Over the last few years, food safety has been prioritized across the African continent, as evidenced by, for example, its new African Union (AU) Food Safety Strategy 2022-2036, which was launched on World Food Safety Day 2022, and now Kenya’s leadership in the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene (CCFH) on new guidelines for food hygiene control measures in traditional markets for food. According to the African Union’s Food Safety Officer, John Oppong-Otoo, 70 percent of urban households in Africa rely on these markets for purchasing food and, as such, “Africa advocates for continued investment in improving food safety, particularly in these markets, and this involves upgrading market infrastructure, improving the supply chain, and providing education and training to vendors and consumers,” he said at the recent CCFH meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

In an interview at the 46th Codex Alimentarius Commission meeting last December, Oppong-Otoo told the Codex Secretariat how the African continent is collectively committed to Codex and to improving food safety for all Africans.

AU Member States, Oppong-Otoo said, see Codex standards as key to achieving the AU strategy and, he made clear, the Codex Trust Fund plays a crucial role in supporting some African nations to improve their capacity to participate in Codex food standards setting.

We are ready to partner with the rest of the world

Q: How is Codex relevant to the African Union’s food safety strategy?

John: During the development of this particular strategy, Members were very particular that the basis for this strategy should be the Codex standards and I think that is a development that we should applaud because Africa has got into a stage where we believe in international standards. We believe in the science of Codex and we believe that basing our regional or continental nomenclature on Codex standards will serve the purpose of reducing the high foodborne disease burden of the continent.

Codex standards again can be used as a tool for training. So, for example, we are referring to codes of practice, guidelines – these would be very important tools within the food safety strategy. There are many tools that we are going to use, whether in policy development, whether in capacity building, these will be very important as we go into the implementation of the food safety strategy.

Q:  How does the Codex Trust Fund help?

John: African Union Member States continue to make huge investments in having very robust food safety regimes on the continent. And this is evidenced by the fact that you now have several Member States establishing single food safety authorities. It’s a recognition of the importance that food safety plays in the everyday lives of Member States. But I must also indicate that Member States, regardless, are at different levels in terms of capacity. You have several of the Member States with laboratories at different stages, inspection services at different stages but all of them remain committed to using international standards, particularly Code

And I think that is when the Codex Trust Fund also comes in. You would notice that in the past many African countries merely participated in the work of Codex without really making a major impact in the work of Codex. This has changed. We are now seeing a situation when countries are now shaping and influencing the discussions in Codex. And this is very helpful because now, what happens is that countries take ownership of the Codex standards, so you have countries building strong national Codex structures, more of the stakeholders are getting involved in the Codex work – which didn’t used to be the case. So, these are some of the positives that the Codex Trust Fund is bringing to the Codex space within Africa.

And looking into the future, I think the world should continue to put a keen eye on Africa because Africa has woken up. Africa has woken up: we understand the role of science and we are ready to partner with the rest of the world to ensure that global food safety remains not a priority for just one region, but the entire continent.

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Codex Trust Fund website