The 23rd session of the FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (CCLAC23) will take place virtually, 22-26 July 2024. As Members and Observers prepare for the meeting, we sat down with Rommel Betancourt, Chairperson of CCLAC23, to talk about the agenda, his experience in leading Codex work in the region over the last four years, and much more. In this interview, Rommel also shares some memories recalling his first thoughts and feelings related to his new role as regional coordinator.

Rommel, thanks for your time. You are well-known in the Codex family, but there might be some new delegates who don’t know you yet. How would you introduce yourself?

I would say "Welcome to the Codex family and to the world of Codex". Codex is a fascinating world, even if it sometimes seems a bit somewhat abstract. We are responsible for ensuring the correct elaboration of food standards, codes of practice, guidelines. We are part of the three sisters recognised by the World Trade Organization (WTO) and always base our decisions on the scientific process. We are proud to carry this responsibility of being able to contribute positively to fulfilling the two great mandates we have been given: to protect the health of consumers and to establish fair practices in the food trade. From Ecuador in the Middle of the World, and through the coordination of the FAO/WHO Committee for Latin America and the Caribbean (CCLAC), I am and will always be very happy to support, work together, build bridges and engage in deep dialogues. Personally, I consider dialogue as a fundamental tool to create consensus and although this is an important point, much depends on us: we need to take those steps to be able to agree, to reach consensus, to move forward in a joint, harmonized way and with teamwork. That is what it is all about. I hope to be able to find more people that share this vision to continue working together.

CCLAC23 will meet virtually. How are you preparing for the meeting? 

I would first of all and once again welcome all delegates to Ecuador, although this time again virtually: it will always be a pleasure to welcome you and I hope that very soon we will be able to do so in person. However, virtuality remains a tool for inclusiveness that allows us to facilitate the participation of Member States in meetings as important as CCLAC23. We have prepared very robustly, and I would like to thank the authorities of Ecuador, the Agrocalidad team, as well as the CCLAC Secretariat and the Codex Secretariat and the Member Countries, with whom we have been working hard over the last two years. Thanks to this work and to the information received by the Member Countries of the region, we have managed to have a series of documents that we are going to discuss and work on together, and I am also grateful for the work of the CCLAC team who helped in the compilation and systematization of this data, resulting in the timely publication of the two versions of the discussion documents.

Can you tell us about the key issues on the agenda?

I would like to highlight agenda item 4 ‘Codex work relevant for the region’, then item 7 ‘Codex Strategic Plan for 2020-2025: Implementation in the Latin American and Caribbean region’ and also, why not, the Strategic Plan for 2026-2031. I do not wish to forget the work of the region that is taking shape in a new regional standard for lulo de Castilla (naranjilla), and I would like to congratulate the leading countries, Colombia and Mexico, who have taken on this task. No less important is the nomination of the next regional coordinator: that will be done by the country concerned in due course, who will take charge of our coordinating committee at the end of the 47th session of the Codex Alimentarius Commission. We are also going to discuss other issues, however, if we look again at agenda item 4 mentioned above, I would like to highlight something that is becoming a habit with our countries: to agree on important country positions, to look for ways to share these country positions with other countries, which then makes these positions regional, which is important because achieving a consensus and regional positions at this level allows us to advance in the dialogues and negotiations in a much more consolidated way at international level.

Regarding the current Strategic Plan, which will be finalized next year, I would like to highlight and thank the commitment of each of the CCLAC Member States, who have been very proactive in spite of many adversities, such as financial, logistical and personnel issues, and have found ways to contribute to and implement this Strategic Plan, as can be seen in item 7 of the agenda. Finally, another of the key issues I had mentioned was the preparation of the new Strategic Plan for 2026-2031, and although at CCEXEC86 progress was made on the mission, vision, strategic objectives and values, there are still actions to be taken.

Talking about work, after four years as Coordinator, what are you most proud of the work carried out by Ecuador?

Today, if we look back in time, we go back to 2019, when Ecuador was nominated as possible coordinator of the region. Subsequently, in 2020, when this nomination of the region was ratified at the Commission, at that time we felt very honoured, very eager, but also very nervous, very uncertain. Not only because it was the first time in 50 years since Ecuador became a member state of the Codex Alimentarius in 1970, that Ecuador had received this responsibility from the region, but also because 2020 was a breakthrough year, I would say, for humanity. We faced the SARS-CoV 2 pandemic, COVID-19 but we knew that the work of Codex could not be stopped, nor could the food supply chain, nor scientific research to provide answers and alternatives to this great threat posed by the virus to the situation around the world, be stopped.

