EAST AFRICA – The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with funding from the African Development Bank (AfDB), has launched a four-year food safety project aimed at improving food safety standards in the East African region.
The project aims to develop the capacities of national food safety authorities for systematic monitoring of the quality and standards of domestic and imported food items.
It will also promote food safety protocols and harmonization across the region in furtherance of boosting regional/cross-border trade and the removal of unnecessary trade barriers in support of the operationalization of the AfCFTA.
The project will also enable the countries to develop the capacity of existing Bank-funded projects and value actors on food safety and standardization certification programs to enhance productivity, local processing, and market competitiveness.
The regional project for strengthening food safety standards for trade and public health promotion project, will be implemented in Kenya, Rwanda, South Sudan, Tanzania, and Uganda.
When implementation the project, regulatory institutions that are part of the food safety ecosystem, laboratories, and other stakeholders will be provided with technical support to perfectly execute their mandate to ensure production, distribution, and sale of commodities safe for human consumption.
“The idea is to strengthen national systems for food safety. The question might be, Why food safety? Why are we focusing on that? Food safety is a fundamental issue because, according to us (FAO), if food is not safe, then we cannot really consider it food because it will make people sick. They are ingesting things that are not healthy,” FAO subregional coordinator for East Africa, Farayi Zamudzi, said.
“Secondly, it also has a very strong impact on trade. So, if you are going to trade in food commodities that are unsafe, that have pathogens, that have not been processed correctly, then it means your goods or your commodities are going to be rejected by the receiving countries.”
She added that it’s fundamentally important, both from a human health and food security point of view, but also from an economic point of view, because then it means the countries in the region will not be able to gain the revenue from trade that they could otherwise gain.
The Commissioner of Animal Health in the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry, and Fisheries (MAAIF), Dr. Anna Rose Ademun, said the promotion of food safety protocols and standards as outlined in the project objectives will promote the export of agricultural products.
She added food safety standards across the region will be harmonized, which will eliminate trade barriers, giving an example that if something is tested in Uganda, it can be exported to Tanzania without being retested.
