Welcome. And before we begin our seminar, we'd like to remind you that we have simultaneous translation, Spanish into English, and sure that you select the icon at the lower right corner. We start our seminar, we remind you that we have simultaneous translation in Spanish to English. To change your language, click on the icon in the lower right corner. Having mentioned that, we welcome you to the continuation of the webinar series for capacity building on CODIS topics of interest to the Latin American and Caribbean region. These seminars are organized by the FETO Sanitary and Zone Sanitary Regulation and Control Agency in representation of Ecuador. Representing Ecuador as Chair of CODIS Coordinating Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean, CCLAC, and FAO Regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean, that come together under the project Actions to Support the Implementation of CODIS for the RUM which is financed by the Republic of Korea. The webinar series which will run until 2025 aims to socialize and promote the application of CODICS, elementaries, standards for strengthening the food safety systems in countries. During the year 2022, we addressed the first two modules, guide and orientation for new participants and basic texts. This year, we returned to module three, Future Challenges in Food Safety held in April. We continue today with module four where we want to pause and listen to countries and what has their experience in the implementation of CODICS, its benefits and challenges for that. We have the honor of having four regional references, one from Jamaica, Cuba, Colombia, and Bolivia. My name is Mariela de Los Angeles-Gatica. I am the Regional Coordination of the Act Project in FAO and I am accompanied by the moderator, Daniela Vivero, who is a professional from Agro Calidad, CCLAC Secretary at Pass the Floor to Daniela to continue with the presentation of our panelists and today's topic. Thank you, Mariela. Good morning to everyone. Thank you for being here this morning. I welcome all of you to this series of webinars and we are delighted with everyone that is here and we will wait for some more people to join us in this meeting. And because of the importance of CODICS in the region, before we continue to maintain the order of the webinar, I ask that you write your country name followed by your name, as is my case, Ecuador Daniela Vivero, and we appreciate keeping your microphone silent during the presentations. Now we move on to today's topic for this module. We have four experts who will tell us about the country's experience in the implementation of CODICS. At the end of all of the participations, we'll have a Q&A period where you can raise your hand and you will be given the floor in the same way. You can write your queries in the chat that we will be reading. We would like to remind you that this webinar is being recorded so that we can later share this material with you and with those that were not able to join us this morning. We will begin with the panelists and we would like to begin with Allison Richards from Jamaica to continue with presentations by Nancy Fernandez from Cuba, Blanca Cristina Alarte from Colombia, and Thenia Hulayani from Bolivia. Allison will begin with more than 12 years experience. She holds a degree in botany and zoology from the University of West Indies. Allison has been food safety inspector at the Jamaica Bureau of Standards for the past eight years. Her primary responsibilities to oversee food manufacturing facilities. During this period of time, she has been a member of the CODICS Secretariat and Contact Point in Jamaica, and is the Jamaica Focal Point representative for FAUST Transgenic Food Platform. She spearheads annual food safety day initiatives and in her department and serves the National Biosafety Committee. Her outstanding work in food safety has been commemorated by delivering the high achiever recognition in her department, maintaining the highest percentage of registrations with her portfolio for over 80 food manufacturing facilities. We will open the floor now for Allison Richards. Welcome. Good morning, Daniela. Good morning, everyone. I'd like to thank you and the stakeholders for the invitation here that extended to Jamaica and giving us the opportunity to share with all of you what we have been working on in CODICS and what we continue and hope to achieve in the years to come. I will be sharing my screen with you so you can see my presentation. Please indicate if you are seeing, so I may comment. Thank you. We can see it, Allison. Thank you. Perfect. So as Daniela said before, my name is Allison Richards. I am a member of the CODICS Contact Point in Jamaica. Just to give you a background of how our contact point was developed, we are housed at the Bureau of Standards in Jamaica and we serve both as the CODICS Contact Point and the Secretariat of the National CODICS Committee. Our National CODICS Committee was officially launched in December 2004, my apologies, and the National CODICS Committee coordinates CODICS activities within Jamaica through the establishment of local subcommittees. The Bureau of Standards in Jamaica is the CODICS Contact and our National CODICS Committee meets by monthly, which is the last Wednesday of every other month of the year. Our mission in the MCC is to participate in the development and adoption and implementation of CODICS standards and to protect consumer health and promote fair trade practices while safeguarding Jamaica's interests. Our vision as the MCC is to become a regional leader in the development and utilization of CODICS elementary standards for the protection of consumers' health and promotion of trade. Now our National CODICS Committee is made up of stakeholders from four separate government ministries, that is the Ministry of Health and Wellness, the Ministry of Industry Investment and Commerce, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Foreign Trade, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Fishers. The functions of our National CODICS Committee are to formulate national responses to proposals and policies, to act as a consultative body to the government, to appoint technical subcommittees to facilitate national participation, to nominate delegates to represent Jamaica at CODICS meetings, to provide guidance on technical matters to private sector and to establish mechanisms to promote Jamaica's standards for adoption as international standards. As I said before, our National CODICS Committee is made up of different stakeholders and some of these stakeholders are from government agencies, from non-government organizations such as our consumer affairs, our academia from our universities and from our private sector, local food manufacturers. Our active subcommittees is the Food Labeling Committee, our Methods of Analysis and Sampling, our food-important export inspection certification systems, food hygiene, pesticide residues, food additives, contaminants, nutrition and foods for special dietary uses, residues of veterinary drugs, fresh fruits and vegetables, spices and culinary herbs and general principles. We have three committees now, which are working progress, you would call them, where we have had persons who have limited offices and we are now working hard in getting these committees up and running. We do know that the Fish and Fisher Products Committee internationally is now inactive due to no current work. So our office in Jamaica usually just tends to keep an eye out on any activity that is concerning these committees, and as soon as we've received any correspondence of that nature, then we will get our committees reestablished and active. So let's talk about some of the recent activities that the CODEX office has engaged in. We have participated with the tremendous help of ECOP for attendance at these international meetings. We've attended the Food Hygiene International Session, which was in November of 2022. We also attended the CAC 45 in December of last year. In this year, we received funding for attending residues of veterinary drugs in foods and our food import and export systems in May of 2023. In World Food Safety Day 2023, I spearheaded that initiative and of course this year's theme was about food standard saving life, which was I think a perfect opportunity to increase consumer awareness and importance of CODEX standards and how from CODEX these standards are trickled into our national legislation, which at the Bureau of Standards, which is the agency tasked with developing these food standards, we have managed to use CODEX standards as reference documents for developing our national standards. So that was a very important time or an important opportunity rather for me to include the important work of CODEX and communicating that to all stakeholders. Just in June, ECOS was sponsored our attendance at CC Mass 42 and recently CCPR in June to July. Now, in terms of our current or upcoming activities, CCGP is an upcoming meeting in which the maker is interested in attending. ECOS has offered their usual support in us attending and our plans in celebrating CODEX 60 is actually a working progress. Our approach to this year's celebration would be to increase consumer awareness and that would take the form of us going into high schools and doing presentations. I think the teenage group or high school group is a pretty impressionable group and having embedded the importance of food safety or food standards, it is a good place to start and we have had two commitments so far. When the school year reopens to have myself or Mr. Ernst or my colleague in the product's office to attend these sessions and to boost consumer awareness from that stage. We also have the CAC 46 coming up and that is something that we're looking forward to with the support of ECOM and that is pretty much what we have for upcoming activities as it relates to our CODEX office. So what are some of the benefits that Jamaica have received from participating in CODEX? Regional collaboration on important food safety matters. It is very important to Jamaica to be involved from a regional point of view and today is one of those instances where we have the opportunity to share with you, our regional stakeholders, what has been happening in our office and also just sharing ways in which we can improve on that collaboration. We have increased in technical capacity through engaging in technical discussions and the promotion of private and public stakeholder collaboration is always a benefit that we have seen over the years since 2004. And another benefit of CODEX participation for Jamaica is a fair see in standard development. Through our attendance at these international sessions, through our participation in electronic working groups commenting on the development of standards, those have given Jamaica a seat at the table for standard development internationally and of course eventually trickling into our national legislations. What are some of the challenges we're facing? Currently, human resources, myself and my other colleague who sits in our office are full-time employees to the Bureau of Standards, so we do have other duties outside of CODEX and as you can tell from Daniel's introduction earlier, I do sit on many other committees. So it is a bit challenging at times to keep up with the demand of CODEX which we all know is important and also very demanding as it relates to the numerous documentation to keep abreast with, maintaining communication, maintaining participation and active participation. There is also the challenge of a language barrier. Jamaica being an English-speaking country, being a part of CCLAC. I do find that the ability and the ease of communication amongst ourselves in the CCLAC region is a bit lacking or wanting whenever it really matters. So those are just two challenges that we're currently facing and it is my hope that we'll be granted the opportunity to increase technical capacity through partnerships with other jurisdictions and training. This is something that Jamaica is open to, to probably visiting other CODEX offices in the region, seeing how these offices