1. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) jointly convened the FAO/WHO Regional Conference on Food Safety for the Americas and the Caribbean (the Conference) in an effort to facilitate discussion on practical actions and recommendations to promote food safety in the countries of the Americas and the Caribbean. The Conference was held in San José, Costa Rica, from 6 to 9 December 2005 at the kind invitation of the Government of Costa Rica. The Conference was attended by high-ranking policy officers and technical experts from 32 member countries of the Americas and the Caribbean region of FAO and WHO. It was also attended by 14 international organizations as observers. A list of all participants is included in Annex 1.
2. This Conference is part of a series of global and regional events that FAO and WHO are convening to meet the needs of member countries for policy guidance and capacity building in food safety. This series includes the First and Second FAO/WHO Global Fora (GF) of Food Safety Regulators (GF1 - Morocco, 28 to 30 January 2002 and GF2 - Thailand, 12 to 14 October 2004), and regional events in Europe (Hungary, February 2002), Asia and the Pacific (Malaysia, May 2004), the Near East (Jordan, March 2005) and Africa (Zimbabwe, October 2005). The Conference was convened in the light of the recommendations and feedback from these events and direction from FAO/WHO governing bodies.
3. The objectives of the Conference were to i) facilitate discussion on food safety issues important to all countries of the Americas and the Caribbean and identify practical and sustainable actions to address these issues; ii) identify opportunities for improving regional cooperation in promoting food safety to protect human health and increase food trade opportunities, taking into account the prevailing conditions in agriculture, post-harvest operations, food processing, food trade, public health and consumer protection; iii) promote the strengthening and/or the establishment of regional networks for the exchange of food safety-related information and experiences among all stakeholders; iv) encourage public/private partnerships for consumer and industry awareness raising and capacity building in food safety and v) promote improved interaction between academia, research organizations and other food safety officials.
4. The Provisional Agenda for the Conference is found in Annex 2 (AC 05/1).
