ZAMBIA – African Union (AU) has called for members to strengthen Sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures to ensure food safety and facilitate trade.
National Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) systems play an important role in ensuring food and nutrition security through protecting human, animal, and plant health; supporting economic development; promoting environmental sustainability; ensuring compliance with international standards; and building public trust and confidence in agrifood systems.
Chiluba Mwape, the Senior Advisor of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Systems of the African Union Commission (AUC) alluded to the importance of National SPS initiatives.
“The National SPS systems are important in preventing the spread of diseases and pests and ensuring food safety and security by safeguarding biodiversity and ensuring ecosystem health. They also facilitate international trade, enhance market access for agricultural products, and protect domestic industries like horticulture, and livestock,” Mwape said.
He said national SPS systems promote environmental sustainability since they prevent the introduction and spread of invasive species; reduce chemical usage in agriculture, and support sustainable agriculture practices.
They also ensure compliance with international standards that meet World Trade Organization (WTO) SPS Agreement requirements; align with international standards e.g., Codex Alimentarius, OIE, IPPC; and facilitate trade with other countries.
A speech read on behalf of Godfrey Bahingwa, a senior official to the African Union’s Department of Agriculture, outlined that while there have been improvements in implementing science-based SPS standards across Africa, there are still many problems to solve,
Africa is faced with food safety challenges associated from limited resources, weak institutional frameworks and insufficient infrastructure.
These challenges, Bahingwa said, continue to derail the continent’s efforts to meet international standards and respond to SPS-related emerging and re-emerging threats to human, animal and plant health, as well as the environment at large.
“We must make data-driven and evidence-based decision-making a core agenda in strengthening SPS governance in Africa. We must also strengthen our surveillance and monitoring systems, continue to share information on emerging SPS issues and engage in research and development of new technologies ..,” he added.
Martin Siazemo from the Zambian ministry of agriculture said the country’s ministry of commerce, trade and industry has put in place measures to ensure plant health, food safety and animal health.
In Zambia, SPS stakeholders include exporters, importers, a coffee board, a cotton board and producers.
Some of the challenges facing the country in implementing SPS measurers, Siazemo said, are an inactive national SPS committee, which limits collaboration, cooperation and communication among stakeholders, outdated legislation and stringent requirement for some products by certain markets.
