International recognitions are agreements signed between member countries of regional and global accreditation cooperation’s and forums, whose purpose is to facilitate commercial transactions between the different economies that subscribe to such agreements, avoiding the duplication of certificates, regardless of the country in which the conformity of the goods and services was evaluated. This is why international recognition supports not only the reliability of accreditation but also, and mainly, of conformity assessment services (laboratory services, certifiers and inspectors).

In 2010 ONAC was admitted as a member of the International Accreditation Forum – IAF and in 2013 went from being an associate member to a full member of the InterAmerican Accreditation Cooperation – IAAC, being elected, in addition, as one of the members of its Executive Committee. Likewise, in that year, ONAC became an associate member of the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation – ILAC.

In August 2011, ONAC embarked on its path to obtain international recognition in the hope of making Colombia’s accreditation activity more relevant and positioning the National Quality Subsystem – SICAL, allowing it to be comparable to any other quality infrastructure in the world through the confidence granted by this type of agreement for the acceptance of accredited conformity assessment results.

From that moment on, ONAC also began its history in the Multilateral Agreement Committee -MLA- of the Inter-American Accreditation Cooperation – IAAC- (InterAmerican Accreditation Cooperation), when its first application for international recognition was accepted.

Currently, ONAC has been granted international recognition by:

• IAAC, as regional cooperation, for the schemes of testing and calibration laboratories, proficiency testing providers and clinical laboratories; product certifying bodies; management systems certifiers; and certifiers of persons.
• ILAC, as a global cooperation, for testing and calibration laboratory schemes, clinical laboratories and proficiency testing providers.
• IAF, as a global accreditation forum, for accreditation schemes for product certification bodies and management system certification bodies.