IPPC Secretariat and Gabon officials discuss strengthening national phytosanitary systems

Rome, 18 October 2024. Officials from the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) Secretariat and the Government of Gabon met on the sidelines of the 2024 World Food Forum at the headquarters of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), to discuss opportunities to strengthen national phytosanitary systems in the country.

The delegation from Gabon acknowledged the IPPC’s role in promoting international plant health and affirmed its commitment to adopting IPPC initiatives to strengthen its national pest monitoring systems and boost the country’s export capacity while ensuring the sustainability of ongoing programmes. In this vein, Gabon will conduct its first-ever Phytosanitary Capacity Evaluation (PCE), an IPPC tool that enables countries to engage stakeholders of the national phytosanitary system to evaluate a country’s phytosanitary capability and define priorities for a robust national plant health strategy, including revision of phytosanitary legislation. The IPPC Secretariat will support Gabon to conduct its maiden PCE and preliminary meetings with the national coordination team have started.

The Gabon delegation comprised Arnaud Kombila Mussavu, Director General of Agriculture in Gabon, Huguette Biloho, Assistant FAO Representative (Programme) in Gabon, and Ghislain Moussavou, Embassy Counselor to the United Nations Rome-based agencies. They met Arop Deng, Officer-in-Charge for day-to-day matters at the IPPC Secretariat, Sarah Brunel, Lead of the Implementation and Facilitation Unit, Dominique Menon, ePhyto Programme Manager and Descartes Koumba, Agriculture Officer at the IPPC Secretariat.

“The IPPC Secretariat commends Gabon’s commitment to advancing phytosanitary excellence at national and regional levels,” said Deng. The IPPC’s tools and technical resources are at the country’s disposal, and we look forward to continuing this collaboration,” he added.

The meeting also discussed Gabon’s interest in taking part in the Africa Phytosanitary Programme (APP) and adopting the IPPC ePhyto Solution. APP aims to strengthen the capacities of African countries in surveillance, early detection and management of plant pests that cause significant damage to the economy, food security, and the environment. APP intends to support all 54 African countries in the coming years, with phase one ongoing in 11 countries.

‘’Pests that impact agricultural production and the livelihoods of farmers do not know national borders. The involvement of Gabon in the APP will allow more effective plant pest surveillance in collaboration with neighbouring countries that use the same digital platform’’, said Arnaud Kombila Mussavu, Director General of Agriculture in Gabon.

IPPC Secretariat and Gabon officials after the meeting - ©FAO / Anita Tibasaaga

On the other hand, the IPPC ePhyto Solution enables countries to trade faster, more efficiently, and securely by replacing paper phytosanitary certificates with electronic ones (ePhytos) that are less prone to fraud and damage. This improves market access by reducing delays in the export of plants and plant products and import verifications of plant-related commodities. The Gabon delegation noted that national-level discussions to set up the necessary architecture to join the IPPC ePhyto Solution would commence soon, with the country joining initially through the Generic ePhyto National System (GeNS) and eventually owning a national system. The GeNS enables countries without existing IT infrastructure to connect to a common portal or Hub to create, send, and receive ePhytos in a simplified and harmonized format.

The IPPC Secretariat noted that more interventions are underway to support African countries to join the ePhyto Solution.

The meeting also underlined the important role of the Embassy of Gabon in Rome in strengthening collaboration between the national plant protection institutions of Gabon and the IPPC Secretariat.