operate, learning from them and exploring areas for our opportunities for improvement within our own office. We are also open to giving that opportunity to other CODEX offices that may beam us or beam our office something to emulate. Another opportunity that we've added to that is a solution to reducing the language barriers such as Spanish language training. If there are other countries who may have that resource available, we are more than willing to take up that offer and to move towards being more of an inclusive region on the language scope and to, of course, improving our working CODEX as always. That is basically it in a nutshell. I hope I was too quick or too long. And of course you can always reach me at arichards at mcary.org.jm or co-dictionary.bhg.org.jm and my contact number is there as well. Thank you for listening. Thank you very much for your excellent presentation. Alacen, just to remind you, we are going to have a Q&A at the end of all the presentations today. So we would like to ask you to write them down and write them down on the chat. We will be picking them up, accumulating them, and then we will, of course, set forth the presentations now. We will have the presentation by Dr. Ortencia Nandis, Nancy Fernandes. Dr. Ortencia Nancy Fernandes has a degree in chemistry, PhD in technical sciences. We have the presentations good morning to all of you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now give a continuity. We will be presenting the strengthening of capacities on CODEX aspects. We will begin our presentation of CODEX elementaries in Cuba. We will be passing the overheads. Can you hear me? As you wish, we can advance the presentation or you can do it yourself, any way you prefer. All right, I will be advancing my own overhead if it's not too complicated for you. I would like to set forth a brief presentation. Yes, please do. I will see how we're going to advance the overhead because we might not be able to pass them or advance them. I think you have to share it so it doesn't give me autonomy to advance the presentations or the overhead. Okay, thank you very much. So Dr. Ortencia Nancy Fernandes has a degree in chemistry. She's a PhD in technical sciences, graduated in 1979 from the Faculty of Technological Chemistry of the University of Bratislava in Czechoslovakia. She's a senior researcher since 1981. She has a diploma in public administration and lead auditor in quality management systems and beauty ovaritas. She completed a postgraduate studies in business marketing, auditing at the University of the Havana postgraduate degree in pulp and paper technology in Bratislava and Bratislava Academy of Sciences and the Stockholm Pulp and Paper Institute. Dr. Nancy has an extensive experience in research in the field of pulp and paper technology and quality and safety management system and multiple scientific publications that reflect her significant work. She's currently the director general of the National Bureau of Standardization and Focal Point of the Codex of Cuba, chairs its National Committee and the delegation of Cuba to the Commissions of Codex Elementary since 2002 and coordinates a group of experts for the National Food Control Systems. She has coordinated the expert groups for the development of standardization, metrology, quality and accreditation, food safety and national regulatory authority policies and their legal documents published in 2020. She has been awarded distinctions for her merits and contributions to Cuban science. Now please, Dr. Ortencia, please, the floor is yours. Please let me know if you can share your presentation. Very well then. Okay, can you hear me? Yes, we can. Okay. The floor is yours. Cuba is member of the Codex Elementary since 1964. We have a great extension of years in this involvement. It participates actively and it wants to adapt its fundamental role and to make it in such a way that every new participant in the National Committee has the initial knowledge to know what are the main leaders of the work that we have to do. From the beginning of the National Authorities, let's say in 1964, they demonstrated a great interest in participating in the work of Codex with the leaders of veterinary medicine, currently the National Health Center for Animal Health and other entities as the Laboratory of Prometology and other areas. It has been systematic and has had great growth. It has, as in other activities, it has been ascending. And this has allowed us throughout these years to create a commission group and from the outset we strengthened the work to carry out the standards on the different systems that are linked to food safety. And it was developed in the most important points of Cuba between 1985 and 1990. This is when we developed a new focus on food safety, the standardization, and Cuba created a sanitary standard system for food safety, although at the time there had not been the creation of committees we were working because at the time we did not have a specific process of procedures to work in a more systematic manner. We consider that the Cuba system was a very crucial point to begin taking important steps towards the participation in Codex. We worked with a proposal to face the struggle that we had with the Salmonella in food. It has been an enormous creation and participation of the workgroup for the imports and exports of food and to register the group in the Ministry of Public Health. From the creation of Codex Alimentarius, of course these were all elements that at a certain time we created a baseline which is fundamental for the work that we carry out in Codex Alimentarius. The creation of Cuba had an important participation from the Department of Hygiene and to the technical analysis of min-sex management of quality. There were other activities, there were formal participations in the commission of Codex through the agreement 890 through the Republic of Cuba that created the standardization of the office as a representation of Cuba in CCA but in the year 2002 we created a regulation of the National Committee for the Republic of Cuba which created the consultation organization which was inter-ministry and inter-sectorial. Throughout the years the organizations of the state, central administration organizations and other competent authorities and other entities that are part of the participation that represent the academy and the food chain and other stakeholders. Through the Committee of Codex we have been able to establish an active commission which is the most important aspect that we considered fundamental to define it's not another commission, it is a former organism. We see how important the Codex is, an active commission and it has an important and growing significance at the international level in Codex Alimentarius. It works systematically with a group of experts depending on the competencies that are being dealt with when talking about safety and that it is led by the Department of Coordination of Food Safety and the coordination organization that is led by the focal point of Codex Alimentarius. Cuba has been present in all the meetings of Codex since the year 2002 and it has participated systematically. It has been stable and ascending for the last 21 years. It has been participating in fresh fruit Codex and fresh vegetables, the Committee of Inspection, the sampling, that is it has a permanent participation in the commission but it has understood the importance of the different and relevant projects in the countries and the Committee of Hygiene Safety, the analysis and to be able to understand the criteria and the debate technical debates that are being carried out by the different committees to strengthen the work that has been carried out that we are able to adopt the standards with a most important participation. We have also participated since 82 to 83 in different organizations at the moment right now which is carried out systematically. As I said, it is an active organization. It has participated with projects financed by the fiduciary fund of the Codex to perfect its work and to create a culture of food safety in the country. And it participated with these projects that we considered appropriate that could be improved and was improved and we needed therefore a superior participation. And with this we created the organization of the state which is a support. There is a policy approved by the Council of Ministers in 2017 that is a law degree. There is an express involvement in the government of Cuba which is also supported by a law degree 9 on food safety and defines the responsibilities of players in the food chain and other stakeholders and the functions of the national regulatory body because these fields are under a regulatory framework. This entire process of willingness and documentation and standardization is a strength for the focal point without that express political willingness and without the support and without that entire background history and systematic involvement of the Codex it would not be possible to achieve. So we believe that these are platform or baselines so that the Codex and its work in Cuba can provide the country traceability that is proven today. All the standards of Codex for food or any other food has to adopt to Cuba's fundamental information. It will have to be written in accordance with the forms of the standards of Cuba. They have to go through a format and it has to be incorporated in accordance to procedures of these new standards that are generated in the Codex that have certain characteristics although it is adopted it has to go through the format of Cuba because it's based on science it is approved under consensus and they have been adapted and of course they are linked to the OMC. They have to go through the Cuban process of adoption. There is a procedure for Codex in Cuba. It has a procedural manual which is under implementation. It has been one of the results of the objective is to gather only one document with everything related to Codex in Cuba. Define clearly what are the functions, responsibilities and mandates that our National Committee has and what are the responsibilities of each party and the procedures of work. It is very important and it is an application instrument in use and consultation for all involved parties and stakeholders with the activities of Codex at the national level. All the stakeholders in the Republic of Cuba it was edited also as a project and it is currently in every single place in every area of the country which indicates and clarifies which are the procedures, the scope, the functions and the responsibilities of Codex. Therefore, it is a fundamental instrument the internal structure of Codex in Cuba as you have it on the screen. There is a chairperson which is myself at this moment and there is a structure here in lineals of how the work is carried out. There is a vice chairperson, there is a secretariat and there are coordinators which is where we have our focal points of Codex in Cuba and it works of course with the chairpeople of the network then official members which are the representatives of the food chain and other stakeholders, the sanitary authorities, the academic area, research centers, private area, consumers and observers which are NGOs. The national committee of Codex in Cuba of course is the link that we have to work with Codex directly and the focal point of Codex which works directly in line with the main organizations which is CESALAC. We also have two fields of development which are very important and these have to do with the general affair committees and the product committees. We will not read them all but we work with all of these areas. You can see the listing of the labeling for example, the area of sampling, number 46, number 47, the sensory analysis and this covers all of the areas that Codex has functioning in our structure. The focal point of Codex Cuba is the link between the secretariat of Codex in FAO and the Republic of Cuba. As we said it is a coordinating body and it exercises this function as a focal point and it is linked with other standardization technical committees and national entities, the National Commission