Welcome to GHI’s New Website
On behalf of the GHI Board and our team of volunteer leaders, I am pleased to welcome you to the updated Global Harmonization Initiative website, www.globalharmonization.net. We hope that you will find the modern, clean design and navigation a more user-friendly, content-rich experience. Our aim is to create and grow an online resource for our members and stakeholders that offers the latest news and progress updates about the association, its activities and its publications.
This re-designed website marks the third iteration of our online presence, and in a way, mirrors the growth of GHI over the years.
In 2004, a small group of food scientists were disturbed by an emerging downside of market globalization: the destruction of large amounts of food due to differences in food safety regulations and laws that were not scientifically justified—food that, in reality, was safe and wholesome to consume. In a world in which nearly 1 billion people are malnourished or starving, reasoned the group, this was an unacceptable state of affairs. The group, including current board members Dr. Vishweshwaraiah Prakash (India), Mr. Larry Keener (USA), Dr. Sangsuk Oh (Korea) and the author of this note, Dr hc Huub Lelieveld (Netherlands), decided to form a working group to try to do something about it. Thus, the Global Harmonization Initiative was established with a mission to advocate for science-based food law and trade. Within six months, the grassroots organization of food scientists and regulatory experts drew up a charter and launched a .org website with a member registration database with the help of volunteers. Unfortunately, a few years later we lost both the domain name ending in .org and the membership database as a result of a misunderstanding between the working group and the host provider.
Despite this early setback, GHI continued to grow. In 2007 it was decided to register GHI as a nonprofit organization in Austria (in our judgment, the most neutral country in the world). A founding GHI Board member, Dr. Gerhard Schleining of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU) in Vienna, provided valuable assistance in this regard. That year, GHI became “official,” with a constitutional framework ensuring that it operates as a not-for-profit, impartial association. GHI again was in need of an official website, and fortunately in 2009, Dr. Schleining introduced GHI to a highly reputable web developer who worked for (among many others) the authorities in Austria. This expert, Gunter Greil, sympathized with GHI’s endeavor and was willing to support the association by offering to rebuild and maintain the website at no cost. The second website, now boasting a .net domain, helped GHI re-establish its online presence and grow its membership database.
As GHI’s structure and programs have expanded in the last seven years, so has our need for a website that can grow—and evolve—with us. GHI is tremendously grateful to our webmaster Gunter Greil for modernizing our website platform, greatly increasing its functionality and accessibility in a mobile-friendly format. We are also extremely appreciative of the efforts of our longtime communications director and recently appointed executive director, Julie Larson Bricher, who created, wrote, edited and produced the web content for the entire site. Julie also has set up our social media accounts to coincide with the website relaunch, and we look forward to connecting with GHI members and the public through these new channels of communication.
I invite you to take a tour of the new website. I hope that our members and supporters are as pleased with it as I am. A passion for a food-secure world led us here, and with these new online tools, GHI hopes to better communicate that passion.
*Note: We’d like to recognize the pioneering participants of the first GHI working group meeting. Much appreciation to: Michele Buchanan, Catherine Adams, Christine Boisrobert, Cindy Stewart, Edgar Murakami, Huub Lelieveld, James Yuan, Jerry Roberts, Kerry Toth Rost, Larry Keener, Lars Reimann, Martin Cole, Michele Buchanan, Ray Leenhouts, Richard Braem, Rosie Newsome, Sue Estes, and Tatiana Koutchma. Thank you all for your support over the years!