Report: Strategic Planning and Technical Assistance (SPTA)

Report of the 12thmeeting of the CPM informal working group on strategic planning and technical assistance

4-6 October 2010

Rome, Italy

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Report: Strategic Planning and Technical Assistance (SPTA)

Report of the 11thmeeting of the SPTA

1.Opening of the meeting

  1. The Chairperson, Mr. Steve Ashby (Vice-chairperson and CPM Bureau member for Europe),designated by the Bureau to chair the Informal Working Group on Strategic Planning and Technical Assistance (SPTA), opened the meeting. He noted that Mr.John Griefer (CPM Bureau member forNorth America), was unable to attend.Each participant then introduced themselves.
  2. The Secretary to the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) welcomed participants to the meeting. He noted the full work programme of the SPTA, Bureau and IPPC Secretariat and looked forward to open and creative discussions. Henoted that there had been a shortage of nominations for experts to take part in the proposed expert working group (EWG) meeting on resource mobilization; therefore, the EWG had been postponed and may need to be cancelled.He further noted that there had been discussions on resource mobilization within the Secretariat to take this forward in the absence of an EWG. He called on SPTA participants to encourage support for IPPC resource mobilisation activities.

2.Adoption of the agenda

  1. The SPTA reviewed the agenda[1] and list of documents and adopted the agenda as presented in Appendix 1.
  2. A complete list of participants and their contact details is presented in Appendix 2.

3.Housekeeping

  1. The Chairperson expressed concern that some of the working papers for the SPTA meeting had been released very late. The Secretariat noted that new papers posted over the weekend were available in hard copy for participants. The Secretary apologized on behalf of the Secretariat for the late release of these papers.
  2. Mr. John Hedley (CPM Bureau member for South West Pacific) was elected as rapporteur.

4.Report of the last Bureau meeting

  1. The Secretariat provided the SPTA with an overview of some key points in the report of the last Bureau meeting[2]in June 2010. These included:
  • The Bureau had discussed proposals for speeding up the development of diagnostic protocols (DPs) and phytosanitary treatments (PTs). Since then, the Secretariat had developed a paper[3]for Bureau consideration in October 2010, which detailed a new process for TPs and DPs.
  • The Bureau had discussed the various changes to FAO reporting arrangements and agreed on the need to align IPPC strategic plans and reporting arrangements as closely as possible to those of FAO so that effort would not need to be duplicated by servicing two different reporting arrangements
  • The Bureau discussed and agreed in principle to severe cuts in some IPPC activities during 2011 to reduce the budget deficit for the Secretariat. The Secretariat had reported that staffing costs had increased and that there were very little funds available for operational work. The Secretariat had now produced a working paper on this for consideration by the SPTA at this meeting.
  1. In response to a query from an SPTA participant, the Secretariat confirmed that the FAO legal services did not intend to produce a report on the registration of ISPM 15 in addition to the consultant contracted by the Secretariat.

4.1The role and scope of the SPTA

  1. The Secretary informed the SPTA that the Bureau had decided to focus the SPTA on more strategic issues. As a result, this meeting would focus less on day-to-day issues and more on looking towards the future and dealing with long term strategic issues. He asked participants to advise him if they felt any issues on the SPTA agenda did not fit with this new scope.
  2. The SPTA discussed if any of the existing rules of procedure for the SPTA needed to be adjusted but no adjustments were made.

