IPPC boosts Central and Eastern European and Central Asian countries*** capacities in National Reporting Obligations

Participants at the National Reporting Obligations (NRO) workshop improved their skills in updating phytosanitary reports related to the IPPC, and shared practical solutions to challenges they faced. Photo credit: © All-Russian Plant Quarantine Center (VNIIKR)

8 September 2018, Moscow - The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) fosters international cooperation in preventing plant pests and diseases from spreading. The Convention s Contracting Parties have to share official phytosanitary information and have National Reporting Obligations (NROs). In order to share best practices, and raise awareness about NROs, a regional workshop for Central and Eastern Europe and Central Asia (CEECA) was thus organized in Moscow, Russian Federation from 7 to 8 September 2018.

Twenty participants from 13 IPPC contracting parties in the region attended the workshop. They learned about the latest developments and received practical advice about NROs; practiced uploading national reports; shared experiences about the obstacles they faced when reporting and established good practices at the national level. Their valuable feedback was collected to improve the NRO area in the future.

The Workshop was jointly organized by the IPPC Secretariat, the FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia, the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (NPPO), the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation and the All-Russian Plant Quarantine Center (VNIIKR). It was financially supported by the FAO-China South-South Cooperation (SSC) Programme.

It is the third NRO Workshop held with support from the FAO-China South-South Cooperation (SSC) Programme. The workshops have contributed to raising awareness of NROs while improving the number of national reports available on the IPP website.

The Commission on Phytosanitary Measures (CPM-13) announced that the period starting in April 2018 and ending with CPM-14 would be the NRO Year of Regulated pest list. The IPPC Secretariat thus encourages Contracting Parties to upload relevant reports or update reports already present on the IPP website.