Coordination on Food Safety & Animal Health Aid

GLOBAL - Strengthened coordination to improve results in a number of areas features in a new medium-term strategy for 2012-16. The strategy will help developing countries meet international standards on food safety and animal and plant health.

16 January 2012

2 minute read

The strategy was adopted on 10 January 2012 by a five-agency programme.

The ultimate goal is to assist developing countries tackle pests, animal and plant diseases and contaminants so that they can expand and diversify food and agricultural production and exports, resulting in economic development, poverty reduction, better nutrition, food security and environmental protection.

The Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) contributes to this by helping them build up their capacity to implement requirements known as “sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS)” standards through increased awareness and knowledge of good practices and by funding projects that promote compliance with the standards, including grants to help prepare projects.

The strategy was set up by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), World Bank, World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Trade Organisation (WTO), and is run by the five partners together with donor countries and representatives of developing countries.

The 2012–16 strategy aims to:

boost collaboration and information sharing on technical co-operation
help recipient countries identify their needs, define their priorities and design project proposals that are likely to receive funding from various donors
improve the performance of countries benefiting from the limited number of STDF-funded projects

Funding to implement new strategy will remain at the current target of $5m per year, with a mid-term review due in 2013. The STDF will continue to dedicate at least 40 per cent of its project resources to beneficiaries in least developed countries (LDCs) and other low income countries.

Since it was set up in 2002, the STDF has supported 47 projects and 48 project-preparation grants benefiting 54 developing countries. In addition, conferences and other events have been organised on thematic cross-cutting topics of common interest such as SPS-related public-private partnerships, the links between SPS and climate change, and the use of economic analysis in SPS decision-making. It has received a total of $25m from 17 donor countries.

Its current donors are Canada, Denmark, EU, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, US.