of in Cuba for Codex. It is an inter-institutional coordination that leads into establishing and validating national positions on different topics, whether they are Codex. It is led by a person designed at the headquarters which is in SITMA and through a coordination body in the secretariat and its secretariat. The national committee is set up by a representative of each of the following entities and members from the ministries that are involved in the food chain process, the Ministry of Science, Public Health, Agriculture, Food Safety, the Ministry of the Interior, Foreign Affairs, Armed Forces, the sugar producers, the Ministry of Tourism, the Ministry of Transportation which has an important task the general customs and the National Institute for Hygiene that has the register all the different institutes of science that are supported by projects, the National Authority of National Animal Health, Agro-Industry Health Quality, all the different presidents of food and other stakeholders such as consumers, educators, the provincial organizations of hygiene and epidemiology, the veterinarian areas, other representatives of small businesses and so on. This is a large committee. This is a committee that meets periodically and they set forth organizations for the year and they meet to advise these different documents. This document is a procedural process and there is an area of the functionality of the different formal aspects, the adaptation of all the documents and it's linked to other domestic and international links in the food chain linked to the different stakeholders and as far as management of the National Committee and we've already said it's led by the standardization office, the law decree of food safety establishes which are the functions of standardization linked to these topics and to codice elementaries. We went from political willingness of the political decision to making it a mandatory process. This facilitates the comprehension and definition that this is not a voluntary participation because it is a formal document that has very specific aspects of the willingness of the Cuban Republic. This model that is established is the focal point. It can function in other areas that without, we put the information based on the needs. It can create extraordinary meetings if necessary. The idea is to propose, analyze, evaluate all the priorities of the country linked to the existing norms, the developments, the requirement of information and everything that has to do with food safety of the food chain. It also gathers, reviews all the pertinent aspects related to technology, economy, health, systems of control to develop different arguments and acceptance or not acceptance of proposals and all the works of Codex, SELAC sets forth as fundamental for the region and gives priority to the meetings, to the organization, to the directives for Codex and the different positions it holds of the country based on the documents that transit through the focal point of Cuba. We have a work mechanism for the approval of these standards, as we said before. Sometimes it is the technical committees, standardization technical committees that are technical organizations that are composed of specialists of high development and professional background and experience. They represent the different sectors of the food chain on these topics and other topics. Once the standards are approved, practices, directives that are adopted by the Codex commission and the national committees and the focal points of the different persons so that they can contribute to create the standardization national program. The coordinators of these national directives establish the different dispositions, regulations and procedures for planning because these committees, as was said previously in a very summarized manner, transform these codes, these good practice guidelines in documents that can be adopted in the country through the national normalization office. The national commission of Codex also defines the position of the country that should be approved by consensus based on the general guidelines for the country as stated by our procedural. It has to be approved, as I said, for these procedures. If there is no consensus, the chairperson of the standardization committee will consider two or more discussed positions in order to set forth these positions and submit them to the technical committee. The secretariat and the coordinators of the focal points will send the members of different standpoints for comments and to generate a proposal for the Codex of the nation. The delegates, official delegates that will represent Cuba in the international Codex meeting will be a part of the national Codex committee or any of the technical committees or observers. These will have the knowledge, the capacity and the authorities to issue their participation actively. And these will always be representatives. These will be assigned in consultation with the focal point, which always assesses the participation of the members and observers that participate in this activity on behalf of the nation. We are currently developing a project which has allowed us to scale up through the national committee at a very important level, which has been formalized and connected with all the different players in the society. This project for the strengthening of sustainable management of the national Codex committee in Cuba has had a very important moment. I repeat, one of the most important achievements was the procedural manual for Codex in Cuba with the advice of international experts participating with countries like Argentina, which helped in the process strengthening the structure of focal point of Cuba, which has already been approved and functioning. The approval of the logo that identifies Codex in Cuba and for all these activities we have carried out workshops, meetings and exchange with international advisors, players and stakeholders in the food change. So what's happening in the framework of this project, we have had some results, which is information strategy, education and communication in that which relates to food safety. This is a strategy that begins with a previous work that was already done in the year 2014 with the Codex in Cuba set forth some of its views. And we have ready to create a conciliation set forth with the national organization of communications in Cuba, other stakeholders. We are working on the experts on the topics of specialization and we are foreseen to design a Codex site with information, interactions, so that the other comments can be made by all the stakeholders, whether the citizens at large or an interactive or a technical organization. So we can have a more interactive relation with all the stakeholders. We have part of a page where Codex is illustrated. We're going to have only one dedicated web page for Codex elementaries in Cuba. We have technical committees. We have a list. These are the ones that are active. Each one has a number based on the registration in the Cuban system. They're all active and they're all working. There are considerable numbers, even aroma herbs, which was 132, which has also been included. The work committee through national workshops. We call on exchange experiences, criteria and other topics that are of great priority that are detected through the inspections, carried out, situations that are set forth, topics of importance. We have carried out 14 of these workshops and some of the topics that have been taken on. We have had different members. These are very highly assisted events. And the most recent one, the seventh national workshop on Codex elementaries, the resistance of antimicrobians, the current situation in Cuba as a focus on the current situation. We have also carried out food safety policies, a challenge for the development of Cuba. The other workshop update on topics of Codex directed for the protection of health to raise the well-being of the nation and other topics in how we have presented projects. We have analyzed them in a national committee with different criteria to improve it. And the other topics that we have carried out, the presentation of the project of the procedural manual with the committee, the practices on the management of allergens in food allergens, management and a critical analysis of the circular economy in the agro industry, which is one of the recent topics. And in the framework of the third international convention of food safety in Cuba was carried out, the national workshop on Codex, and it was presented to the national commission and the procedures manual. There are other topics that you can see listed here. And lastly, we would like to conclude with information that Cuba has today approximately 512 published standards on food and products related in which 75% of the document are Codex in order to support food safety in the middle of a framework of a great amount of participation. And we have adopted more than 75% of the Codex Alimentarius, which includes mainly hygiene, good practices, directives, labeling, special milk products. And for our economic reality has the highest amount of attention. This is a brief summary. And this is where we find ourselves with the Codex Alimentarius. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Nancy, for the excellent explanation. And we'd like to congratulate Cuba for its outstanding work. I would like to remind you that at the end of this seminar we will have a Q&A. So please do not disconnect. So now we have Blanca Cristina Olarte. She's from Colombia. She's a food engineer, an environmental sanitary engineer from the Universidad de la Salle. She is currently in the course of a master's degree of public economics and public policies at the Universidad del Rosario in the last 22 years. She has worked in professional area in the Ministry of Health and Social Protection in food safety during this time. In the ministry she has gained experience in the development of food safety regulations, food safety inspections, surveillance, control at the national level. Blanca Cristina is currently a contact or focal point for Codex Alimentarius and technical secretary of the National Committee of Codex Alimentarius. She's a coordinator for Codex Subcommittee and Food Hygiene and Focal Point in the Ministry of Health and Social Protection, notification for technical regulations for the World Trade Organization and has participated in trade negotiations such as the United States, the European Union, Mercosur, South Korea, amongst others. She is also coordinator of other subcommittees such as antimicrobial resistance species and participated in some of the subcommittees at the national level, such as the food import and export inspection and certification systems. Today Blanca Cristina could not be present but she did not want to stop accompanying us so she kindly sent us a video with her presentation. We will listen to her presentation. Very well, I will share her presentation. Thank you. And please let me know if you can see it correctly. Can you see it? Now we can see it. Yes, we can see it. Thank you. Good morning. And thank you for this invitation for this remote virtual participation with the experiences and application of Codex in the regional area. I will give you a presentation on the experiences of Codex in Columbia. Thank you very much for this opportunity to be able to present the progress we have achieved in Columbia. From that standpoint, we begin from Codex Alimentarius its objectives to harmonize the food standards and the participation of its application at the world level and also to be the international referral on matters related to quality and food safety, food quality and safety. As a baseline of this presentation, our objective is to protect the health of consumers to ensure equanimous practices in trade when referring to food and to promote the coordination of all works on standards, practice codes and directives for quality and safety of food. You can see the chronology of Codex Alimentarius that begins its work in 1963. And in Columbia, we begin its work since 1969. In addition, we become a member of the Sanitary and Federal Sanitary