IICA specialists work hand in hand with public and private officials to strengthen the systems of Plant, Animal and Food Safety
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, May 2018 (IICA). The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) implemented the Performance, Vision and Strategy (DVE) tool to strengthen plant, animal and food safety services in the local and international markets, in addition to trainings for technicians of the public and private sectors.
Mr. Frank Lam, IICA Representative in the Dominican Republic, referred to this methodology as participatory, objective and inclusive and that allows Member States of IICA to know firsthand their strength and improvement areas.
Ana Maritza Cordero, who works with IICA’s program on Agricultural Health and Food Safety, explained that the agricultural health program is one of IICA’s technical areas to support countries in strengthening their capacities in order to comply with what is established in the WTO Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.
In the trainings, that took place during two weeks in the month of May, technicians from the ministries of Agriculture, Public Health and the Directorate of Livestock participated. Cordero recalled that the Dominican Republic signed the WTO phytosanitary agreement, so the country must comply with what its provisions. She stated that this regulation is fulfilled through the official agricultural health services that are offered in the countries.
She emphasized IICA´s support to governments in strengthening their official services in the Plant Health area in order to protect the health of plants and animals from diseases and pests, as well as to protect the public health of consumers, guaranteeing consumption of safe foods. “We have developed a tool called performance, vision and strategy that aims to support governments in strengthening these official services,” Cordero explained.
She added that “this week we have been applying this tool of Agriculture and Livestock so that the official services of animal, vegetable and food safety have the possibility of identifying areas of strengthening in the technical, human and financial resources, and in the part of alliances with the private sector that allows them to protect the health of consumers, plants and animals.”
She also indicated that these strategic strengthening areas will allow official services to start working on strategies to improve these technical elements in the short and medium term.
Each workshop included the participation of 35 and 50 technicians, and it is expected that the country has a strategy for the improvement of official agricultural health services in the medium and short term, and that these strategies allow gradually improve the technical performance of the service from the strengthening of strategic areas of action. She said that it is necessary to have a good resource that allows surveillance to prevent the entry of pests and have diagnostic capacity where laboratories have the possibility of making analyzes that allow to identify the presence of pests and diseases, or foodborne diseases, of so that they can react in a timely manner to the presence of any disease.
“In addition, we will identify areas of strengthening in the technical, human and financial resources, strategic alliances with the private sector and other government agencies to strengthen the service and have an institutional infrastructure that allows the country to compete adequately in international markets exporting safe products and also at the local level have an institutional infrastructure that allows obtaining safe products that do not harm the health of the consumer “.
More information: Frank Lam, Representative of IICA Dominican Republic, frank.lam@iica.int
