About the CSHN
• What is the Consumers Safety and Health Network?
• Why was the CSHN created?
• What are the objectives of the CSHN?
• Which are the features of the CSHN?
• How does the CSHN work?
• Which are the products comprised by the CSHN?
• Which have been the preliminary activities carried out for the CSHN?
What is the Consumer Safety and Health Network?
The Consumer Safety and Health Network (CSHN) is a tool that allows consumers and authorities of the region to: exchange information and experiences and disseminate information on these issues. It also stimulates education on product safety and their impact on consumer's health to authorities and consumers. The Network provide easy access to relevant information on products deemed unsafe by markets from different parts of the world that count with advanced warning systems and is an area for the training of officials on the safety of consumer products.
This is the first Inter-American effort to contribute to the development and consolidation of national and regional systems designed to enhance product safety.
The creation of the CSHN results from the efforts done by the OAS General Secretariat, in partnership with the Pan-American Health Organization (PAHO), pursuant the mandate given by Resolution AG/RES. 2494 (XXXIX-O/09) on Consumer Protection approved by the OAS General Assembly, which instructed:
1. "To request the General Secretariat to support, through the Secretariat for Legal Affairs, the reinforcement of existing cooperation mechanism and other kind of joint activities among governmental consumer protection agencies".
2 "To request the General Secretariat to disseminate and boost efforts to provide legal protection and raise awareness of consumer's rights by coordinating its activities with those of national consumer protection agencies and other organizations".
In compliance with this mandate, several activities have been made with the important objective of analyzing the possibility of implementing a system to alert consumers of the region on the existence of products harmful to their health or unsafe.
As a result of the efforts done to fulfill the mandate of Resolution approved in 2009 and the results obtained, the OAS General Assembly has deepened the previous mandate, and through resolution AG/RES. 2549 (XL-O/10) on "Consumer Protection: Network for Consumers Safety and Health in the Americas", has specifically requested the General Secretariat to "continue making efforts to promote consumer protection and, in particular, to coordinate its activities with those of national consumer protection agencies and other organizations". Also, through this resolution the General Assembly mandated to the Secretary General the construction of an Inter-American Rapid Alert System for product safety.
The spirit of these resolutions is based on the Charter of the OAS, which in its Article 39 stipulates that Member States should make efforts to achieve a supply of goods and services appropriate and safe for consumers. Likewise, the Heads of State and Government, at the Special Summit of the Americas, held in Nuevo Leon, Mexico, in 2004, declared their commitment to promote consumer protection in the region.
What are the objectives of the CSHN?
The objective of the Network is to contribute to the development and consolidation of national and regional systems working on strengthening consumer product safety and, thus protect consumer health through the early detection and coordinated action that may prevent the entry of unsafe non-food consumer products to American markets.
The CSHN is intended to promote the protection of health and safety of consumers by creating a hemisphere-wide Web that allows the compilation and publication, on a permanent basis, major regional and global alerts on products. Likewise, it is designed to offer a space for the collection of technical regulations and standards, best practices on market surveillance for the safety of products, directory of officials and experts, online training module, among others, as well as to serve as a tool for the secure exchange of information among authorities.
The CSHN constitutes the first step toward building an Inter-American Rapid Alert System, through which American countries will have the opportunity to begin to share their own alerts on product safety and join global initiatives on this issue. To start building the Rapid Alert System, several training programs have been planned as well as activities to raise awareness on those countries with lower relative progress in the subject. Moreover, for the building of this system, harmonized criteria for the purposes of collecting alerts in a uniform, consistent and updated manner should be agreed.
Which are the features of the CSHN?
The CSHN has the following basic features:
• Collection, classification and permanently publication of alerts and actions taken by the major world markets that already have rapid alerts systems on products deemed unsafe (Recalls).
• Collection and publication of information on regulations and technical standards, best practices on market surveillance and other relevant documents concerning the safety of consumer products and its impact on health.
• Secure exchange and fast communications between competent authorities to strengthen market surveillance on product safety at a regional level.
• Creation of a space for the dissemination of the subject and for the training of the staff of consumer protection and health authorities, as well as other professionals and individuals.
The OAS collects, on a permanent basis and in coordination with PAHO and the users of the CSHN, information and experience regarding standards, best practices and educational materials, both, directly from their countries and from specialized seminars that are held at the continental level.
