Thumbnail Image

National Capacity Elements Required to Ensure the Safety of Genetically Modified Organisms and Genetically Modified Foods

Prepared by Consumers International







Also available in:
No results found.

Related items

Showing items related by metadata.

  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    Strengthening the capacity on Genetically Modified (GM) food safety assessment and communication in Kenya, Uganda and Zambia
    FAO Technical summary report
    2018
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    Recently the Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) Secretariat has requested support from FAO as the main implementation partner in a programme aimed at facilitating intra-regional trade through harmonization of food safety regulations. The need has been particularly highlighted to implement a programme of trainings focusing on building an understanding of the scientific issues underlying current divergences on regulatory approaches used by COMESA Members in relation to commodities that are important to intra-regional trade. In the last decade, the development has allowed some of the COMESA countries to be engaged in a) research, 2) import or 3) production of Genetically Modified (GM) food products while the level of capacity in evaluating the relevant applications of GM foods are not uniformly conducted among different countries due to the different laws/regulations, procedures/protocols, and/or available expertise/experts. While environmental and socio-economic parameters can differ between countries, GM food safety assessment can be universally identical, following the same procedures of the relevant Codex Alimentarius Guidelines. In 2017 and 2018, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia have worked with FAO to take an approach to assess the status quo and to jointly develop capacity in terms of knowledge and resources. Each of the participating countries was found to be at a different level of proficiency for GM food safety assessment and risk communication, however several common areas for improvement have been identified across all countries visited. During the project, relevant trainings have been provided and they have successfully addressed some of these shortcomings. Further work needs have been identified by the respective participants and national roadmaps were developed for all three countries as one of the concrete outputs of this project. The project achieved a number of other outputs including significant commitment from all three countries to work together to strengthen GM food safety assessment through regional strategy, having the first GM food safety assessment result shared by Kenya to the FAO GM Foods Platform, and mutual exchange of policy documents which are in line with Codex Alimentarius. The outputs from each country were shared among all three countries and the project results have led to the development of a group/regional initiative that would take place in the future, with flexibility to welcome more countries from the region and the continent.
  • Thumbnail Image
  • Thumbnail Image
    Book (stand-alone)
    FAO GM Foods Platform user guide - Sharing information on safety assessments of genetically modified (GM) food 2018
    Also available in:
    No results found.

    The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) maintains the “FAO GM Foods Platform”, available at http://fao.org/gm-platform/, a simple, easy-to-access, global online resource that shares information on food safety assessments of genetically modified (GM) plants. This user guide provides an easy reference for the Platform’s users so that they can effectively share their GM food safety assessment data in accordance with the relevant Codex Alimentarius guidelines. This user guide aims to ensure that user data remains up to date and provides global benefits, particularly in the case of low level presence situations. There are four types of FAO Foods Platform users: 1) Visitors, 2) Registered Users (Focal Points), 3) Content Administrator, and 4) IT manager. This user guide particularly targets Registered Users so that they can review, upload and use the relevant data on GM food safety assessments.

Users also downloaded

Showing related downloaded files

No results found.