3 December 2012, Rome - The International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) will hold the initial meeting of the IPPC Capacity Development Committee (CDC). The meeting will take place 3-7 December, hosted by the Italian Rural Development Directorate at the Ministry of Agriculture in Rome.

The IPPC is an international treaty with 177 members, cooperating to protect global plant resources from pests.  The IPPC is the world’s primary framework for plant health, recognized by the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (the SPS Agreement) as the standard setting body for plant health.  

Pests such as insects, diseases and invasive plants can damage food security, natural habitats and disrupt the market access needed for global trade. Cooperation to prevent the impact of these pests will become increasingly important in the years ahead as trade networks and climate change create new opportunities for pests to move across national boundaries.   This year marks the IPPC’s 60th year of global cooperation in plant health.

The CDC represents a major step forward on national, regional and global cooperation to prevent the spread of pests. This work on capacity development provides a bridge towards implementation of the science-based guidelines that every country in the world can use as a basis to trade efficiently while safeguarding plant resources from the threat of pests.

Increasing the global capacity to protect plant resources is essential to accomplish the IPPC’s strategic goals of:

• Enhancing global food security;
• Protecting the environment, forest  and biodiversity from plant pests; and
• Facilitating economic and trade development through the promotion of science-based, harmonized standards.

The CDC is comprised of technical representatives from all regions, and they will oversee the development of tools to strengthen global capacity for implementation of the IPPC.  For five days the members of the Committee will prepare a long-term work plan with innovative ideas for implementing a globally agreed strategy on capacity development, and serve as a steering committee to guide specific projects.