WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/SPS/GEN/404
12 June 2003
(03-3046)
Committee on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures Original:  English/
French/
Spanish
THE INTERNATIONAL PORTAL FOR FOOD SAFETY, PLANT,
AND ANIMAL HEALTH (IPFSAPH)
Communication from Codex Alimentarius Commission*
THE NEED FOR THE PORTAL
1. The changing patterns of food and agricultural production, greater attention to the
environmental impact of agriculture, emergence of new technologies and potential contaminants,increase in international trade, and a heightened c onsumer awareness of food safety and animal health
issues have all combined to increase interest in global sanitary and phytosanitary measures.
2. This interest comes from international agencies; national trade, agriculture, food safety,
environment and consumer protection services; international trading partners; and private sector
organizations.  Each requires reliable information on standards, regulations, scientific evaluations, andother supporting information to make decisions on trade-related issues or to prepare relevant
regulations or measures.
3. Despite the broad level of interest, obtaining accurate and current information can be difficult.
A user may need to search the websites of a number of different international standard setting bodies
to retrieve all the relevant information on a pa rticular commodity or on a specific topic that
transverses traditional sectors.  The same scenario is repeated at the national level where standards,
regulations, and related information may be spr ead across the websites of several agencies.
4. There are two common problems:  (1) information may be difficult to locate, and (2) it may
not always be clear which source represents the official position on a given subject.  This is
compounded where information is relevant to multiple sectors or more than one country.
5. At the other extreme, internet access remains problematic in some countries and information
has not yet been transferred to electronic media, so trading partners must go through a lengthy andexpensive process of contacting each trading partner directly to obtain standards and import
information.
THE PURPOSE OF THE PORTAL
6. Based on the above considerations, FAO is leading an interagency initiative, intending to
involve the relevant international agencies and standard setting bodies to develop an internet-basedportal - the International Portal on Food Safety , Animal and Plant Health (IPFSAPH) - which will
                                                     
* This information paper will be presented as document CAC/26 INF/6, to the Twenty-Sixth Session of
the Codex Alimentarius Commission, at FAO Headquarters, Rome, Italy, 30 June 2003 – 7 July 2003.G/SPS/GEN/404
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permit an authoritative search for current standards, regulations and other relevant official materials
from a single access point.
7. Through the main standard setting bodies (t he Codex Alimentarius Commission [Codex],
International Plant Protection Convention [IPPC] a nd the Office International des Épizooties [OIE]),
FAO is also seeking to mobilise national support to make national sanitary and phytosanitaryinformation available through the IPFSAPH.
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS
Ownership
8. The key design consideration for the IPFSAPH has been to ensure that data ownership is
retained by the relevant agency or national body.
9. To date, systems created to collect and disseminate sanitary and phytosanitary information
have had only limited success.  Third party attempts to interpret and re-present official materials
usually fail as users need to revert to the original source to be confident that essential components
have not been lost.  On the other hand, systems for countries to publish materials have been
undermined by users failing to supply (or provide updates for) the requested data.  Though the reasons
for this are complex, the inconvenience of complian ce and the perception that compliance yields few
benefits to countries are recognised as contributing factors.
10. With this in mind, the IPFSAPH project has taken as a primary objective to avoid
duplication of effort and minimise the cost of participation by linking to existing sites wherever
possible.  This applies to international standard setting bodies as well as national government
agencies. In this way, data owners remain fully responsible for maintenance and liable for the qualityof the content displayed.  At the same time, the portal offers publication facilities for any countries
without pre-existing websites to allow them to post information which would not otherwise be
available electronically.
Maintenance
11. To facilitate these arrangements without major maintenance costs, the process of linking must
be automated as far as possible – simply including links to current web pages would mean a majority
of broken links within a short period (manually entered links "break" when source web sites are
redesigned).
12. One way of achieving this long term maintenance is through the exchange of metadata –
formal descriptions of the content on the source sites which also include the current address of the
webpage to be viewed.  For instance in the plant health sector, member countries are required byinternational convention (IPPC) to provide certain information to the International Phytosanitary
Portal (IPP).  Based on a mapping of information types in the IPP, this information is also viewed
automatically from the IPFSAPH; when the IPP s ource changes, the version visible from the
IPFSAPH also changes.
