Important Start for Development of IPPC ePhyto Hub

On March 30th 2017, Mr. Shane Sela, the ePhyto Project Manager of the IPPC Secretariat had a meeting with Mr. Simon Jones, Director of UNICC , Mr. Venkat Vekateswaran, Mr. Shashank Rai and Mr. Oliver Neff of the United Nations International Computing Centre (UNICC). The purpose of the meeting was to finalize plans for commencing development of the hub including the structure of service help-desk facilities, the strategy for initial outreach to pilot countries and the timeline for delivery. The IPPC Secretariat working through the FAO Chief Information Office has established an agreement with UNICC to begin construction of the hub which will facilitate the exchange of electronic phytosanitary certificates. It is expected that the hub should be ready for initial tests in early August with the pilot of exchanges beginning in September or October 2017.