For the consolidation of the alerts, the OAS General Secretariat acquires processes and classifies information obtained from more developed alert systems on product safety and unifies them in order to be easily accessed by to consumers and authorities in the region.
The website also counts with an area for training programs and ongoing training programs on product safety aimed to officers from governmental agencies, consumers, employers and any other person that could be interested by the subject. The CSHN users have been the ones who have outlined the contents of the training programs, and the specialists in charge of its design work closely with users and coordinators of the Network to effectively cover the needs of the countries of the region.
Which are the products comprised by the CSHN?
The CSHN is targeted, in accordance to the recommendations made by the future users, to all consumer products, with the particular exception of food, chemicals, and those commonly left out of the most important rapid alert systems.
However, and taking into account the extensive experience of PAHO in that respect, a project to incorporate the recommendations of the World Health Organization regarding food marketing to children is being designed, as well as the pursuit of feasible practical way in which the countries of the Americas, particularly Latin America and the Caribbean, could take advantage and apply it to each national situation.
Which have been the preliminary activities carried out for the CSHN?
For the purposes of the preparation, design and implementation of the CSHN, the following activities have been undertaken:
• Research on the existing legislation in the countries of the region in order to have a clear picture concerning the degree of progress of the legislation on consumer rights in the Hemisphere.
• Contacts with various national institutions and international agencies seeking to identify potential partnerships and funding sources for the design and development of projects.
• Organization in September 2009 in Washington DC, of a workshop of experts among members of government agencies on consumer protection and health agencies, civil organizations and international organizations. The objective of the meeting was the discussion of consumer safety in the region, and the exchange of ideas for determining the activities to be developed.
• Creation of an alliance with the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) for the design and implementation of a future Inter-American Rapid Alert System (IARAS) aimed to be able to early detect and coordinate action to prevent the entry of unsafe non-food consumer products to American markets.
• Presentation, on February, 2010, to the General Committee of the Permanent Council of the OAS, together with PAHO, of a description of the steps taken in the field so far regarding the protection of consumers and their impact on consumers health.
• Coordination of efforts with the Government of Brazil for completing the building of an IARAS, with the first stage of the procedure being the construction of a Consumer Safety and Health Network (CSHN) that will be a mechanism for exchanging information and experiences that will contribute to the development and consolidation of national and regional systems regarding the safety of products.
• Contact with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in order to try strengthen the relationship and to search for opportunities to join efforts and cooperate in the implementation of projects concerning matching interests.
• Organization of the meeting "Towards the construction of a rapid alert system in America" celebrated on April, 15 and 16, 2010. In this meeting the Working Group established for the purpose of working on the early warning system met for the first time and discussed the guidelines for implementing the creation of the CSHN.
• Organization in Washington DC, on June 17 and 18, 2010, of a meeting with the attendance of officials of the OAS, in particular the Secretary General, PAHO and the Brazilian Government in which the beginning of the activities for the design and implementation of the CSHN were coordinated and the financial support from the Government of Brazil was formalized. The meeting comes as a consequence of the Resolution AG/RES. 2549 (XL-O/10) adopted by the General Assembly of the OAS.
• Design by the Department of Information and Technology of the Secretariat for Administration and Finance (DOITS) of the OAS of a prototype website for the CSHN. This prototype website was created in order to be submitted before the authorities of various agencies working on the protection of consumers and health agencies, and to enable them to make suggestions that could help improve the actual website.
• Organization, together with the government of Peru, through the National Institute for the Defense of Competition and Intellectual Property (INDECOPI) and PAHO of an international seminar on "Standards and Practices of Market Surveillance and Consumers Safety" that took place in Lima, Peru on August, 9 and 10, 2010. The seminar had as its main purpose the creation of an opportunity to share experiences on market surveillance for the safety of products as well as to discuss substantive issues that should be considered and included in the creation of the CSHN and the steps for its implementation. On this occasion, the prototype website was formally presented, which was validated by the representatives of the countries that form the Technical Advisory Group (TAG), representatives of PAHO, Consumers International and with the contribution of all participants in the seminar. In addition to the suggestions for the improvement of the network received in the Seminar, the prototype website was made available to the public for several weeks, so that it could be studied in detail, and to enable those countries that could not be present in Peru to share their views and suggestions.
Both, in the design of the CSHN as well as in all the planning activities and through the exchange of experiences, the support and active participation of civil society was always present, represented through its largest global organization, Consumers International.