Agreements and the Technical Trade Obstacles for the World Trade Organization since 1994. In addition from this organization as the World Trade Organization, we participate in regulatory good practices in that which relates to technical obstacles. The Ministry of Health and Social Protection has an internal procedure for the generation modification of administrative measures, which includes the path for the technical establishment of norms. This path begins with the standards and the analysis of all the topics that will be dealt with during the year, particularly with quality and food safety. It also creates the regulation in coordination with the Productive Areas Academy and all the interested parties or stakeholders when talking about food quality and food safety always under the Ministry of Health and Social Protection to generate a national consultancy and international consultations based on its observations. We carry out a response to all the observations that could have been set forth. Once we finalize the responses to the procedure, we have an administrative process. We assign a number and the year in which this measure is generated and it is signed by the Minister and the different ministries that are linked to the topic or in some cases signed by the President of the Republic which is the one responsible for all the decrees. Well, here you can see some codex directives. They are approximately 76 directives at this moment in codex. We have set forth some of the norms that are linked to the national involvement. For codex, we have the principal directives for systems, for food control and the directives for imports control of food. These are very important for the resolution 12-23 of year 2013 which is part of the control of goods and products in the case of food and drinks. This has as a baseline the risk analysis and considers the control of food at the national level which have an integration of the different authorities that are part of the control of food products. We also have a committee of imports and exports of food. We have, for example, the principles for the inspection and certification for imports and exports of food and principal and directives for information and emergency situations related to food safety. For this case, we have decree 2478 of 2018 on imports and exports and also we have a technical document for all the emergency situations based on food safety. We have not always norms, we have technical documents that can be updated as they are needed and as the situation accounts for. We also have directives on the preparation of foods that are complementary for newborns and small children. For this, we have the resolution 11488 of the year 1984 which is currently being updated and takes as a reference the codex and other standards of complement and allow us to update this resolution. Today in codex, we also find standards that are based on other products, approximately 191 norms or standards for products. We have codex 1985 which has to do with pre-packaged foods and then there's the 192 of 1995 which is on additives and the 227 this moment we are in the process of generating a project with all the old information that we had in the codex then. As I said, we have the general standard for bottled water and we have a resolution 1285 of 1991 and at this moment we are in the process of updating this document based on codex of 2027. For the maximum limitations of residues of veterinarian products codex has approximately 610 limits and 75 veterinarian medications or drugs. We have a resolution that is generated by the Ministry of Health and Social Protection and we have the maximum limitations from pesticides approximately 4847 limits for 294 different pesticides. And then we have homologized also from the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. Now as far as contaminants we also have a resolution which is based on 105 maximum levels of food contaminants for 18 contaminants. And for food additives as I mentioned we have over 4037 levels for 303 food additives. We are currently in the regulatory process and we have as a referral the codex norms as a reference the limits of the United States, the European Union and these countries that have a standardizations based on risk analysis. At the national level we have this compendium of national norms which is called normogram of food. It is under the law 9 issued in 1979 and you can see we have a cross section. We have it separated by products, we have a regulation on good practices, manufacturing and one that has to do with quality if you click on any of these different links for example in the case of foods and oils and fats you will see everything related to that topic. In this case as I said we have a standard for meat, milk products and all the different sectors that for us are essential when related to food safety. Maybe we don't have too many specifications in other topics of low risk because we center ourselves on the risk analysis of which are the foods that we have to have regulated to exercise the role of surveillance and control. Here we can see the food system and food safety and quality. We have here the intersectional of measures of phytosanitary and soffa sanitary and we see the commission of quality which we call CICAL. These two commissions is where you have everything related to the food system for the intersectional of sanitary area. We have a technical secretariat which is part of DNP, the National Department of Planning and the departments that are related to Compass which are some policies that are specific in our agro food systems and quality and safety. We also have the DNP which works on the analysis of standard impacts for sanitary and phytosanitary aspects which has to do with risk analysis. As we all know, all the CODIC standards have risk analysis so it is much easier for us to have a technical justification at the moment that we set forth some sort of measure. Here we also have a policy of food which is analyzed by the Ministry of Health and Public Safety, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of the Environment and Sustainable Development amongst others. Each one of these ministries, Ministry of Agriculture also, has their authorities of surveillance and control in the case of the Ministry of Health and Social Protection. It has EMA which is the Surveillance of Food and we also have the National Analysis which carries out the certification and evaluation of the different areas. We also have the Department of Health which is a technical coordination analysis office. We also have the Ministry of Analysis of Agro-Industry. We have the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce which is part of the Ministry of Trade and Tourism and we also have EM which is the Surveillance and Control for the Environment. Here you can see the National Institute of Health because it is in this institute where we have the risk analysis which supports some of the measures and of course it is a fundamental support at the moment of carrying out a risk analysis. Therefore we have developed a great deal of projects that are supported with risk analysis and food safety with them. We also have the Research Institute which also supports in some cases some research that are specific that we might need to develop to provide support for the quality and food safety. We also have OSAVIA which is another research organization and also supports trade and the Superintendency of Industry and Commerce. We have the National Institute of Metrology which supports all these activities in the agro system and also in other systems. But in this case it helps us enormously in the food chain. We also have the ECON Tech which works with a certification, accreditation, assessment and conformity to the quality of food. Supported by Onak as I said before has accreditation functions and certification functions for the assessment and conformity of these accreditation. It also supports the Codex elementaries which is to protect health of Colombians and obviously the quality directly is supported in the development of quality of each one of the industries of the trade of each one of these foods and it supports the quality of food and safety of food. When it works well, when it works in a coordinated manner it facilitates the inclusion of our products into the international markets of course and this also facilitates the trade of the food products. It is very important to be active and participate in the formulation of Codex elementaries and to be very updated with the international and national regulations as I said before that will support the surveillance and control of food safety and quality. To conclude we would like to illustrate the three different antimicrobial resistance codes the code of practices to reduce to the minimum the RAEM transmitted in food which was launched in 2005 and reviewed in 2021 directives for the risk analysis of RAEM transmitted by food which was issued in 2011, reviewed 2021 and the directives for follow-up and surveillance integrated in RAM trans for food and these are documents that are supported with this document for aspects related to the resistance of antimicrobians. In this image you can see the process that has gone through in these three standards that I've just introduced to you what we expect also is to have specific standards for the maximum resistance of pesticides, veterinarian drugs, everything related to contaminates, microbiology linked to products thanks to the work that has been carried out by the Codex commission that has been developed during these years, Colombia has been able to progress in these regulations and now we can take on everything related to antimicrobial resistance and we have, for example, the resolution 2064 which is on good practices of the year 2002 which has to do with quality we also have specific regulations on milk products and meat products and we also have aspects related to antimicrobial resistance and we have been able to progress in this area and control and surveillance which has to do with the antimicrobial thanks to this process we have been able to carry out control in the entire food chain at the national production level and also at the international production level which helps us enormously to control public health in that which relates to food safety and as we were looking at the different areas it facilitates the opening of our products to the international markets and as I mentioned it is fundamental to have these international referrals in order to achieve compliance with the protection of health and facilitating trade at the international level for example to the antimicrobial resistance there are certain directives for microbiological processes and at this moment in time it seems we're only missing one standard in order to have the coverage of the entire legislative body on this topic matter thank you very much for allowing me to be here and to participate in this talk and I will be expecting to be able to respond to any query you might have thank you and have a nice day at a distance we thank the presentation by Maria Cristina to continue our webinar we will open the floor to our fourth panelist the engineer Tania Huyani give me one second please Tania by profession is an industrial engineer from Universidad Mayor de San Andrés with a master's degree in exports she's a specialist in food safety management systems she's a specialist in financial management administration specialist in business logistics and supply chain management she's also a global competitive leadership program leader export advisory program on natural food ingredients cosmetics and pharmaceuticals she is a chairwoman of Bolivian Chamber of Exporters of Quinoa and organic products Kabolki, delegate of the National Chamber of Exporters of Bolivia, Caneb and the National Committee of Food Codecs of Bolivia she's the director of the Chamber of Exporters for La Paz Comics and she's also the former coordinator of the technical committee for the development of codecs standard for Quinoa she's a partner and administrative manager from Sindan Organic SRL which is a Bolivian company leader