Key plant health issues discussed at today’s Strategic Planning Group meeting

Rome, 19 October 2021. Under the chairmanship of John Greifer, Vice Chairperson of the Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM), the IPPC Strategic Planning Group (SPG) convened the first meeting of its tenth session, discussing several strategic issues related to the IPPC community’s key activities.

“The Strategic Planning Group is the IPPC forge for durable ideas and its contribution is invaluable to the plant health community”, said Avetik Nersisyan, IPPC Secretary Officer-in-Charge, during his opening remarks. “This is the space and time for IPPC contracting parties to brainstorm strategically on key features of the convention itself, and propose innovative solutions for improvement”, he added.

Today’s discussion started with updates and recommendations from different CPM Focus Groups to monitor their progress on their specific topics: the implementation of the IPPC Strategic Framework 2020-2030 Development Agenda, Climate Change and Communications. The IPPC Secretariat also shared the preliminary outcomes on the Pest Outbreak Alert and Response System (POARS), on Sea Containers and the IPPC ePhyto Solution

The importance of the One Health approach and the role of plant health in biosecurity, biosafety and environmental protection was widely highlighted by SPG members, while the IPPC Secretariat stressed the need for the global phytosanitary community to align actions to the new FAO Strategic Framework’s vision and sustainable transformation to agri-food systems “for Better Production, Better Nutrition, Better Environment and Better Life”.

Industry engagement was also high on today’s SPG agenda. The need of developing a global partnership strategy to support the IPPC work plan and the implementation 7of its strategic framework was discussed in the SPG meeting and endorsed for CPM discussion next year. Other strategic topics on the SPG table for next session include the legacies of the International Year of Plant Health, the IPPC dispute settlement procedure and countries’ priorities and recommendations. The Strategic Planning Group will continue discussing around key emerging topics of strategic importance for the Convention, which will be further explored in the upcoming session on Thursday. The report of this meeting will be available at the SPG page soon.