Strengthening global food safety through improved capacities for food control at regional and country levels

Food & Agricultural Org/United Nations, Rome

Investigators

Abstract

Project Summary/Abstract In today?s globalized world, food safety capacities need to be strengthened everywhere to enable more rational and effective controls in all countries. The main objective of this project is to contribute to the strengthening of national food control systems through provision of authoritative and practical guidance, training materials and capacity development activities in a number of selected countries. The proposed approach is based on two complementary pillars, each comprised of activities at global, and regional/country levels. Pillar 1 deals with the strengthening of risk-based food controls through increased application of the risk analysis framework with an emphasis on risk assessment as the basis for food safety regulation and on risk-based programming of regulatory activities, in particular, risk-based inspections. Risk-based approaches to food control help minimizing exposure to food hazards, while making more efficient use of the available resources, that may be scarce for many developing or transition countries. To move from reactive towards preventive food control systems, food safety professionals must be enabled to find, generate and utilize relevant data. Newly developed tools, based on proven approaches used in a range of contexts, will be used to guide assessment, option evaluation and strategic improvement of risk-based controls. Under the second Pillar, selected food control systems will be assessed using the recently developed FAO/WHO assessment Tool. Stakeholder participatory advocacy workshops will be conducted to achieve high-level commitment to improving food control while priority capacity building activities will be undertaken according to established targets. By providing support to implement the assessment of national food control systems, this project will identify food safety capacity needs to be strengthened to enable more rational and effective controls in all countries. A pool of assessors will also be created by training food safety specialists in facilitating the food control system assessment process through sound methodologies. All regional/country activities will be carefully designed to confirm preliminary assessments, and secure relevant partnerships with national counterparts and effective planning/implementation of specific activities.