NIGERIA – The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Food Safety (IMCFS) and the National Food Safety Management Committee (NFSMC) will support the Federal Ministry of Health in implementing a National Policy on Food Safety in the country.
With the support of the United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and its EU-funded National Quality Infrastructure (NQI) Project, the Federal Ministry of Health inaugurated the two high-level committees – the IMCFS and NFSMC
“With the dangers that expired food products bring, the Food Safety Policy is important for healthy food reaching people’s homes. Nigeria will benefit from this policy through a drastic reduction of food-poisoning and food-borne diseases.
The policy will also increase our foreign revenues as we will be able to meet international trade requirements,” said the Minister of State for Health and Supervising Minister of Health, KhaliruAlhassan.
UNIDO Representative,Patrick Kormawa added that the trade objectives of the Food Safety Policy have been aligned with NQI Project activities through “capacity building, mitigating the prevalence of foods identified as ‘high risk’ in Nigeria, and the design of new food exports and manufacturing procedures for food products for the economic benefit of the Government and the people of Nigeria.”
Representatives of the Federal Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment; the Federal Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development; the Federal Minister of Environment; and the Federal Minister of Science and Technology were also present, along with Nigerian institutions and private sector entities.
Relevant development agencies working on food safety also participated, including the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the World Health.
Meanwhile, UNIDO) and the International Trade Centre (ITC) have pledged to intensify joint activities in support of developing countries in Africa and Asia.
This was discussed in Vienna during a meeting between the Director General of UNIDO, LI Yong and ITC Deputy Executive Director, Dorothy Tembo and at subsequent meetings with representatives of relevant branches.
The communique issued at the end of the meetings suggestd that the two organisations will strengthen cooperation in the areas of trade capacity building, value chain development, investment and export promotion, industrial upgrading and enterprise competitiveness, as well as youth employment and entrepreneurship.
Enhanced collaboration is especially envisaged in Ethiopia and Senegal – within the framework of the Country Partnership Programmes aimed at fostering inclusive and sustainable industrial development – and in Sri Lanka, in the context of an initiative to strengthen the trade capacities and performance of the country’s SMEs.
February 8, 2015; http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/unido-supports-enhancement-nigeria-s-food-safety-framework/201415/
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