On May 15, 2020, OECD countries unanimously decided to invite Costa Rica to become a member of the Organisation. Costa Rica’s accession, extending the OECD’s membership to 38 countries, will take effect after the country has taken the appropriate steps at the national level to accede to the OECD Convention, and deposited its instrument of accession with the French government, the depository of the Convention.
As part of its accession process, Costa Rica successfully completed in-depth technical reviews by 22 OECD Committees and has carried out important reforms that have allowed the country to align its legislation, policies and practices to OECD standards in areas such as competition, statistics, anti-bribery, corporate governance of state-owned enterprises, financial markets, tax transparency and industrial chemicals management.
In the latter, Costa Rica has recently approved a decree to speed up the registration of active ingredients of agrochemicals, in line with the OECD Mutual Acceptance of Data (MAD) system.
The MAD multilateral agreement allows the results of a variety of non-clinical safety tests studies done on chemicals and chemical products such as medicines, industrial chemicals and pesticides to be shared across OECD.
The objective of the programme is to help governments co-operate in assessing and reducing the risks of agricultural pesticides and sustainably managing pests, focusing on:
-Harmonizing industry reporting and government review formats.
-Identifying and describing government registration requirements and approaches.
-And facilitating work sharing by providing links to the national review programs.
