Dr Bernard Vallat was elected Director General of the OIE in May 2000 by the International Committee, which brings together the Delegates of all the Member Countries. His five year mandate started 1 January 2001. In May 2005, Dr Vallat was elected Director General for a further five year mandate.
Training
Bernard Vallat graduated from the French National Veterinary School in Toulouse (France) in 1971, qualifying as a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, and then going on to a postgraduate course in tropical veterinary medicine (1972), and another in animal nutrition at the Institut National Agronomique in Paris (1973). In 1983, he furthered his scientific training with specialist studies in economics and management, obtaining a DESS (diploma in advanced specialist studies) from the University of Paris X.
He entered the public veterinary service in 1973, having passed the national competitive examination for a post as public Veterinary Inspector.
His professional career began with seventeen years spent outside France, working under French multilateral or bilateral overseas cooperation schemes in a number of countries in Central Africa and the Indian Ocean.
During that period, he worked on programmes devoted to livestock health and production and the training of livestock producers, which involved him in field work for six years, before going on to an organisational and supervisory role, initially at at a national and subsequently a regional level.
This experience allowed him to acquire the following:
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Technical skills in the control of epizootics (rinderpest, contagious bovine pleuropneumonia, anthrax, etc.), in the development of veterinary services, in the provision of support for research and veterinary diagnostic laboratories, and in the modernisation of abattoirs, range management and environmental protection ;
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Expertise in the administration, fiance and management of public and quasi-public agencies performing tasks of national and regional scope; and
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Experience in the negotiation of technical and financial assistance with international donors.
In 1990, Dr Vallat was recalled to France by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Overseas Cooperation. Amongst his new responsibilities was the management of international negotiations for the establishment of projects, co-financed with specialist international bodies, in thirty countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.
His activities within the Ministry were then broadened, from issues of livestock production and health, to include plant health and agricultural production and markets, and, subsequently, agricultural research, farm, industrial and artisanal policies, tourism, the creation of new enterprises, and the promotion of North-South trade.
In 1994, he returned to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food to manage the mission for international sanitary co-ordination within the General Directorate for Food, and was promoted a year later to the post of Chief Veterinary Officer for France, with the title of Deputy Director General.
Dr Vallat was elected Chairman of the International Animal Health Code Commission of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) from 1997 to 2000. The work accomplished under his chairmanship, within the priorities and needs laid down by the OIE International Committee, and notably the implementation of the WTO SPS agreement, have led, in the space of two years, to the adoption of over twenty new regulatory provisions.
Bernard Vallat was born in 1947, is married and is the father of three children. General Inspector of Veterinary Public Health in the higher rank, he holds several honorary titles: Officier of the French Légion d'Honneur and Chevalier of the Ordre National du Mérite. He is also Officier du Mérite Agricole in France and other countries.