Food Safety Standards Launches 2018 Annual Report

Coinciding with the celebration of the first World Food Safety Day, the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) launched on 7 June its Annual Report 2018, entitled “Investing in Safe Trade: Supporting Developing Countries to Meet International Standards”.

The theme of World Food Safety Day is “Food Safety, Everyone’s Business”. Along these lines, the STDF report sets out how small-scale farmers, processors, traders and governments in developing countries are being supported to meet international standards on food safety, animal and plant health.

The report shows how investments in safe trade play an important role in advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), also outlined in the WTO Annual Report. The WTO is among the five founding partners of the STDF, with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE), the World Bank Group and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Highlights from the report include how, thanks to the backing of STDF’s 13 donors, least developed countries (LDCs) and other low-income countries are receiving the most support from STDF projects. The publication also highlights how STDF’s partnership is driving the global dialogue on safe trade solutions, from building border agency collaboration to generating the evidence for better decision-making on food safety by the public and private sector.