Information for national food safety programmes
National food safety programmes are programmes implemented at national level that assure that food will not cause harm to the consumer when it is prepared and/or eaten according to its intended use. The WHO has identified several challenges with respect to national food safety programmes:
- Absence of food legislation or basic food safety laws
- Lack of subsidiary food legislation/codes of practice
- Lack of central coordination of efforts
- Poor consultation process
- Reliance on end-product testing
- Lack of appropriately trained personnel
- Lack of personnel in national agencies trained in HACCP for food safety assurance
- Food control laboratories are unaccredited, have wrong priorities, and/or lacking in Quality Assurance (QA) programmes
The International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN)
In view of the need for all countries to promote the exchange of food safety information and to improve collaboration among food safety authorities at national and international level, WHO will shortly launch a new International Food Safety Authorities Network (INFOSAN).
Building Effective Food Safety Systems
- High-Level International Food Safety Forum, Beijing, China, 26-27 November 2007
- Regional Conference on Food Safety for the Americas and the Caribbean, San José, Costa Rica, 6-9 December 2005
- Regional Conference on Food Safety for Africa, Harare, Zimbabwe, 3-6 October 2005
- Regional Conference on food safety for the Near East, Amman, Jordan, 5-6 March 2005
- 2nd Global Forum of Food Safety Regulators, Bangkok, Thailand, 12-14 October 2004
- Regional Conference on Food Safety for Asia and the Pacific, Seremban, Malaysia, 24-27 May 2004
- Pan European conference on food safety and quality, Budapest, Hungary, 25-28 February 2002
- Global forum of food safety regulators, Marrakesh, Morocco, 28-30 January 2002