organized two regional workshops on the CASCO Educational Toolbox. One workshop was held in Tunis, in July, and another one in Bangkok, in August 2019.

The ISO Survey of Management System Standard Certifications 2018 is about to be finalized and will cover two new standards, ISO 45001 (OH&S management system) and ISO 37001 (anti-bribery management systems). This new edition will be published at the beginning of September on The ISO Survey webpage.

JWG 54 1st meeting: 28 - 30 August 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

ISO General Assembly: 18 - 20 September 2019, Cape Town, South Africa

JWG 36 5th meeting: 19 - 20 September 2019, Ottawa, Canada

WG 49 5th meeting: 23 - 25 September 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

WG 23 4th meeting: 26 - 27 September 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

TIG 24th meeting: 3rd December 2019 (half day), Geneva, Switzerland

JSG IAF-ILAC-ISO 23rd meeting: 3rd December (half day), Geneva, Switzerland

STAR 24th meeting: 4th December 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

CPC 32nd meeting: 5th December 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

INetQI 3rd meeting (hosted by CASCO): 6th December 2019, Geneva, Switzerland

ISO Year-end close: 24 December 2019 - 2 January 2020(inclusive)

TIG 25th meeting: 3rd May 2020 (half day), Berlin, Germany

STAR 25th meeting: 3rd May 2020 (half day), Berlin, Germany

CPC 33rd meeting: 4th May 2020, Berlin, Germany

CASCO 35th Plenary meetings (including workshop):  5 - 7 May 2020, Berlin, Germany