in agricultural production industrialization industrialization and expert of Royal Quinoa from Bolivia Tanya, the floor is yours Thank you Good afternoon Maria, can you hear me? Yes, perfectly I will begin You can see my screen, right? Yes, we see it Please do it in presentation mode Perfect Thank you Thank you very much for the invitation of the series of webinars for capacity building for codecs and topics of interest for Latin America and the Caribbean I will show you our experience of the application of codecs in Bolivia The National Committee of Codecs in Bolivia was created under the supreme decree 24645 it is a specialized interdisciplinary of permanent profile with the objective to protect consumers ensure good practices food trade and promote the harmony of the food standards Our mission is to analyze debate, propose, harmonize and promote standards and international directives set forth by codecs on food safety and quality to protect the health of consumers and ensure equanimous practices and trade As a vision, we have the entity to articulate, promote national policies for food safety to dedicate and promote harmonization of standards by codecs with the application in the country As values, we have ethics, research equality and trade The institutions that work in codecs elementaries in Bolivia these are all the entities that are public and others that are private I will mention the first five which are part of the executive committee First, the chairmanship in Bolivia is held by the ministry of rural development and lands the national chamber for industries the ministry of productive development and plural economy and also the Bolivian institute of normalization of standardization and quality and the national exporters of Bolivia that I am a part of and then there are other regulatory bodies and entities of cooperation Basically, what I am going to show you is the experience that we have undergone with the generation of the standard codec standard for quinoa In the year 2013 the United Nations assigned 2013 as the international year of quinoa given the importance of its ancestral cultural, nutritional and social economic aspects it was recognized as a potential the product would have in the future in the field of food safety, production and international trade As you know, we have eight steps to be able to generate a standard and I have set forth a chronology of how we began working on this from 2008 to 2015 when we began with the first stage all the way to the stage 8 which ends in 2020 and I will set forth these stages The first stages was the generation of a regional standard for quinoa It was set forth and discussed in the framework of the Codex Committee Meeting for Latin American Decorabian in 2010 and the meetings and coordination of countries of the region that were part of the Codex Commission This is an image of the meetings I show you the delegates of the office of Ica Bolivia Fau which was led by Madame Beatriz and we also had a meeting with the regional interested parties and stakeholders to set forth a proposal which relates to quinoa So what were our strategic objectives? What was our critical examination of this situation when thinking of a standard for quinoa We wanted to develop a rational standard framework that would establish characteristics requirements that were essential for quality and food safety to ensure nutrition for consumers and establish the guidelines for international trade of this product Contribute to the sustainable availability of the resources and mechanisms for the development of contribution to reducing rural poverty and ensuring food for producers We also analyzed the legislation and international trade Bolivia is an important producer at a world level and also exporter and organization and private companies traded on the product but there was no specific legislation referred to international trade So we saw the potential there were countries such as France the United States and Holland that led the purchasing of quinoa and also opened the doors to areas such as Asia and other European countries in Latin America led by Bolivia, Peru and Ecuador who are the main producers So what possibilities for standardization were there? There were already some road maps set forth by international organization and some intergovernmental institutions led by Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador and Peru There were already in 2007 the creation of Andean community nations We have the 0032 that was created for the grains and pseudo-serials then 0038 Andean grains for the qualification and requirements the first one was for definitions and 0039 had to do with the requirements for quality, food safety and trade in the Andean community of nations Bolivia did not have any experience for the creation of codex standards we had not defined for example if we are going to generate a regional standard an international standard So in year 2014 with the support of CISELAC there was an event organized under the title the activities for codex elementaries its procedures and the generation of standards and its importance at the international level there was also a meeting called technical meeting for specialists for the generation of setting forth proposals for a regional codex standard for quinoa At this kind of activity supported by CISELAC we had almost 110 participants on topics for codex Bolivia and Andean country participation were absolutely fundamental I want to mention from Colombia Javier Muñoz and Luz de Maria from Ecuador we had Miguel Eduardo Peralta from Peru we had Mirna Susunaga in Bolivia we have those that were part of the technical committee this was a starting point for our process and to define what type of standard was going to be written So in 2015 the CAC38 the standard had already been created the commission approved new work related to an international standard for quinoa and it agreed to reactivate the serial committee so that it would work within the framework assigned to finalize the standard of the project and that was for years as recommended by the committee we created a workgroup led by Bolivia co-chaired by the United States and the languages that we used was English and Spanish to generate the initial project the commission also agreed to limit the work of the serial committee in the generation of the standard for quinoa and to suspend its activity indefinitely once the standard was issued we thanked the United States and Bolivia for the work that was involved there was a technical committee created Ibn Norka which are the focal points and we created the different stakeholders that would be exporting companies, producers, certifying companies universities, research and entities and we had a very positive feedback so we registered the institutions that were participating 10 private exporting companies 6 government institutions 11 associations in quinoa laboratories and so on then we went into stages 2 and 3 where we had a chronogram and an electronic workgroup for quinoa we had different observations experiences, documents were set forth the different aspects to generate the codex elementaries for Bolivia we followed the different stages with the support of the United States and basically the different institutions that supported us in this process we also assumed the electronic workgroup with the support of the United States with the support of Brazil of training they took us to be able to learn how to administrate the suggestions and the different support areas that were needed to go into the different stages this is a list of members of codex that participated in the international standard Australia, Thailand, Argentina, the Republic of Korea Chile, Brazil, Poland, Senegal, Mexico Switzerland, Malaysia, amongst others we received all the different opinions in the generation of this standard as I said before we had very little experience in how to write or create these standards here we have the list of observers of codex in the generation of this standard and to strengthen our capacities and competencies we set forth this project for strengthening the codex in Bolivia and it has we've had different seminars, works set forth we had a project on methods of analysis and sampling of food with the participation of specialists from Uruguay sorry Tanya, we cannot continue hearing you it seems you lost your connection can you reconnect please this capacity building as I was saying it was a transversal and we've had different experiences basically in methods of analysis and sampling, food sampling we had a specialist from Uruguay Lauda Flores who discussed this topic and also analyzed food contaminant by Maria Elena Aguilar from Costa Rica in the general principles on codex we had the specialist André Luis Bispo the organization of these events were very successful in Bolivia we had very little experience in the standards, processes in the generation of standards and we had the participation of codex elementaries, the different meetings that we had to set forth and organize there was also a symposium on food safety with the participation of the commission president Madame Avilo Ocheng we had our government participating the Ministry of Foreign Affairs the chairperson of the commission of codex elementaries the specialist on quinoa we had the PAHO and the World Health Organization of Bolivia that were very fundamental in generating the competencies that were relevant for the generation of the standard for codex elementaries a symposium on food safety we had the participation of public, private and academia on behalf of the fundamental systems with the authorities of the plurinational state of Bolivia the central axis of the meeting was led by Bolivia the codex of the standard by quinoa we created a electronic workgroup that brought out a support by the scientific community with the objective to overcome any obstacles of trading the grain and we also achieved the commitment of the government, the authorities with our commitment and to set forth an advance in progress with the standard well finally we had the meeting CAC 40 in 2017 the commission adopted the standard for quinoa on stage 5 and it also considered the possibility of analyzing the maximum levels of lead and cadmium in the series established by the general standard with the participation of the United States and Bolivia to continue in the generation of the following and pending stages then CAC 41 in 2018 the commission agreed to adopt the approval based on the dispositions that was set forth and it also indicates that the project of quinoa has gone into stage 8 with the exception of two pending areas one is the size of the grain amongst the countries of the region we had not coordinated and had not agreed to certain points in that states the United States also participated and worked with the countries to generate a standard that would benefit the region in 2019 there was a point approved which have to do with the content of humidity but basically we had a point in the region that had to do with the size of the grain and this was to stage 6 to be reviewed again the commission stated that the quinoa standard would be published with a note that would foresee the elaboration of the size of the grain there was a point that we had not agreed to amongst the countries of Peru and Ecuador but we would be able to reach a consensus and we would be working on them in future sessions and the section on the size of the grain would be eliminated at the level and the regional level in the different countries the technical information but finally we did not reach a consensus so in CAC 43 2020 the commission took on the correction of the document on that which relates to the size of the grain with the reserves or comments of Bolivia and Cuba and basically that's where it concludes and the committee also CCLP stopped indefinitely its activities and that's the experience with the standardization of quinoa with this standard as you can see here it is adopted in 2019 with the amendment in 2020 you can see the international market characteristics and the requirements of food safety for the consumption of this grain is