The initiative to proclaim an International Year of Plant Health in the year 2020 (IYPH 2020) has gained further traction at the 39th Conference of FAO held in Rome from 6-13 June 2015. Following the strongly endorsed decision of the Tenth Session of the Commission of Phytosanitary Measures (CPM) to fully support an IYPH 2020 the FAO Conference has now followed suit and welcomed the initiative, which was raised by Finland. During the FAO Conferences, Finland stated that it intends to formally make a request to the FAO Director General to establish the IYPH. It received strong support from several other FAO members. Since then some countries have been active in furthering this initiative including the EU, where the IYPH 2020 was discussed at the recent meeting of the Council of Ministers and where the initiative received strong backing from several EU Member States and the EU Commission.
Considering the widespread support of the IYPH 2020, the IPPC Secretariat is currently in the process of developing further communication tools to promote IYPH 2020 and to help ippc contracting parties to nationally muster support for celebrating the IYPH in 2020. (IPPC Secretariat)