I would like to highlight the internal work, the support of the authorities, the Ecuadorian team, the National Committee of the Agency, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock and our agency Agrocalidad, the team of the Codex Secretariat, CCLAC, with whom we had long internal meetings. Then I would like to stress all the work and support of IICA to facilitate these virtual meetings and, logically, to acknowledge the commitment of each of the Member States of the region and of the Codex Secretariat, as well as of the sponsoring organisations with whom we embarked on this challenge. I feel that we were able to respond positively to the challenges that we had to face month after month, week after week. Well, those were difficult times and then a whole new world began for Codex work, suddenly virtuality became common practice and meetings were numerous at all hours: we had meetings, at midnight, early in the morning, a little later in the morning,... but with our region we did connect at all times, and with more than 500 meetings, it was incredible. And with these meetings we also had a chance to meet people in our region with talks, training, workshops, and in this, our organisations or the Codex observer organisations, were also very helpful in supporting us with workshops, talks, seminars, conferences. Above all, I would like to highlight the support of IICA, FAO, PAHO, WHO, OIRSA and all those organisations that were part of this to disseminate and democratize access to knowledge, above all in the areas of the Codex Alimentarius.

Then we began to regain confidence, to have close contact again, as it should be, as we were used to: yet we saw that we could not leave aside virtuality, which is a tool that gave us access to Codex meetings in remote parts of the world, where before our delegates could not participate in with such ease and in such numbers. And then, to face new challenges, international cooperation became fundamental and we were able to provide responses we needed. Along with this, talking about the issue of virtuality, came the challenge of languages, the language barrier. We managed to overcome this with the support of IICA, and at the time, we were able to have a platform, in this case Zoom, with more options and which allowed us to have access to simultaneous translators, which was definitely a very important support, and we worked in the two official languages of the Codex: Spanish and English. But later, at the request of one of the member states, we were able to gradually include the French language in some of the meetings, depending on the topic, the complexity, and obviously resources are also essential. 

We were very proud to have achieved a first full meeting, a biennial virtual regional meeting with the 33 member states and some members who were also counted remotely and some observers as well, so that we achieved very important regional positions at that time, in 2022, which allowed us to move forward in the negotiations in a much more solid and representative way and with more strength, let's say, in terms of negotiating power. So much so that we had this tool, although it is true that it was not the first time that we had regional positions, but it was the first time that we had such a large number of regional positions, the countries continued their leadership in some working groups by electronic means or co-leadership or participation, depending on the situation in each country, but you can definitely see and feel the movement and the strong contribution of CCLAC.

We feel very proud to have been able to work with the region in a strong, dynamic and consolidated way and, above all, to have established very close ties of cooperation and trust. 

And on a personal level?

On a personal level, initially basically a mix of fear, let's say, of nervousness and little by little with a strong commitment, as I say to my team, "read a lot and sleep little, work a lot and sleep little", I now personally feel the satisfaction of having fulfilled my duty to set the region on the path towards a future Codex. I am also glad to have been part of these deliberations at a sensitive and important time for Codex Alimentarius and for humanity, also with all the challenges that the food supply chain must face in a new situation for agriculture in the 21st century.

One final question. Do you have any special message for CCLAC23 delegates?

To the delegates participating in CCLAC23: we are waiting for you virtually, welcome to the Middle of the World. We will have a space in which we have prepared a lot, and we have high expectations for the active and effective participation of Member States. I would like to thank each of you for the collaboration received for CCLAC23 and during all these years, without your hard work and valuable contributions it would have been very difficult to move forward and elaborate a rich and important agenda as we have now for this session.

The challenges have not just begun, many are new, but Codex lives in a permanent state of challenges; now we have to face new scenarios, the COVID-19 pandemic was one of those great challenges and how to adapt ourselves not only to look for tools or, from the food safety side, how to give guidelines and recommendations to maintain a safe and active supply chain, but new challenges are coming for agriculture in the 21st century.

Let us continue to raise awareness among decision-makers so that they see the importance of investing in food safety; the results require support in terms of laboratory diagnostics and complex equipment, but the challenge is also to extrapolate the importance of food safety to all actors in the food supply chain because the responsibility is shared, and food safety is everyone’s business.

Learn more

Working documents available on CCLAC23 meeting page

Photo credit © FAO/Codex Roberto Sciotti