exported to different countries in the world and also the production has increased this the world has been benefited in the application of this standard for international trade it is a baseline that did not exist in the past I conclude there and basically the standard is used for trade of the quinoa grain what else can I show you through this experience with the quinoa Bolivia the plurinational state has created or accessed trust funds we have set for three main results we established a legal framework that would update the functions of the national codex committee and the focal point with its functions, institutionalities and their sustainability the other result is we have established subcommittees and the focal point of codex has been strengthened the third result is that all the stakeholders government, private, academia and other public areas have been trained in a continuous manner we have established a strategic plan at the institutional level where we have been able to show the mission, the vision and the values that I have already shown you the strategic plan which is institutional carries out five in-person workshops in 2021 which seeks to promote and there is a great interest of people to participate which has involved the representatives of the national committee, the public private academia and also these leaders of consumers and stakeholders in that area as I mentioned before the strategic institutional plan is aligned with the mandate of the CCA it protects the consumers health and it guarantees equanimous practices in food trade it contributes to sustainable development objectives, the SDS, it participates in the economic social development plan in four of its ten axes it has a planning horizon for four years 2022 to 2025 there is five strategic objectives through 30 indicators that are currently underway we have a web page in Bolivia where we provide all the information access to meetings of interest in food safety all the indications that we had, we did not have this previously in Bolivia what else can I tell you that we are also working on different technical committees we have a national committee for food hygiene in Bolivia in the last meeting in the meeting 53 of codex on food security or hygiene Bolivia presented proposals for good practices for traditional markets 14 countries, 3 international organizations the generation of this document which is to create a culture of safety and we are working on this and we continue to have and to receive support in the committee of food safety or hygiene we have different members, they are aligned with the different projects and committees that have been set forth this is the experience of Bolivia we have worked from the outset from 2008 to 2015 thank you very much for your attention thank you very much Tanya and we we apologize for the mistake that there was on the presentation to begin now with our Q&A process we would like to ask the three panelists that are here with us today Tanya, Nancy so that you can turn on your cameras and also Allison if you're still with us yeah Allison is here, I don't see her, let's wait for a minute she's already with us I heard my name but it's not very clear yes Allison we're going to begin with the Q&A period please is there a question for me? Tanya we're going to begin thank you very much for those that have written your questions in the chat we're going to begin with those and then you can raise your hand and we will open the floor for you there are some questions, the first one is going to be for the three panelists we will gladly hear your answers for the next few years so Jamika's challenges as I outlined in our presentation earlier is primarily just the workload involved in Codex there is a demanding job description and the human resources challenges that Jamika's face where we don't have a dedicated staff compliment towards the work of Codex that currently presents a challenge another is the language barrier at times I do know that the CC lacrysian has more Spanish speaking countries than English language speaking countries so it's going to be a challenge at times especially when we are having face-to-face dialogue CC lac meetings at international meetings where there may not necessarily real-time translation of these conversations so those are the two major challenges that we currently face our human resource challenge and the language barrier challenge Jamika or Tanya, would you like to answer? Well, hi Cuba domestically speaking the Codex work is highly technical with very high level of qualifications and to reach everyone it should reach we consider we need more staff young staff above all that has a willingness to become involved with great awareness of what Codex means not only collaborators because we have a great deal we need a young staff or employees that become involved in these tasks not only of the technical committee which is the seed of this topic but also all the other activities of the focal point and the different stakeholders we have to increase culture also there is an important aspect that although we have carried out the workshops and we have a strategy communication, education sending messages with FAO management or understanding of what this important tool entails which relates to food safety and quality above all in the small scale producers those that are further away from our standpoint do not all have the tools, the IT tools the access to all the different means that are required which the workshops sometimes have the enough tools we need to have more IT means something that is more directed to the different types of public that we need to project ourselves internally to develop applications that may be chosen by the public at large depending on their involvement in their sector, their culture and also going from the more general messages to the most specific messages that will reach people and to achieve a higher participation level with the electronic groups the commission is working in a more virtual manner, it works with electronic groups and sometimes we believe that all the people we need to become fully involved in the work which limits our opportunities externally we believe that Cuba considers that we should also ensure that Codex takes on again the purposes for which it was created which was declarations based on this which is one of the main pillars in its procedural manual because in the current stages the Codex is detached many areas of Codex does not accept the backup of science and this creates dichotomy with the work that the countries are generating we educate people on Codex and we set forth of the commission and the organizations of Codex sometimes there's a loss of transparency that does not help in the process of Codex and internally we have to work but we also have to achieve at the external level that Codex takes on some of the topics from the Cuban standpoint is not on the right path thank you thank you Nancy Tanya yes in Bolivia although we are in a process of advancement it is quite complex aspects of staff to have young new staff that are entering in different activities and to maintain their stability sometimes there's a great deal of rotation with Codex elementaries it's difficult to keep our staff in the process there are many people that need to be trained in Bolivia we need to strengthen the capacities in Bolivia we also need to have the technical and scientific support it is a weakness that we have basically we do not have it established or in a planning or coordinated in all the entities but we are working there's a great deal of collaborators certainly but specializing people in all different topics in the different committees topics of internal interest is very complex it is an arduous task that we need to develop thank you very much to our three panelists for responding to that first question we have a question now for Cuba what entity surveils and monitors food standards in Cuba with what frequency what is the mechanism and scope of the results of the surveillance carried out the compliance in standards in Cuba depends on whether we're talking about what kind of standards there are other organizations that the scope of their competencies participates in the surveillance of standards this is surveillance is a very very strong word because it has to do with a regulating body in Cuba by law they decree decree 8 and the main inspection organization of Cuba is the national office of normalization therefore we have a body of inspectors that has 170 inspectors inspectors in all the provinces and in office within the office of standardization which is dedicated to monitoring in a program that is carried out on an annual basis on the compliance of the laws of Cuba in addition the surveillance we also have another organization that is done on that which relates to mandatory specific standards for example the sanitary surveils the standards that are mandatory which is the food safety and other directives of Cuba which are mandated which can affect the health of people at large and also we have the hygiene and of course when referring to animals authority there is national health of animals which surveils the mandatory areas that have to do with animal and that which relates to the vegetable we have the fiddle sanitary now in that which relates to its competencies and then there is a report that is issued with a quarterly frequency set forth to the Cuban government it has two chapters one of non-conformity which is a result which is set forth by the office and compliance with the norms of food and the requirements that they have to comply with and another chapter that is filled in by the sanitary organizations and that which relates to the impact that have come as a result of the compliance of those standards there is a national debate that reaches the responsible partners and they have to set forth the different compliance aspects that have been set forth thank you very much if you have any other questions on this topic thank you Nancy for your answer I am going to continue with the next question one second please general we talk about food safety but Codex is also centered around creating a quantumous trade how would you summarize the effect Codex has had on your trade in your nations this question is for all three of you I don't know Tanya would you like to begin? yes in fact there is an impact when this kind of standard exists in our case with our experience in quinoa there was no specific regulation there was no reference port for the trade of quinoa but by establishing a standard there are guidelines for a quantumous trade countries have their specific regulations that are specific to their countries but right now there is a baseline in addition that people know the product the characteristics of the products in this case and basically in our processes in the case of healthy products this is very broad and there is a great deal of analysis of food safety how trade should be carried out at a national and international level yes there is an impact thank you Tanya Alison would you like to respond to this question? thank you the impact of trade as we all know thankful to Codex all countries who have a seat at the table I've seen in instances where it is through Codex standards which being the basis on which our national legislation should be formed have helped in trade and it is just that premise on which Jamaica still works as hard as it does to maintain its presence to keep active role in the promulgation of Codex standards and having those standards being a part of our national legislation it is also important to note that for trading amongst ourselves in the CCLAC region that has been helpful in our participation and it is just as Tanya mentioned just now just continuing giving our countries a voice at the international developing nations as well it is pretty important to have that say and to work together as a region to ensure that trading with major interest or major crop or major food commodities do have access to that global market Thank you Alison for your answer Nancy would you like to answer please in the question all the exportable products have standards