IPPC Standards Committee Meets to Review three ISPMs

Rome, 10 May 2022. The virtual meeting of the Standards Committee (SC) of the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) started this week (9-11 and 13 May 2022). This meeting is mainly convened to advance three draft International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs). It is envisaged that the SC will send them to the IPPC contracting parties for consultation period.

The IPPC Secretary, Osama El-Lissy, gave the opening remarks, emphasizing the importance of the IPPC standard setting work led by the SC. He observed that the development of ISPMs is one of the core activities of the convention. Referring to the recent heavy SC workload, Osama thanked the SC members for the diligent work that they have been doing over the years. He particularly thanked the SC Chairperson, Ezequiel Ferro (Argentina), who is finalizing his mandate, for his excellent leadership of the SC. The Standard Setting Unit Leader of the IPPC Secretariat, Avetik Nersisyan, invited the SC members to the United Nations General Assembly officially announced the International Day of Plant Health Celebration, that will be held on 12 May 2022.

On 9 May 2022, the SC reviewed and approved for consultation the draft specification “Revision of ISPM 26 (Establishment of pest free areas for fruit flies (Tephritidae)) (2021-010)”. Within its multifaceted work, the SC will review three draft ISPMs for approval for the first round of consultations (draft annexes to ISPM 37 (Determination of host status of fruit to fruit flies (Tephritidae)) and ISPM 38 (International movement of seeds) and draft 2022 Amendments to ISPM 5 (Glossary of phytosanitary terms)). Among the other tasks, the SC plans to review the CPM-16 outcomes of their relevance, hear the updates from the Secretariat’s Units, and discuss the next steps on development agenda items of the IPPC Strategic Framework 2020-2030. Finally, the SC will elect their new Chairperson.

The planned SC activities for its May 2022 virtual meeting are provided in the provisional agenda and available on the IPPC Calendar web page: https://www.ippc.int/ru/events/event/1062/.

The meeting report will be available on the IPPC SC web page: https://www.ippc.int/en/core-activities/standards-setting/standards-committee/.