The 37th meeting of the IPPC Standards Committee convened virtually

Rome, 16 November 2020. The 37th meeting of the Standards Committee (SC) took place virtually from 16 to 19 November 2020 to advance the work of the IPPC community on the development of International Standards for Phytosanitary Measures (ISPMs). While the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the SC to meet virtually for the third time in its enduring mandate, it has also demonstrated the importance of adopting preventive measures to secure health at all levels. In this scenario, the work of the SC and the setting of standards for plant health becomes more crucial than ever.

The 4-day meeting brought together twenty-one SC members and observers, as well as members of the CPM Bureau and the Implementation and Capacity Development Committee (IC).

The SC reviewed and approved three Specifications on various topics, including system approaches for phytosanitary certification of seeds and criteria for the determination of host status for fruit flies. These two specifications lay the groundwork for the development of new Annexes to the adopted standards on Determination of host status of fruit to fruit fly (ISPM 37) and International movement of seeds (ISPM 38) in 2021. Finally, the third specification defines the scope and tasks of the new Technical Panel on Commodity Standards (TPCS).

Among other important agenda items, the SC had a productive discussion on the path forward for the reorganization of the pest risk analysis (PRA) standards into a suite of standards and decided to finalize the draft specification on Reorganization of pest risk analysis standards (2020-001) after the meeting. The SC also discussed their involvement in relation to activities within the IPPC Strategic Framework 2020-2030 and they noted the Strategic Planning Group (SPG) discussions on the IPPC development agenda items inviting the Secretariat to open an e-forum to continue discussions on how to move forward with these activities. The importance of continued cooperation between the Implementation and Capacity Development Committee (IC) and the respective units was also stressed.

Lastly, before closing the meeting, the SC Chair discussed the possibility of increasing intersessional work with SC e-decisions in the coming year due to travel restrictions and the need to continue to work remotely.

The next SC virtual meetings are tentatively scheduled for May 2021.

The report of the SC November 2020 virtual meeting will be posted on the IPP at:

https://www.ippc.int/en/core-activities/standards-setting/standards-committee/