in Cuba including food and there isn't a single food that can be exported from Cuba that can comply with the sanitary regulations which are subject of course of the work of the sanitary authorities on the other hand we have an expert committee on food safety as national control food surveillance and anything that has to do with this topic or other any of the members or any of the authorities in their offices as a coordinator of the national food system to take on an area that could have implications in the country in the production and the exports or in health and any matter that has to do with the activity the trade activity from that standpoint the food that is exported is protected and every year we affiliate with the Ministry of Foreign Trade which is a member of that workgroup of the national codex and trade and we analyze the interests of the countries and we verify if these are standards from codex and many times it's not enough it's important to say that from our standpoint sometimes there's more than that because sometimes food have to comply with other regulations that are enforced in the markets and they're not necessarily codex and this happens with Mercosur with South America sometimes it happens with the European Union with some regulation that are obstacles for trade because it comes from their experiences and their impact and therefore we must refer to this when we meet we have to give it a broader vision in that which relates to food trade including our analysis which are the regulations in matters of requirements of the Indian markets where the Cuban products are reaching thank you very much we have so many questions and we would like to continue with this discussion which becomes more and more interesting notwithstanding that we are limited in time we're going to take on the last question and we will gather them and send them by email so that you will have them all so the last question is after the 60 years how can codex continue being relevant in the future whether for your country, the region or at the global level this question is for all three of you so whoever would like to begin please take the floor the codex in our opinion go ahead, go ahead Nancy in our opinion for codex to maintain itself as we need it codex Cuba considers that it must pay more attention to be an institution based on science and it has to be attached to this principle and to be able to achieve not employ 50% of our debates discussing on the results of the science of codex whether they are correct or not where not a single country for many years could present any evidence of this so we have to respect science in codex, respect the gigs and of the scientific or organisms that support it and to care for the transparency of codex and to attach ourselves to the manual sometimes we have to respond to certain things because some countries do not know and some participating countries do not know and they require aspects that are outside of the manual or against the manual therefore we believe that it is very important codex must continue building capacity codex should understand that not all countries have access to training on these topics and that we could create more collaboration on a south south basis that are standing better that have more expert work could support countries with less possibilities because not everything could is supported with 1% so that someone can go to a meeting we should create in codex work mechanisms that are more effective to continue building capacity in different countries and we have to be very careful that they are continued to be created that they have the capacities in countries for example aspects of certifications on trade, on remote certifications and so on it's important that countries have IT because the producers are not in the main capital cities and then it becomes a problem for nations therefore codex has to be more inclusive it has to take on the reality of all the countries that are food producers and that it builds capacities attach itself to the manuals and to ensure that its members follow it and it continues to be a relevant organization these are the things that need to be taking place thank you very much doctor Allison please so Nancy beats me to what I had to say and I fully endorse her points that she has made in terms of the inclusion full and unrestricted inclusion of developing countries giving us the opportunity to be standard players the consideration that not every country will have the access to resources as every other country and to also invest in capacity building for all these developing countries such as ourselves so that's basically what I would want to see for codex in the next 60 years I must also take the opportunity to highlight or to commend codex on the strides that it has made over the last 60 years granted I was not a part of majority of these years but having attended international sessions during codex 60 and just the strides codex has made it is very commendable with the implementation of their new websites having technological access to their texts so it's much easier than I remember it being when I just entered the work of codex so in agreement with what Nancy said I do believe that codex has come a long way and we look forward I can say for all of us that we do look forward to the improvements that will come in the future and we totally embrace what is in store for all of us and we look forward to that thank you very much would you like to add something else yes basically a great deal of food is produced for the world and we must continue disseminating the information on the production of food science space must be prevalent above all that is the issue that we should maintain the scientific baseline thank you very much to all three panelists we're sorry that we ran out of time we'd like to congratulate all of you for your enormous contribution to food safety and quality I would like to leave my colleague to conclude and close the seminar thank you for giving us some extra time and for the panelists it was an excellent debate we will have a longer moment to be able to have more fruitful discussions please turn on your camera so we can take a picture of this event just take a moment just turn on your cameras for a little moment because it's four screen shots full of images we are ready for the picture take the first pictures start smiling please there goes the first one the second one now and the third one we're done thank you very much and we remind you and extend the participation to continue participating in our webinars our next date is the 26th of October which is module 5 food safety under the focus of One Health we have sent the information and please connect to our social networks they will be shared on FOA web pages and CSElect and the recording of these seminars and others can be found on the web page that we have written on the chest we will see you in October thank you very much for your attention thank you all, goodbye


We serve about not only the installation command, but over 50 tenant commands. And as the SARC for the base, it is my pleasure to work with about 32 victim advocates that we have trained and our points of contact in the commands, and they are the people who make this program possible, and they are the ones who helped me do my job. I am in public service for about 30 years, and it is my thought for myself that my success will be measured not by what I have, but by what I give.


It was a three-year project, it just ended at the end of 2015 and the end line was just completed last month as well. So this is the learning-to-date as of the end of 2014, which was the end of the second year of a three-year program and we're eagerly awaiting the end line results, I'm sure the Tufts is crunching data as we speak, but we thought the findings were interesting enough to present as they are to date. So just two disclaimers, one is that when about the end line this story could change once we get those results obviously and the second one is that I'm not an agriculturalist, I'm a nutritionist and you won't get, there is a strong agricultural component in this program but you won't get a lot of rich detail unfortunately in this presentation. So I thought I'd start with two key messages at the risk of stealing my own thunder, just putting them up there, because I think they complement some of the agri-diet conclusions which is that wash in fact, our findings from the midline is that wash in fact may be at least as important as agriculture to improve nutrition in this context and it just underscores how important it is to understand your own context where you're working or living and the second headline is that size matters and specifically we've found that village size matters and I'll explain a bit more about that but for us that underscores that despite trying as we're all striving to develop and deliver multi-sectoral programs with different interventions that we can't ignore the coverage that we're achieving or saturating or converging all these different multi-sectoral interventions and making sure that we are in order to have an impact. Okay, so this is just background on our program area, I might just highlight that it's largely agro-pastoralist, the main harvest October, November, it's millet, sorghum, ground nuts, it's French speaking and Arabic speaking, malnutrition is high, gender inequality is widespread, polygamy is practiced not that the two go hand in hand but it definitely affects the social dynamic, migration levels are high, often up to Libya, the health system is very weak and there's a history of displacement due to conflict and drought and that's it, it's just on the border with Sudan. So how our CRAM model which is what we described it as first because it was in fact a bit of a headquarters conceptual model that then quickly was taken up by our concerned Chad team and fully developed but it was based on our experience in many countries realizing that trying to reach these rather elusive development goals in places that are constantly experiencing shocks and stresses such as droughts, floods, earthquakes, particularly in Chad it was drought and occasionally floods just wasn't working. So from this conceptual model which was in kind of technical advisors heads and a little bit on paper it was fully fleshed out in Chad, turned into an integrated multi-sectoral design with this contingency plan so a lot of trying to detect when a particular shock was going to come and be prepared to respond to these localized emergencies and I've put this in blue because I think and not just because I think Irish aid is in the room but because I think it's a message that has to get out there that it was really the opportunity of the multi-annual Irish aid funding we get institutional funding from Irish aid for a five-year time span and this is just the kind of opportunity that you need to develop these kinds of programs especially in difficult contexts such as Chad. So it was a three-year pilot program I put pilot in quotes there only because we've already moved on with different funding for a similar program even though the end line results are in but it was seen as an opportunity for learning and that's why the partnership with the Feinstein International Centre to develop a very strong impact evaluation and operational research was at the core of the program. This is the conceptual model so we aim to improve child nutrition food security and resilience to future shocks and stresses just around the theme of measurement we have very clear metrics around child nutrition and some around food security we're still struggling a bit to figure out how we measure resilience to future shocks and stresses but it's there in principle and we're working on that. So essentially a conceptual model was an integrated set of interventions agriculture wash health system strengthening social and behavior change and gender equality all being appropriate and that's to be delivered in all years and then an early warning system as I said to detect when for example a poor harvest is coming that would try sorry trigger timely response and that would be delivered in a