Implementation and Capacity Development Committee plans bigger and better to advance plant health

Rome, 15 November 2024. Promoting the wider adoption of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) electronic phytosanitary certification (ePhyto) Solution, increasing knowledge of how national plant protection organizations (NPPOs) are managing the phytosanitary risks associated with the rapid growth of e-commerce, improving development and access to implementation and capacity development resources and calling for increased funding for implementation activities and human resources, were among key discussion points at the Implementation and Capacity Development Committee (IC) meeting from 11-15 November 2024. The IC reviewed the 2024 activities of the secretariat's Implementation and Facilitation Unit (IFU), IC Subgroup and Teams and approved their work plans for 2025.

Next year, the IPPC Secretariat, in collaboration with the eLearning Academy of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), will launch the IPPC Plant Health Campus. The digital platform will feature over six new e-learning courses- NPPO onboarding course, NPPO learning paths, operating an NPPO, Preparing a national phytosanitary capacity development strategy, Managing relationships with stakeholders, Emergency preparedness, Resource mobilization, etc. It will also include all existing IPPC e-learning courses and guides. IPPC contracting parties will be encouraged to integrate the training material from the IPPC Plant Health Campus in their national training programmes for NPPO staff.  The IPPC Plant Health Campus will initially be in English, French and Spanish, with plans to add other FAO languages (Arabic, Chinese and Russian).

Arop Deng, Officer-in-charge for daily matters at the IPPC Secretariat thanked the IC for steering implementation and capacity development interventions. “I warmly encourage the IC to identify sustainable funding solutions for implementing priority IPPC activities and topics”, Deng said.  

Other planned activities include enhancing NPPOs’ awareness and access to online capacity development resources developed by the IPPC, supporting more countries to adopt the IPPC ePhyto Solution, supporting more NPPOs to conduct Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluations (PCEs) to assess the effectiveness of their plant health systems, continuing the IPPC Observatory study on e-commerce. The e-commerce survey’s results will guide actions to implement the IPPC’s Development Agenda Item (DAI) on the “Management of e-commerce and postal and courier pathways” and help identify measures to reduce the risks of pest spread.

Progress updates

The IC received updates on developing and adopting the IPPC ePhyto Solution. The secretariat is in the final stage of setting up a Multidonor Trust Fund for the IPPC ePhyto Solution to which contracting parties can make financial contributions. Also underway is the IPPC ePhyto initiative for Africa, whose objective is to seamlessly connect at least 70 per cent of all African countries to the ePhyto Hub within three years. Currently, only 13 out of the 54 African countries have fully integrated ePhyto into their sanitary and phytosanitary trade-related processes. The initiative is being developed in collaboration with the Standards and Trade Development Facility, Global Alliance for Trade Facilitation, Trademark Africa, the African Union and the African Continental Free Trade Area Secretariat.

The meeting received updates on the outcomes of the CPM Bureau and Strategic Planning Group meetings held in October 2024, the Africa Phytosanitary Programme (APP), 2024 IPPC regional workshops, the meeting of the Technical cooperation of regional plant protection organizations (TC-RPPO), developing pest selection criteria for the Pest Outbreak Alert and Response System (POARS), developing implementation guides and the third phase of the IPPC’s survey on Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) in plant health. The survey aims to explore the scope and nature of fungicides and antibiotics used in the phytosanitary context, with results potentially helping to contribute to explaining the role of plant health in the One Health framework.

Dominique Pelletier, the IC Chairperson, commended the IPPC Secretariat and IC subgroups for making significant strides in delivering implementation and capacity development work, particularly in 2024, despite limited financial resources and staffing gaps. He underscored the importance of ensuring sustainable funding for the effective implementation of these activities, such as the IPPC Observatory, POARS, Fusarium TR4 global coordination, PCE, development of guides, and sustainable funding for the human resources required to support IPPC implementation activities.

The IC unanimously adopted the meeting report, publicly available soon.