GLOBAL – The Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) is inviting countries to apply for support from the FAO/WHO Codex Trust Fund (CTF) which helps countries to build strong, solid and sustainable national capacity to engage in Codex.
Applications from qualifying countries or groups of countries are evaluated in a fair and open manner, and those that are approved are given support for up to three years.
The first Codex Trust Fund (CTF1) funded nearly 1,100 participants in training sessions and seminars between 2004 and 2015, in addition to 2,359 people from poor and transitional economies who attended Codex meetings.
The number of Codex members increased from 169 to 188 over the course of CTF1.
According to the Commission, it is essential that developing nations continue to take part in the process of defining international standards, and they still need support.
As such, eligible countries can submit financial requests to CTF2 in order to fix “priority” vulnerabilities in their national Codex organizations that hinder them from properly participating in the work of the Commission and related committees.
To assist applicants in identifying their top deficiencies, FAO and WHO have created a “Diagnostic Tool” (full name: “Diagnostic Tool for Assessing Status of National Codex Programmes”).
The Diagnostic Tool will be the foundation for the application and the point of reference for contemplating about a CTF2 grant request.
After the diagnostic evaluation is finished, the country can choose whether to submit a group application or an individual application to the Codex Trust Fund for financial assistance.
The Diagnostic Tool’s main goal is to give users a framework for self-evaluation of their country’s present Codex capacity.
A national consultative process is used to diagnose the country’s Codex capacity, and the official Codex Contact Point (CCP) oversees it.
CCPs may speak with FAO/WHO Regional Officers and/or FAO/WHO technical officers at the country level (where applicable) to discuss various aspects of a proposed application and to solicit their guidance and opinion as part of the process of producing a strong application at the national level.
Group applications
Countries with similar gaps and needs may band together to address these shared concerns after conducting a diagnosis of the national Codex program using the “Diagnostic Tool”.
These provide solid justification for a group application.
The application’s justification would also discuss how individual country and group activities are related to and complement one another.
Discussions between nations during Codex sessions may also produce concepts for group applications.
Currently, a country that has had an application approved is no longer eligible to submit another proposal for funding of a different project.
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