Accreditation has become a growing part of many countries' overall standards and conformance infrastructure. Such infrastructures have traditionally included:

1. a national standards-writing body;

2. a national measurement institute;

3. a legal metrology body;

4. various conformity assessment bodies such as laboratories, inspection bodies and certification bodies.

Over the past 30-40 years there has been a growing demand for a process to independently evaluate the competence of an economy's conformity assessment bodies. This has led to the establishment of accreditation bodies to fulfill this need in both developed and developing countries.

Lack of acceptance of test data and certification results across national borders has been identified by the World Trade Organization (WTO) as a significant technical barrier to trade. Accreditation is viewed as one mechanism which may add confidence to end-recipients of test and certification results, if they are produced by conformity assessment bodies which have been independently evaluated for their competence through an accreditation process. (The potential to use accreditation as a facilitator in acceptance of foreign data has been acknowledged in the WTO's Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) in Article 6.1.1 which states "…verified compliance, for instance through accreditation, with relevant guides or recommendations issued by international standardizing bodies shall be taken into account as an indication of adequate technical competence").

The credibility of individual accreditation bodies themselves is a critical factor in the process of acceptance of foreign conformity assessment data.

To address this issue internationally, two bodies have developed mutual recognition arrangements (MRAs) between accreditation bodies that have demonstrated to their international counterparts that they are competently operating their accreditation activities in accordance with international best practice (mainly as covered in ISO/IEC 17011). The bodies concerned (ILAC and IAF) are discussed elsewhere.

Developing countries often face difficulties in having their test, inspection and certification data accepted in foreign markets, which may lead to costly delays and duplication of testing for multiple markets.

Accreditation of the laboratories or other bodies used to demonstrate compliance of traded goods may facilitate acceptance in overseas markets and reduce the risks to suppliers that they may be producing non-compliant products. However, the availability of local laboratories which are competent to perform the necessary tests, and the ability of those laboratories to achieve accreditation, become key success factors in this process. The availability of a competent accreditation body locally, or access to a credible foreign accreditation body, to undertake any required accreditations, is also a major consideration for exporting countries.