HONOLULU—On Nov. 12, public and private sector members announced the creation of the Global Food Safety Fund, established to expand knowledge and understanding for effective food safety management around the world. The announcement was made during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Honolulu.
The fund, which was made possible by an initial pledge of $1 million from the private sector, including Mars, Inc. and the Waters Corporation, as well as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will be managed by the World Bank. Member organizations plan to grow the fund to $15 million to $20 million over the next 10 years.
The fund will be based on a three-part model pioneered by the APEC Food Safety Cooperation Forum involving government, industry and academia partners to focus on supporting broad global food safety efforts through three main pillars:
Developing, testing and validating programs in APEC that will result in customizable training modules for roll out to developing countries in Africa, South Asia, East Asia and Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean and the Middle East;
Addressing high priority food hazards, contaminants and pathogens; and
Strengthening analytics and metrics, including laboratory competency and the evaluation of the performance of food safety systems.
“Food safety issues increasingly bear a major impact upon economies, public health and food security around the world. Each impact has its own issues and consequences, and as the global economy becomes more interdependent, the impacts become heightened," said Sri Mulyani Indrawati, managing director, The World Bank. “The fund will raise awareness of the importance of food safety capacity building, develop policy and economic analysis, identify best practices and mobilize and target funding for activities worldwide."
