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FINAL REPORT, FAO/WHO Regional Conference of Food Safety for Africa

3-6 October 2005, Harare, Zimbabwe







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    Meeting
    FAO/WHO Regional Conference on Food Safety for the Americas and the Caribbean - FInal Report - San Jose (Costa Rica), 6-9 December 2005
    Practical actions to promote food safety
    2006
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    Ensuring safe food is essential for the protection of human health and for improving the quality of life in all countries. The importance of safe food, whether domestically produced and consumed, imported or exported, is well known by the countries of the Americas and the Caribbean. An estimated 57,000 deaths have occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean as a result of food- and waterborne diarrhoea in 2004, but even this estimated burden likely greatly underestimates the true magnitude of th e food-borne disease problem in the region. Each food-borne disease outbreak results in a number of direct and indirect costs, in addition to the resultant human suffering. Furthermore, food safety is foundational to all other issues in the area of nutrition and food security, as well as international trade of foods. Food exports from the region are currently worth some US$66 billion, or 12% of the world's total food trade, and this figure could increase rapidly over the coming decades if food s afety and quality standards are improved. Despite these well-known and important reasons, many challenges remain to improving food safety in the region. The countries of the region recognize the importance of developing practical actions for capacity building to overcome these challenges and to promote food safety in the region. Accordingly, following the guidance of the FAO/WHO governing bodies, in line with the suggestions made by the participants at the first and second Joint FAO/WHO Global Fora of Food Safety Regulators (GF1-Morocco, January 2002 and GF2- Thailand, October 2004) and the kind invitation of the Government of Costa Rica, FAO and WHO jointly convened the first Regional Conference on Food Safety for the Americas and the Caribbean in San José, Costa Rica from 6 to 9 December 2005. The Conference brought together over 175 delegates from 32 member countries of the Americas and the Caribbean and observers from 14 international governmental and non-governmental organizatio ns to discuss food safety issues in the region, under the general theme of “Practical Actions to Promote Food Safety”. The participants at the Conference recommended a series of practical actions to the member countries and to FAO and WHO to strengthen food safety systems in the region. It was generally recognized by the participants that although the convening of the Conference itself was successful, its true success can only be measured by the degree of implementation of the recommended actio ns of the Conference and the improved safety of foods produced and consumed in the region.
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    Meeting
    FAO/WHO Concept Paper Global Forum of Food Safety Regulators 2001
    Purpose: To convene, on a regular basis, Global Fora of Food Safety Regulators to promote the exchange of information on approaches and experiences in dealing with current food safety issues of potential importance to public health and international food trade to advance the process of science-based public consultations and to facilitate capacity building, particularly in developing countries.
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    Booklet
    FAO regional Training on “Capacity building on risk categorization for ranking risk of ASEAN food hazards for developing the risk-based monitoring protocol for food safety” 2019
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    A well-designed risk-based monitoring procedure for food safety hazards is one of the key elements for food safety control system. To ensure the success and effectiveness of establishing a monitoring procedure, a risk-based approach in ranking food hazards should be applied during the initial step for developing any monitoring programme. This would permits governmental and regulatory authorities to allocate resources most effectively for food safety control in their country. The best risk-ranking tool to be used should be selected on the basic of risk management requirements as well as data availability. Risk categorization, or the use of a risk matrix, is an example of a risk ranking tool, which can be applied to microbiological or chemical food safety hazards, when limited quantitative data are available. In order to strengthen the capacity on risk-based monitoring programme, FAO, collaborated with Thai Food and Drug Administration (Thai FDA), held the regional training course on “Capacity building on risk categorization for ranking risk of ASEAN food hazards for developing the risk-based monitoring protocol for food safety” from 23 to 25 April 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. Over 30 participants attended the three-day training course. Through technical presentations, examples of good practices in other countries, and group work session, participants obtained knowledge on the principles of risk categorization. The training course enabled participants to discuss which approach ASEAN would apply for risk categorization for ranking of ASEAN food safety hazards, which further be used for developing the ASEAN risk-based monitoring procedure for one ASEAN common hazard.

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