Meeting report. FAO Regional meeting on food safety indicators in Asia and the Pacific – results of the pilot projects in Bhutan, China, Cook Islands and the Philippines.
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Food safety can have a significant impact on public health and economic/trade implications and more importantly, it is a fundamental part of food security. However, the social and economic consequences of unsafe food are often invisible in many developing countries. This often leads the policy makers to consider the topic of food safety less of a priority and national budget allocation is not appropriately done.
There is already a set of food security indicators to capture various aspects of food insecurity. As part of the food security indicators, a set of nutrition indicators also exist to complete the picture of food security from the efforts towards the sustainable nutrition aligning with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Similarly, a Codex Alimentarius guideline adopted in 2017 recommends that countries establish food safety indicators for each desired outcome for the effective national food control system.
Considering the global recommendations, in 2018-2019, four countries with different capacity levels, namely, Bhutan, China, Cook Islands, and the Philippines volunteered to pilot an initiative to develop food safety indicators, based on their countries’ capacities and contexts. Key indicators specifically tailored to their specific situations were piloted in each one of the four countries, and upon completion of the projects, a regional meeting was held to share the results of the pilot projects; to discuss the experiences, challenges and lessons learnt on the development of food safety indicators; and to discuss a way forward for the initiative to be scaled up to make a regional guidance tool.