From Assessment to Action: Mobilizing Investment for Stronger Food Control Systems
Thursday 10 July 2025, 11:00-12:00 CEST
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Robust food control systems are essential for ensuring food safety, protecting public health, and supporting economic growth through safer trade. However, many countries face operational gaps that hinder the effectiveness of their food control systems. To address this, FAO and WHO developed the food control system assessment tool in 2019 to evaluate and improve national food control systems. This tool provides comprehensive analyses and strategic frameworks to guide improvements and track progress, contributing to the implementation of SPS agreements and trade facilitation.
From January 2022 to June 2025, the EUR 6.4 million EU-funded project “Strengthening Food Control and Phytosanitary Capacities and Governance” supported ten food control system assessments in African countries. The results of these assessments are helping to implement the African Union’s SPS policy framework and the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), leaving behind a stronger platform for building resilient food control systems that protect public health and boost regional trade.
This webinar will focus on exploring these findings including the benefits of implementing the food control system assessments, with particular emphasis placed on the potential of the food control system assessments to leverage investments at national and continental level and what needs to be done to secure the investment needed to address these gaps, strengthening food safety capacity and ultimately facilitating safe trade.
Agenda:
| Welcome (3 Minutes) | Marlynne Hopper, Head, a.i., STDF Secretariat |
| Opening remarks: Introducing the project - Why do effective food control systems matter for regional integration and safe trade facilitation? (5 Minutes) | Catherine Bessy, Senior Food Safety Officer, Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division, ESF-FAO |
Playing the food control project video (2 minutes) The FAO/WHO food control system assessment tool: why, what and how? (5 Minutes) | Saber Mansour, Food control specialist, Agrifood Systems and Food Safety Division, ESF-FAO |
| Assessment guiding principles: Inclusivity and collaboration, buy in and empowerment, confidentiality and independence, evidence base and participatory are actually key principles that should be embedded in food control systems…. (5 minutes) | Dennis Bittisnich, Lead assessor |
Capitalize on the results from the EU funded project Playing the project video (5 minutes) Discussants Guiding questions will be addressed to panelists according to the themes highlighted above. (20 minutes) | Kenya (TBC) AUC-DARBE (TBC) AfCFTA secretariat (TBC) Seychelles (TBC) Facilitated by Moragia Anita Mwango, STDF Communication team |
Q&A (10 minutes) | Facilitated by Moragia Anita Mwango, STDF Communication team |
Closing remarks (5 Minutes) | TBC |
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