5. Secretariat’s Report

  1. The Secretary introduced the Secretariat report[4]which reported on progress on items on the IPPC work programme. The Secretariat reported that all but a few activities planned for 2010 had been completed.
  2. One SPTA participant queried what content was planned for inclusion in the ‘resource database’.The Secretariat responded that this would be used for storing technical information that supported the implementation of the IPPC, such as training material and other presentations submitted by countries. This would not include official IPPC information. SomeSPTA participants were concerned that this database might become very large and unmanageable and noted it would be important to structure it well,and have a good search engine to facilitate information retrieval.
  3. AnotherSPTA participant queried what relationship the capacity development activities that the Secretariat had undertaken (or planned to undertake in 2010),had to the IPPC’s capacity development plan.The Secretary responded that all activities are foreseen in the IPPC capacity developmentplan; although Secretariat resources were being stretched, the plan was not simply to increase Secretariat staff but also to coordinate delivery by others.
  4. The Secretariat mentioned that it was working with the Standard Trade and Development Facility (STDF) to develop a set of indicators for the Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluation (PCE) tool. One SPTA participant asked whether these indicators would be related to the Implementation Review and Support System (IRSS). The Secretariat replied that it planned for the PCE tool to feed directly into the IRSS, so those indicators would be used for IRSS.
  5. Members felt it would be useful to have an update on staff working in the Secretariat and what each staff member was working on.The Secretariat agreed to provide the SPTA with an organization chart reflecting the current composition of the Secretariat; this is included in Appendix 3 to this report.
  6. One participant asked whether there were plans to develop other Centresof Phytosanitary Excellence (COPEs) similar tothe one in Africa (based in Kenya).The Secretariat reported that there were some plans in this regard and that the pacific region was the next likely candidate.
  7. Funding for the IRSS will be available in 2011 from the EU. The questionnaire will be completed this year and utilized next year. The help desk will start next year.
  8. Other items of interest were noted by the SPTA. The fund for assisting with the translation of material into Russian was smaller than initially thought and all CPM documents would not be translated into Russian. In the future, the Secretariat will need to budget for Russian translations.The Near East Plant Protection Organization (NEPPO) was planning to hold their first council meetingin Morocco the last week of October 2010.Aninter-agency liaison group on invasive species met in June 2010 and the Secretariat felt it would be useful to expand its involvement in this group.
  9. The Secretary provided an informal paper on contributions, offers and efforts by the Secretariat to increase human and financial resources for the Secretariat. He had categorized resources into six categories. Within each category, resources weredivided into human and financial resources and also into “committed” but “yet to take place”, “in contact” and “given up after efforts”. The Secretary’s aim was to provide an overall picture of the Secretariat’s resource raising efforts.He explained that there werelimited financial resources to hire staff and that was why standards setting had a lot of in-kind contributions. However, it was very important to secure long term funding commitment to support the standing setting process (such as the funding recently pledged by the European Union (EU) for the IRSS and supporting developing country participation). Long term funding was important for the sustainability of the IPPC Secretariat.The Secretary also mentioned that a public relations consultant had been funded by Australia and that EU was continuing to offer funds for travel assistance for developing country participants in CPM and other meetings.The delegate of the Republic of Korea indicated that Korea was considering providing $50,000 USD to the IPPC.
  10. One participant queried the status of staff who were“in-kind” contributions and asked the Secretariat to explain which costs werecovered by the Secretariat and also whether these staff members were representing FAO or their national interests.The Secretariat responded that all staffing costs were paid by national governments providing the staff, except for some travel costs to attend meetings.In each case, working arrangements were agreed to between the Secretariat and the respective organization providing the staff member and this agreement contained a disclosure clause and a process for resolving conflicts of interest.
  11. One SPTA participant asked about the nature of IPPC Secretariat support for STDF projects. The Secretariat said it depended on what the project was and whether the IPPC was the implementing agency. Bythe end of December 2010, the Secretariat planned to make a further three proposals to work with the STDF.

5.1Standard setting work programme

  1. The Secretariat provided the SPTA with an overview of the key points outlined in the working paper on the IPPC standard setting topics and priorities[5].It was likely that the SC in November 2011 would add an additional 30 treatments to the list of topics and priorities. The Secretariat noted that the IPPC standard setting work programme was complex and thatpointed out that parallel processes on different sets of standards were being worked on simultaneously.The Secretariat reported that it would again limit the member consultation process to the equivalent of five standards due to resource limitations of both the Secretariat and members. Volunteersfrom national plant protection organizations (NPPOs) and regional plant protection organizations (RPPOs) were again assisting with the compilation of member comments on draft standards.
  2. It was felt that the topics for standards on sea containers, air containers and garbage should be high profile; these topics should be used as a means of publicity and profile-building.The Secretariat confirmed that this was the plan, but noted that only one specification (sea containers) had been approved. It was also felt that other topics were equally important including:plants for planting, new ISPM 15 treatments that are alternatives to methyl bromide, fruit fly standards, international movement of wood, soil and growing media, the seeds standards (international movement of seed and forest seed) and the revision of ISPM 12.
  3. The Secretariat noted that the IPPC had gone through a prioritization process several times in the last few years, but only two items had been adjusted on the work programme. There werenow more phytosanitary treatments (PTs), standards and diagnostic protocols (DPs) coming through the system and the Secretariat’s capacity to deal with the output of the related technical panelshadexceeded the capacity of the Secretariat. A long term strategy is now needed on how to deal with the high volume of standards coming through the system.
  4. Some SPTA participants supported reducing the number of standards being developed by the IPPC as it was not possible to continue on the current path.
  5. The Chairperson asked if the Secretariat could prioritize the standards and suggest topics to remove from the work programme.The Secretariat said that it would not be appropriate for the Secretariat to do this as there were too many different views among contracting parties. One participant commented that prioritization was linked to political considerations. The issue was not simply the lack of an effective prioritization process and therefore might be difficult to resolve.

5.2 Update on the regional draft ISPM workshops

  1. The Secretariat introduced the working paper on regional workshops on the draft ISPMs held in 2010[6] and provided an overview of the funding sources for these workshops. While funding had been pledged in some regions for workshops on draft ISPMs in 2011, most did not yet have a clear funding source for 2011. The Republic of Korea had provided funding for the Asia-Pacific workshop for the past five years and would again provide funding in 2011.
  2. The Secretariat also provided an update on the responses to the surveys of completed by participants at the regional workshops.SomeSPTA participantshighlighted the usefulness of the practice in some regions (e.g. Asia-Pacific and Latin America) of having countries prepare national comments and exchange positions prior to the meetings.

