Glossary of Terms
Centers for Disease Control — A component of the United States government. Its mission is collaborating to create the expertise, information and tools that people and communities need to protect their health. They do this through health promotion, through prevention of disease, injury and disability, and through preparedness for new health threats. (Source: cdc.gov)
Egalitarianism — A social philosophy that supports removing inequalities among all people across social, political and economic boundaries.
Fatalism — The belief that events are secured in advance so that humans are powerless to change them.
Gatekeepers — A person, or persons, who control access.
Geometric Mean — The average of a set of numbers by using the product of their values (rather than the sum of the values). For example: the geometric mean of 2 and 8 is the square root of their product √2 * 8 = 4.
Hierarchy — A system in which people are placed in a series of levels with different importance or status.
Individualism — The belief that the needs of a single person are more important than the needs of a society, which translates to governments maintaining the political and economic independence of the individual.
International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC) – An international agreement on plant health that aims to protect cultivated and wild plants by preventing the introduction and spread of pests.
National Plant Protection Organization (NPPO) — Official service established by a government to discharge the functions specified by the IPPC. (Source: ISPM 5)
Protectionism — Advocates government economic protection for domestic (local) producers through restricting foreign competition.
Regional Plant Protection Organization (RPPO) — Provides coordination at a local level for the activities and objectives of the IPPC.
Scoping Call — A call to a group in order to determine the scale of a pest risk assessment.
SPS Agreement (Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures) — Sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards. Entered into force on January 1, 1995.
SPS Committee — Oversees the implementation of the SPS Agreement. (Source: WTO)
Stakeholder — An individual, group or organization that has interest in or particular concern about another organization’s objectives, actions or policies.
Sterile Insect Technique — A method of biological control where overwhelming numbers of male insects are sterilized and released into the wild. Sterilized males will out-compete wild males for females, which results in no offspring. This reduces future insect populations.
Transparency — The principle of making available, at the international level, phytosanitary measures and their rationale. (Source: ISPM 5)
World Trade Organization (WTO) — The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization that deals with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, which are negotiated and signed by the bulk of the world’s trading nations and are ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. (Source: WTO)
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