FAO and WHO recently convened a series of Regional Conferences on Food Safety in all regions of the world to assist Member Countries in developing practical national action plans to improve food safety and to promote regional cooperation.

Regional conferences on food safety were held in Europe (2002), Asia and the Pacific (2004), the Near East (2005), Africa (2005) and the Americas and the Caribbean (2005).

These regional events complement the Global Fora of Food Safety Regulators, organised periodically by FAO and WHO to facilitate exchange of information and experiences among food safety authorities on pertinent issues related to food safety management. The first Global Forum was held in Morocco (2002), and the second in Thailand (2004).

In 2003 a Ministerial round table held as part of the FAO Conference addressed the dimension of food safety in food security, and discussed the following question:

‘Does the trend towards increasingly rigorous and comprehensive food safety standards satisfy the needs of all people, rich and poor alike? Is it compatible with the short-term needs of the poor and food insecure, or could the cost of such standards result in lower purchasing power for the poor? In other words, could better food quality decrease the quantity of food intake required to satisfy peoples' basic nutritional needs?'

Various aspects of this relationship were discussed, including:

• International versus national standards – justification and implications
• ‘Zero-risk' standards versus standards based on cost-benefit considerations
• The dynamic effects of rigorous food safety standards
• Implications for poor producers of more rigorous food safety standards
• The critical role of capacity building to ensure that developing countries receive maximum benefit from the international trading environment and improve their national food security

Global fora and regional conferences on food safety

Ministerial round table: The dimension of food safety in food security - Final report (2003)
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