Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1117
- 1119)
TUESDAY 20 MAY 2008
Dr Bernard Vallat, Dr Alain Dehove, Dr Sarah Kahn
and Dr Alex Thiermann
Q1117 Chairman:
First of all, may I thank you very much for your time this afternoon,
we are very grateful. Personally, I am very pleased, as I am sure
the Committee is, to be present at this office, which has a very
established history—from, I believe, 1924. I think you have
done a great deal of very important and very good work, so for
that alone I would thank you. Our purpose as the House of Lords
Committee on Intergovernmental Organisations is to look at the
question of how intergovernmental organisations can work better
and how we, in Britain, use taxpayers' money to improve the working
of these organisations to address the issue of contagious diseases.
We are obviously more interested in the structure of the intergovernmental
organisations and, with them, the non-governmental organisations
than the actual diseases themselves, although that is very relevant.
Part of this is the all-important aspect of where it overlaps
with animal health. Can I say that these proceedings are recorded
by our shorthand writer; they will be produced and you will see
them in draft form and be able to make any factual corrections
that you wish before they are published. They will be sent to
you. Perhaps I should start by asking the members of the panel
to introduce themselves and their roles. When we ask our questions,
if anybody wants to come in and answer those, we would be glad
to hear it. Our purpose is to get as much information as possible
about the structure of the intergovernmental organisations and
the need to address the animal health/human health interface.
Perhaps if we could start with an introduction from you and then
we will start with questions.
Dr Vallat: Thank you. I would like to welcome
you. As the UK is a very active member of the OIE, we consider
your exercise very important and I decided to invite some members
of the OIE staff to this exercise. I have invited people to participate
with us and all British citizens working with us in the OIE in
our headquarters in Paris. OIE was created before the United Nations,
and that is why it is not part of the United Nations and is very
proud to be independent from this body. You have proposed that
the participants will present themselves, so I will ask my staff
to do this.
Q1118 Chairman:
If they could perhaps just introduce themselves and the roles
that they play within your organisation and then we will start
with the questions.
Dr Dehove: Good afternoon. I am Dr Alain Dehove.
I am the Co-ordinator of the World Animal Health and Welfare Fund
at the OIE.
Dr Kahn: Good afternoon. I am Dr Sarah Kahn.
I am Head of the International Trade Department, a British citizen
but most of my work career, in fact, has been in Australia and
Canada, so Commonwealth countries. Since 2006 I have been responsible
for the International Trade Department here at the OIE.
Dr Thiermann: Good afternoon. My name is Alex
Thiermann. I am not a member of the staff of the OIE, I am an
elected member of the Code Commission, the Standard Setting Body
of the OIE.
Q1119 Chairman:
Thank you very much for that. Can I start with the first question,
which is based on the evidence you gave us—that you see,
not unreasonably, your primary mission to improve animal health
worldwide, not least because of the crucial aspect it plays in
human disease. You talk about the need for "new institutional
and technical mechanisms for preventing and controlling animal
diseases" spreading nationally, regionally and worldwide.
What sort of institutional mechanism would you like to see introduced
in order to improve that? Perhaps in answering that you could
also tell me what the position is in relation to the United Nations.
I think you were asking if they would pass a resolution requiring
all 172 members of the OIE, but also more widely than that, to
set the same standards that you set in veterinary services.
Dr Vallat: Thank you. Our fundamental text gives
power to the national representatives nominated by governments
to decide on the policies of the organisation through resolutions.
We have an annual General Assembly and the members vote on resolutions.
Each country has one voice. Currently we have 172 members (countries
and territories). Two years ago they voted for a strategic plan.
This is an exercise that we conduct every five years to ensure
that we are implementing the strategic plan adopted by vote by
our 172 members. The new strategic plan has put as the main objective
of our organisation to improve animal health worldwide. I would
like to inform you that this strategic plan was voted by unanimity
by all member countries. To implement this objective we try to
influence all members, and to do that we use different tools.
One of the important tools is international conferences organised
with other organisations, such as FAO, WHO, the World Bank. We
participate in all international conferences which include objectives
related to health or animal welfare. We obtain a position to express
our opinion on this at international conferences and, of course,
we try to influence resolutions always voted on by participants.
This is a very efficient way to influence the international community
to give more interest to our objectives. We also use official
visits to different countries, contacts with governments and their
administrations. We have official agreements with different international
organisations with influence, such as the World Bank. We have
an official agreement endorsed by our member countries and World
Bank members and this is very useful to convince donors at a worldwide
level to consider the animal health programme in developing countries
as important in the competition we have between different topics
to be found in developing countries. Also, we try to convince
governments of developed countries to invest in-country where
there is a reservoir of pathogens, bacteria, virus, parasites,
that it is more cost-efficient than trying to protect only the
borders of a country.
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