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Safe Trade and Movement of Animals
Sustainable development can only be achieved by ensuring safe international trade. Through its actions, WOAH supports an international trading system based on the principles of transparency and collaboration.
Strengthening capacity of Veterinary Services in International Trade
Veterinary Services play a vital role in ensuring the safe trade and movement of animals and animal products. To support them, WOAH provides guidance on international trade regulatory framework and capacity-building activities.
Part I : The international trade regulatory framework
The World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements and WOAH international standards provide the framework to facilitate the negotiation between exporting and importing countries and to agree on the sanitary requirements to be applied in trade of live animal and animal products.
Associated resources:
WOAH Codes and Manuals
Part II: Role of Veterinary Services international trade
There might be as many ways to organise the process to define the conditions for trade between countries as there are country-country interactions. Still, the role and meaningfulness of Veterinary Services in this process are in essence the same despite the procedural differences.
Associated resources:
Trade infographic
Scientific and Technical Review on Trade (June 2020)
Part III: Challenges faced by VS in the context of international trade
An analysis of PVS reports and other data sources (WOAH Official status, self-declaration, WTO SPS Committee) was performed to identify key challenges faced by Veterinary services in the context of international trade as well as successful practices.
Associated resources:
PVS Pathway
Official Disease Status
Observatory
Part IV: Veterinary Services’ competencies to secure international trade
Discusses associated competencies for Veterinary Services in trade and WOAH activities to reinforce Veterinary Services’ capacities.
Associated resources:
PVS PathwayAll courses | WOAH eLearning Platform
Part V: WOAH capacity-building activities to reinforce VS capacity on trade
Discusses associated competencies for Veterinary Services in trade and WOAH activities to reinforce Veterinary Services’ capacities.
Associated resources:
PVS PathwayAll courses | WOAH eLearning Platform
Safe trade for sustainable development
The World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) has developed a position paper titled: ‘Safe trade for sustainable development: WOAH and its contribution’ with the aim of highlighting the organisation’s contribution to safe and sustainable trade.
The paper outlines the role of WOAH in facilitating sustainable and safe international trade through its international standards and global actions. Firstly, it presents the ongoing trends in global trade and the role of international standards, as well as the challenges that could arise from the absence of these standards. Then it elaborates on the positive impact of WOAH activities and their contribution to a secure and sustainable global trading system and the link with the achievement of the Sustainable Development Agenda by 2030.
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.pdf – 2 MB See the document
We invite the international community at large to join WOAH in improving the resilience of animal health systems and ensuring safe international trade.
Observatory on the implementation of standards
To better support Members in a global context where cross-border issues are becoming more and more complex, threatening an erosion of trust between trading partners, WOAH must analyse and report on how its international standards are effectively implemented by its Members by identifying progress made as well as challenges encountered.
The knowledge generated from evidence and comprehensive analysis of the realities should support WOAH and its Members in the decision-making process and how to improve systems performances. Finally, it should inform WOAH on how to better support Members in their implementation efforts.
Members reiterated this need in May 2018 through the adoption of Resolution No. 36 recommending the establishment of an Observatory on the implementation of standards.