bad year. So that was kind of the theory in Chad these are the interventions that more detailed interventions roughly that were delivered and this was focused on predicting poor harvest so in terms of agriculture it was really lead farmers to per village who were trying to promote particularly conservation agriculture and some climate smart agricultural practices vegetable gardens for women and we have behavior change communication to improve mothers understanding and also build their confidence around caring for their children and seeking care at the health centers very importantly we drilled one borehole or ensured that there was one borehole per village and also supported latrine building and then we provided support to the health system and some other aspects around animal health workers. We did try to promote women's or in the in theory we were going to really make an effort in promoting women's decision-making. I almost put as my third message that promoting women's or gender equality is very hard but it seemed a bit defeatist but we haven't really shifted much in the equality aspect but we're working on it. Okay so here's the impact evaluation design so 35 villages were randomly received uh sorry randomly selected to receive the whole integrated package and 35 villages randomly selected to not receive basically they were the control villages and we had a baseline survey midline survey and line survey and the same households were followed up at the baseline the midline and the end line so there's a lot of tracking going on there a similar design as the agri-diet and that respect qualitative research as well some longitudinal monthly data collection which I'll show you in a minute. So in terms of program impacts there are kind of two pieces of findings the first is around did this integrated model that we designed to work and as compared for those who received it as compared to those in the control group we don't have multiple arms so we can't say for example that it was the addition of WASH the addition of community health workers to say what we just have it worked it didn't work so at midline what we found is a direct result of the program that levels of acute malnutrition among children have reduced albeit in smaller villages not in larger villages and we don't fully understand yet why households are better able to cope with the hunger gap and this was as measured by the coping strategy index but and I'll get into this in the next slide just it was only captured from the monthly data so this idea of seasonality not just in how it affects people but how your monitoring systems you have to include some kind of seasonality when you're dealing when you're trying to see what works in these contexts is is also emerging and more parents brought their sick children for treatment at a health center hospital or mobile clinic in our program villages so we had a community health component in the intervention or program villages and not in the control villages and that seems to have made a difference so just in terms of measure the measures of food security we used sorry there are a few more findings but just while we're on this topic of coping with the hunger gap we used a community or coping strategy index which I won't go into but it's basically 10 questions of how people of how you're coping with food shortages total months of food insecurity and household diet diversity so I'm glad the the theme of seasonality has already been introduced because this is one of the key findings and again it's it's really in terms it's partially in terms of being able to measure impact of a program like this so this is the coping strategy index so basically the higher your score yet the worse off you are so fewer coping strategies down below here and the worse off there the top line are our control villages so this is the longitudinal longitudinal data that was collected from 60 households every month to say did you do any of these 10 behaviors it starts from kind of moderate or mild food coping strategies to really extreme I think the last one is going without food for an entire day so the control villages as you can see overall had higher they were doing worse they were employing more coping strategies that our program villages were lower and kind of able to cope and the interesting thing there then is just that the harvest which happens around October November they kind of converge again so in our in our kind of annual surveys or our baseline midline online we wouldn't have picked that up at all if it wasn't for this sub-sample so just back to the last I think for findings headline findings more households this is around wash so more households reported using an improved source for drinking water which was a borehole which isn't surprising because as I said we established one in each village but just to note that increase was greater in smaller villages again I'll come back to that more households knew the critical times to wash hands and there were further signs of improved hygiene were seen as well in terms of the portion of households who had a hand washing station or could actually display proper hand washing technique was higher in the control villages but only in the smaller control villages are sorry in the intervention villages but only in the smaller intervention villages so basically we're seeing an impact on hygiene in our program villages and especially in the smaller villages and finally there were no improvement seen in female decision making the household which is a shame but to be perfectly honest we didn't actually we weren't actually able to implement a lot of gender activities and that has been addressed we have a new gender strategy going forward so the final thing is less about impact of our program but looking at the wider data set so looking at the the program and the control villages and the households within them together as as a whole set he keep all nutrition and children under five was found to be significantly linked to the frequency with which households reported washing their water containers and the presence of lives it was also linked to the presence of livestock in the village so if livestock in particular in that village if there was a greater concentration of livestock and if they were also reported to be using the same you know in a borehole you know using the same water point rather than a separate waterhole for animals then the children in those villages were more likely to be acutely malnourished and probably the most important thing is that no such link was found between the keep monetization and any of the three food security measures that I mentioned before so it's really just and it could be specific to this context and I think as Ed said there's it's complicated there's probably a lot more going on but for us this is very very interesting it's just we don't have there's a paper being produced it's been produced by Tufts we're just waiting for it to be published so that we can share it more widely and then again the end line findings will hopefully either strengthen or potentially refute that that mid line finding but basically watch the space there's more coming um do I have time yeah okay okay so this is uh so the last I was meant to about an early warning system I think in fairness what we have so far something that Tufts has developed it's an early warning um modeling so it's it's able to predict this is I just took this picture off the website because we I don't think we I don't know if we have a map this is I think North America somewhere but it's from the same website that has the data sets that Tufts has used to develop this model so they basically use rainfall data um from satellites from satellite source showing the total amount and the distribution of rainfall and it's I think it's down to a 10 kilometer square kilometer area they compared that with historical rainfall data or they they compared that so they took that data set it's a massive thing I think NASA and the Japanese um outfit organizes it Paul knows more um and they uh they took the the last 10 years of that data and they compared it against what the Ministry of Agriculture and had as the last 10 years of millet and sorghum harvest and it was very strongly correlated so and they also compared it against they they took a sample of people and asked older people and asked them to remember the last 10 years and rate the last 10 years as very bad bad good very good um and that also correlated quite well with the harvest data and and the rainfall data so it seems to be a good a good fit a good um proxy the rainfall data for food security and the harvest um it appears to be quite predictive uh probably more work needs to be done I mean it's similar to fuse net but it's really down to a very localized level and strictly on rainfall and it gives you a better it gives it has given us for the past two years roughly two month advance um prediction of what the harvest is going to be like which did allow us I think in 2013 to actually scale up a seed distribution um a bit in advance so more works to be done to build the whole early warning system so as I said there's a lot going on at the regional level the national level that we need to look at um we need to look at the whole picture and kind of figure out how this fits in and make sure we're not contradicting or going against so quick implications for programs so the multi-sectoral program seems to be working to prevent acute malnutrition but as I said we need to ensure sufficient coverage and this is this small village versus large village so I think it's probably obvious that if you dig a borehole in a village with 500 people and one with 150 people that the borehole in the village with 150 people should have it will probably have greater impact in terms of they'll have more water they'll have more regular access to it they don't have to wait in line potentially um and the same would go for interactions with community health workers if you have I don't know I don't have the figures in front of me but if you have the same number chasing 150 villages versus 500 there's probably a lot more that can be done at the same time there could be something else intrinsically about the social network in a small village maybe it's more coherent maybe there's a tipping point at which people the whole village just says right we're gonna start breastfeeding or we're gonna start washing our hands or so we don't really fully understand that um and just this hygiene a lot along the water chain I think I didn't mention that we did a lot of testing along the water chain to confirm some of this and hopefully we'll have as I said more on this and the livestock link with acute malnutrition so these are just more general ones strong impact evaluation very helpful and useful the importance of the longitudinal data alongside that and the qualitative data to explain the why and the how so there's a strong qualitative element that um has actually just come through in the last day or so from Tufts so we should have a lot to say hopefully in about two to three months and the last one sorry it's getting knocked off there but it's just that this partnership between NGOs and academic institution like Tufts can really work and we can really advance learning and leaps and bounds but they do require work they do require clear budgets contracts expectations regular concentration and flexibility and we used a small steering committee internally that that seemed to work last slide is just end line results as I said to be analyzed and shared and and the continuation so cram has finished and the randomized control trial has finished a randomized control design has finished but we've already that's overlapped with new funding from DFID under the building resilience and adaptation to climate extremes in Chad and Sudan where we're basically going to expand this cram approach it's a three-year programming program will continue with Tufts and the and we'll also be working with the world agroforestry center incorporate more try to adapt the model to pastures particularly working with the pastures focused NGO in Sudan and more to come