Recently a high level dialogue was convened by the FSSAI in collaboration with the Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP) which saw 100 participants like decision-makers and influencers both from the private and public sector. The participants have all signalled their cooperation to increase their investment in food safety in Asia. The participants will act in areas like funding and investment, knowledge sharing, public and private collaborations and capacity building in order to manage and support the regions food safety systems.
During the Dialogue Lystra N. Antoine, CEO of GFSP emphasised that the collaborative approach is advantages. Spreading knowledge from lessons learnt and best practices to inform future food safety capacity building will help to globally
- improve public health
- facilitate market access
- contribute to enhanced food safety throughout the globe
Ashish Bahuguna, Chairperson FSSAI stated that by enhancing global outreach the FSSAI will learn from food safety experiences of other countries and will be able to build global trust in India’s food sector. The FSSAI believes that co-creating a sustainable architecture will help to build a strong food safety system in Asia. The Chairperson further emphasised the need for support from public and private organizations, partners and other international bodies which would lead to the setting up of a more informed and cohesive arrangement on capacity building and knowledge building on food safety and nutrition.
CEO, FSSAI, Pawan Agarwal stated that the setting up of the Food Safety Training and Certification (FosTaC) website is a step in the right direction. It indicates the progress FSSAI is making in their efforts towards food safety capacity building. In setting up FosTaC FSSAI is a step closer in its goal of ensuring that food businesses in India have at least one trained and certified food safety supervisor.
Some senior officials and executives present at the Dialogue included Mr K.L.Sharma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family welfare (MoHFW), Mr. Prashant Agrawal, Joint Secretary, (SAARC), Ministry of External Affairs, Mr. Junaid Ahmad, India Country Director, The World Bank Group; Mr. Nathan Belete, Practice Manager, Agriculture Global Practice, The World Bank Group; and Mr. Piruz Khambatta, Chairman & Managing Director, Rasna International.
The Global Food Safety Partnership (GFSP) is an innovative, public-private initiative dedicated to supporting and promoting global cooperation for food safety capacity building. GFSP has been able to uniquely assess food safety systems and propose systems-based interventions to address specific food sector needs and to prioritize hazards and threats for a number of countries.
Leave a Reply