Language
13. The use of a common formal scheme for describing materials on the IPFSAPH and in the
source websites is also useful for handling material in multiple languages.  The portal will make all
materials available in the original language, but will also ensure that the resource is described using a
controlled vocabulary in one of five core languages (English, French, Spanish, Chinese and Arabic).G/SPS/GEN/404
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Translation of the controlled vocabulary will permit keyword searches to be performed in each of the
five languages.
CURRENT STATUS OF THE PROJECT AND TIMETABLE
14. The project is being implemented in the following stages:
Develop an IPFSAPH prototype and test with users
15. The IPFSAPH project is currently testing a prototype version of the portal user interface
based on a limited set of accessible content.  This testing has already begun in the food safety area
starting with a group of food safety officials from Central and Eastern Europe (following a regional
food safety meeting in Slovakia in March 2003) to provide feedback on the procedure for inputting
and accessing information.
Include sample international and national data to illustrate potential uses
16. At the same time, informal discussions are ongoing with international agency partners on
enabling access to standards and supporting materials through the portal.  Bilateral discussions are
also underway with representatives from countries  involved in the import of food and agricultural
products regarding making national regulations available systematically through the portal.
Formalise interagency collaboration and management of the portal
17. In parallel with the above steps, work is und erway to formalise the interagency collaboration
and management of the portal.  Initially, FAO will remain responsible for providing the software
system, administration, and maintenance of the system.  An interagency task force is envisaged toguide portal development from prototype to the first release version and beyond.  The first meeting is
planned to take place in conjunction with the 26
th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission
(Rome, 30 June 2003 - 7 July 2003).  A meeting w ith information management specialists from the
participating agencies to facilitate the actual exch ange of information is planned after the initial task
force meeting.  A second meeting of the task force is  planned to review the first release of the portal
and commit to longer-term support arrangements.
Launch Version 1.0 of the IPFSAPH
18. A formal launch is expected to occur in early 2004.
Extend IPFSAPH scope
19. The formal launch will be supported by a programme of capacity building integrated into
existing capacity building efforts by the various agencies, with further programmes to be well
coordinated between agencies.  This will include:
• building awareness and understanding of the benefits of information exchange;
• development of national strategies for the exchange of official information;
• assistance in the development of computing facilities and information management
capacity to support information exchange;
• human resource development and training sessions for national authorities on the use
of the portal and data input and editing functionality;  andG/SPS/GEN/404
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• tailored training sessions to targeted audiences of end users on the use of the portal.
20. Through this capacity building program, it is envisaged that arrangements can be made with
other countries for automatic and/or manual loading of their national information.
MAKING NATIONAL FOOD SAFETY REGULATIONS AVAILABLE THROUGH THE
IPFSAPH
21. Although there are no formal national informa tion sharing commitments  within the existing
Codex regulations, countries which make available their standards, regulations, and other formal texts
relating to food safety will benefit through increased viability of international trade.  With an increase
in transparency, it is also possible to anticipate some reduction in the effort required to monitor and
control trade at national points of entry, and should help increase the number of accepted shipments
into that country.  Countries who are in the proce ss of formulating regulations and standards will also
benefit from the ability to view the various approaches taken by others to address similar issues.
22. While this portal offers a useful compilation of material representing the international
regulatory framework on food safety, animal and plant health, the portal will only be truly successful
with national participation through the making available of relevant regulations and formal texts for
access by trading partners.
23. Activities are currently being planned in conjunction with the Codex Alimentarius
Commission to mobilise support for inclusion of national food safety information in the portal.
24. In the meantime, for further information on the IPFSAPH, please contact:
Mike Robson:  IPFSAPH Project Manager
at:  Mike.Robson@fao.org
Niek van der Graaff:  Chairman FAO Bios ecurity Inter-Departmental Working Group
at:  Niek.VanDerGraaff@fao.org
Ezzeddine Boutrif:  Secret ary FAO Biosecurity Inter- Departmental Working Group
at:  Ezzeddine.Boutrif@fao.org
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