Third Africa Food Safety Technical Meeting

Third Africa Food Safety Technical Meeting (African Food Safety Workshop 2024) is co-organized with the Government of the Kingdom of Morocco, through the Office National de Sécurité Sanitaire des produits Alimentaires.

There is a need for food safety experts and stakeholders in Africa to meet and discuss recent and ongoing developments relevant to food safety and control given the global burden of food borne diseases and challenges in trade, that the continent faces. The Joint FAO/IAEA Centre of Nuclear Techniques in Food and Agriculture plans to facilitate this discussion during the Third Africa Food Safety Technical Meeting (African Food Safety Workshop 2024) from 7-11 October 2024 in Marrakech, Morocco.

The meeting will address, among others (a) the Atoms4Food initiative (Food safety and Control Service) launched by the FAO and IAEA in October 2023; (b) implementation of the African Food Safety Strategy 2022-2036; (c) food safety standards and laboratory support for the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCFTA); (d) government and industry support for food safety control systems, scaling-up and sustainability; (e) sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures and equivalency; and (f) metrological systems on the continent and how they are contributing to the above initiatives. The meeting will provide opportunities for enhancing networking among food safety stakeholders u, learning and sharing of experiences, as well as scoping for new and strengthening current partnerships and collaboration in the area of food safety and control under the African Food Safety Network (AFoSaN).

The third African Food Safety technical meeting (also referred to as workshop) will provide an opportunity for deliberations on the above-mentioned focus areas, identification of relevant activities, partnership and implementation strategies, as well as sharing of information and knowledge gathered since the last (second) meeting held in South Africa (27 June-1 July 2022). This last meeting attended by over 250 stakeholders, including the African Union (AU), recommended among other that there is also a need to enhance the role of metrology and promoting its active involvement in food safety and quality on the continent. The third meeting will therefore build on this and other recommendations, review relevant work that has been conducted, and discuss strategies for improvement. Closer interaction among safety stakeholders involving laboratories, research and development (R&D) institutions, inspectors, regulators, industry and others along the entire food chain will be promoted.

The meeting will also discuss additional areas, such as continued need for education/training on food safety measures using nuclear sciences and applications; strengthening R&D on food safety, especially leading to generation of reliable data needed for standards setting using the comparative advantage of nuclear science and improving risk analysis; addressing equipment/instrument challenges laboratories face; coordinating and enhancing AFoSaN through regular meetings, especially for its various committees; resource mobilisation for routine food safety monitoring; the use of existing and new capabilities needed to address food-trade rejections and generating information on the burden of diseases. Furthermore, the meeting will explore emerging food safety concerns and risk analysis; and will address the outcomes of COP28 particularly related to enhancing the visibility of food safety and nuclear science activities in the context of food security.

The meeting will involve regional stakeholders, including AU, Regional Economic Cooperations and the African Commission on Nuclear Energy, among others.

Objectives

The purpose of the event is to bring together scientists working in the area of food safety and nuclear sciences and applications’, as well as current and potential regional partners, and other stakeholders, to discuss and evaluate mechanisms driven by innovation in nuclear science and technologies to better support regional efforts in enhancing Africa’s food safety system.

Participation: The target audience includes but is not limited to representatives from:

• Food safety and quality testing laboratories (analysts and managers);
• Quality infrastructure institutions, including accreditation, standards, scientific and legal metrology institutes;
• Risk analysis (assessment, management and communication) institutions;
• Epidemiologists
• Regulatory authorities and decision-makers;
• Research/academia;
• Industry (food manufacturers and distributors);
• International and non-governmental organizations; and
• Interested general public and civil society.

All persons wishing to participate in the event have to be designated by a Member State of the Sponsoring Organizations’ Member State or should be members of organizations that have been invited to attend. They may also receive special invitation as speakers, presenters or observers from the organizers.

In order to be designated by a Member State of the Sponsoring Organizations, participants are requested to send the Participation Form (Form A) to their competent national authority (e.g., Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Permanent Mission to the IAEA or National Atomic Energy Authority) for onward transmission to the IAEA by  19 July 2024. Participants who are members of an organization invited to attend are requested to send the Participation Form (Form A) through their organization to the IAEA by the above deadline.

Selected participants will be informed in due course on the procedures to be followed with regard to administrative and financial matters.

Participants are hereby informed that the personal data they submit will be processed in line with the Agency’s Personal Data and Privacy Policy and is collected solely for the purpose(s) of reviewing and assessing the application and to complete logistical arrangements where required.

The FAO, IAEA and ONSSA encourage participants to deliver presentations on the work of their respective institutions that falls under the topics listed above.

Participants who wish to give presentations are requested to submit an abstract of their work. The abstract will be reviewed as part of the selection process for presentations. The abstract should be in A4 page format and should not exceed 300 words. It should be sent electronically not later than 19 July 2024. Authors will be notified of the acceptance of their proposed presentations by 5 August 2024. The abstract should be submitted with the relevant forms mentioned above.

For more information please see the Information Sheet.