Page 53 - Trade and Food Standards

present obstacles to international trade in food. These risks must be assessed and managed to meet growing and increasingly complex sets of national objectives. Risk analysis, a systematic, disciplined approach for making food safety decisions, includes three major components: risk assessment, risk management and risk communication (see Figure 6). It is a powerful tool for carrying out science-based analysis and reaching sound, transparent solutions to food safety problems. Using risk analysis can promote continuous improvements in public health and provide a basis for expanding international trade (FAO/WHO 2006).
Risk analysis has very practical applications. It allows authorities to recognize, identify and make transparent decisions on where to invest resources. Risk analysis can be applied in developing new food standards, evaluating proposed changes to existing food standards, performing monitoring and surveillance activities, assessing food technology practices and considering emerging food safety issues.
It is difficult for trading partners to engage in a discussion on measures if they are unable to speak the language of risk analysis. Indeed, the SPS
Agreement requires that all SPS measures be based on a risk assessment. Crucial capacities, such as being able to justify measures and understand how to question others, depend on how fluent a country is in risk analysis. A country is empowered, can network purposefully and hold constructive dialogue regarding the legitimacy of a measure and its purpose only when it has developed its risk analysis capacity.
What are the benefits of food safety risk analysis?
A food-safety risk analysis approach helps a country to decide what is important and what is not when it comes to protecting public health, and to determine where to invest resources to gain the greatest benefit. While there may be a perception on the part of some developing countries that risk analysis is an overly complex and sophisticated tool designed by and for developed countries, the ability to operate on a technical risk analysis level takes on even greater significance when a country has limited resources to invest. Risk analysis can be used to support strong programmatic and policy decision making in the local context, in the area of standard setting or with regard to which surveillance programmes to prioritize. A capacity development initiative that strengthens risk-
Mali: Implementing risk analysis
Mali is an example of a country that sought to improve its approach to food-safety decision making by adopting a risk analysis framework. Already having access to relevant food analysis and consumption data, the food-safety authorities sought advice about how to utilize the data to guide strategic choices and day-to-day food control activities.
In 2014, Mali and FAO launched a two-year capacity development programme. A broad range of stakeholders – from competent authorities, starting with the
national food-safety authority laboratories, private-sector actors, including primary producers, consumers’ representatives, to research institutions, academia, and civil society representatives – was engaged in a series of training events on how to use their national data to prioritize risks and optimize the management of those risks. Mali is now able to build monitoring and control programmes for domestic and imported foods based on a practical understanding of risk analysis.
Source: FAO
Part 2. The benefit of taking part 41
©
i
S
t
o
c
k
/
J
o
h
n
_
K
a
l
a
p
o