6.IPPC strategic framework, short term plan and strategic plans

6.1New meeting timetable

  1. At its June 2010 meeting, the Bureau discussed the possibility of rescheduling CPM and agreed in principle to investigatea new schedule[7]. The Secretariat said that the proposed new schedule had been designed to fit into the FAO meeting schedule and new financial reporting arrangements.The timing for 2011 would remain unchanged and the proposed changes would becomeeffective in 2012. The working paper for SPTA also considered how proposed changes to the timing of CPM meetings would affect other IPPC meetings and activities such as the SC, comment periods, technical panels, etc.
  2. Given the substantial impact the changes would have on all IPPC activities, the Secretariat reported thatthe optionremained to leave the timing of CPM unchanged. However, this would involve budget planning 18 months ahead of each CPM meeting so as to fit in with the new FAO reporting arrangements. The Secretariat also noted that the financial rules for the IPPC trust fund already required advance planning. An additional advantage would be that there would be 18 months in which to find funds for extra-budgetary activities planned by CPM.
  3. Following some discussion, the SPTA agreed not to adjust the timing of CPM and other IPPC meetings, but instead to have the Secretariat carry out budget planningwell in advance.One SPTA participant did not wish to have the CPM timing stay as it had been because, although it was useful to plan ahead, this had been discussed many times over the years and had never been done.The Secretariat said that it had already been planning ahead;however the projected figures were not always accurate when planning far in advance (they became more accurate as things got closer). If planning occurred 18 months in advance money would need to be committed early; some activities would not take place if funding was not committed at least two years in advance.One participant expressed concern that the Secretariat might not be ready to begin this new planning process in March 2011 (at the time of the next CPM).

6.2Short term work plan 2011

  1. The Secretariat introduced this topic by outlining the current IPPC budget situation and highlighting that it predicted a $1.2 million deficit in 2011. While in previous yearsthe Secretariat had predicted deficits, none had been as large as this. The budget proposed by the Secretariat for consideration by the Bureau at its October 2010 meeting (later in the week) included severe cuts to all programs. A paper had been prepared to summarize the issue for SPTA[8].
  2. The Secretariat reported that in 2011 all vacant staff posts would be filled (one D1, one P5, three P4, one P3, one G5 and two G3).In addition to the core Secretariat staff,there would be temporary staff including a standard setting APO, a programmer, a webmaster, an information exchange officer, an IRSS officer plus some part time consultants.
  3. The chairperson noted that, although the intention was to leave detailed discussion on the budget to the Bureau, it was helpful for the SPTA to holdinformed discussions by looking briefly at the detailed budget. To facilitate discussion, SPTA participants were provided with a copy of the 2011 detailed budget.
  4. It was explained that the Secretariat was focusing its resources on staffing core staff, rather than increasing activities that could not be delivered due to lack of staff and it was clear that this would result in reduced operational resources. The SPTA noted that salaries and operational costs could not be looked at in isolation and that there needed, for the long term, to be a balance between staff and operational costs. One participant advocated a more balanced approach that would involve re-engineering to make the top management lean enough to free funds to deliver products. Previously the Secretariat and contracting parties had thought that increasing staff might increase outputs. The redistribution of staff and operational costs needs to be reconsidered. There was some concern that if no new extra-budgetary funds came available,that,over time,some staff might becomeless occupied and in effect maybe lost or get utilized elsewhere by FAO.The SPTA agreed that if the IPPC provided any services to other areas of FAO, the IPPC should be reimbursed.
  5. One SPTA participant suggested that the IPPC,in the long term,develop a mechanism for voluntary assessed contributions as a means of achieving funding for the long term. Meanwhile a plan for obtaining immediate funding for 2011, and then the 2012-13 biennium, was needed and this could include providing contracting parties with options for providing immediate funding for a range of activities that would otherwise need to be cut.
  6. One SPTA participant queried the decision to cut standards setting activities. The Secretariat explained that there were proposed cuts to all programmesand that the budget deficit had been larger than expected. Another participant noted that the most dramatic cuts were in standards setting and wondered whether the reason that the other goals had not been cut as severely was because this funding was committed to something else. The Secretary responded that core activities of the Secretariat are interrelated and often provided support the standard setting programme (such as maintaining the IPP and resource mobilisation). Programmes other than standard setting had also been cut more over previous years and remaining allocations were the minimum to keep these programmes functioning.
  7. The SPTA recommended that a minimum of standards setting activities go forward in 2011. One suggestion was to present contracting parties with an option to only have the standards committee meeting under conditions that would save resources (e.g. no interpretation). Overall, while most SPTA participants acknowledged that, due to the critical financial situation, some standards setting activities needed to be cut, they preferred not to completely stop standards setting. One participant strongly disagreed with stopping standards setting for any length of time as it would be difficult to re-build the momentum to restart it again. Instead, the IPPC should explore more creative ways to keep standards setting going.
  8. The SPTA requested the Secretariat to continue to explore options for more use of electronic communication to facilitate remote work, rather than having face to face meetings. This would be particularly important in light of the impending cuts to the standards setting programme.
  9. Please refer to agenda item 7 for details on the discussion on “Proposed improvements for the approval of diagnostic protocols and phytosanitary treatments”.

6.3TC feedback on 2020 IPPC strategic framework