The International Accreditation Forum (IAF) Multilateral Recognition Arrangements (MLA) consists of an agreement between accreditation bodies for mutual recognition of accreditations. Among the signatories of this agreement are RABQSA International and the International Register of Certificated Auditors (IRCA), the two main management system personnel certification bodies.
The objective of the IAF MLA is to ensure that the personnel certifications granted by signatories of the IAF MLA can be recognized by other signatories, increasing the worldwide employability of the certified professionals.
Mutual recognition is based on peer evaluations between signatories to ensure each other's personnel certifications are equivalent and that each certified professional can perform the required tasks.
IAF MLA and ISO 17024
There is currently a debate in the personnel certification world regarding the validity of peer evaluation. Some people criticize the concept of peer evaluation because it implies that the larger personnel certification bodies can impose their standards on others. These people would prefer to see the personnel certification bodies be certified to ISO 17024 with the national standard bodies. Thus, certification bodies would have a fixed set of standards (ISO 17024) to comply to and they'd be evaluated by independent bodies (the national standard bodies).
But many people criticize the ISO 17024 approach for two reasons: