WTO: 2008 NEWS ITEMS
FIND OUT MORE
about SPS’s “three sisters” — the international
standards-setting bodies:
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Codex Alimentarius
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World Organization for
Animal Health
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International Plant
Protection Convention
The
workshop took place at a time when governments and international
organizations are donating more money to help developing countries apply
so-called sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) (food safety and animal and plant
health) standards. These standards are in turn becoming more prominent
partly because traditional trade barriers such as tariffs are being lowered.
Developing countries need assistance to meet more stringent requirements in
their export markets and they and the donors are looking for ways to make
the assistance more effective.
The workshop focused on applying the “Paris
Principles” agreed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) in 2005. These include prescribed actions and indicators
to measure how effective assistance is, and are based on ownership,
alignment, harmonisation, managing for results, and accountability.
Its aim was:
(i) to identify “good practice” as it applies specifically to technical
assistance projects related to SPS in three pilot regions and to identify
elements that can be applied again in future assistance;
(ii) to review the experience of applying good practice at the national or
regional level;
(iii) to discuss what is required from donors, development agencies and
beneficiaries in order to disseminate and implement the identified good
practices more widely; and
(iv) to discuss how to maximize the impact of technical assistance related
to SPS on trade performance.
The workshop was organized by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF)
— a joint initiative of the World Trade Organization, World Health
Organization, World Bank, World Organization for Animal Health and Food and
Agriculture Organization — in collaboration with the OECD and the WTO
Secretariat.
About 60 participants attended through funding by the WTO Secretariat and
the STDF.
What is the STDF?
The Standards and Trade Development Facility is a joint
initiative of the World Trade Organization, World Health
Organization, World Bank, World Organization for Animal Health
and Food and Agriculture Organization. The facility acts as a
forum for sharing information on past, present and planned
technical co-operation activities related to sanitary and
phytosanitary (SPS) measures. It also provides grant financing
for projects and for the preparation of projects aiming to
enhance developing countries’ capacity to meet SPS standards.
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