34. The Secretariat introduced the working document, stressing the two different types of consumer participation: participation of consumers and consumer groups as members of national Delegations in sessions of the Codex Alimentarius Commission and its subsidiary bodies; and consumers’ involvement in the decision-taking process at the national level. The Coordinating Committee noted the importance of the role to be played by the national Codex focal point to enhance the level of the participation of consumers in the Codex procedures.
35. Most Delegations stated that the participation of consumers and consumer groups was essential for the development of standards whose objective was consumer protection. However, a significant diversity in the level of consumer participation was observed from country to country in the Region. Some Delegations stated that consumer Representatives were standing members of their national standard setting bodies or members of their Delegations to Codex. In other countries, the food standards were developed by the governments under their direct responsibility for consumer protection and public health and participation by consumer organizations in this process was limited.
36. The Coordinating Committee noted that in order to promote the participation of consumers and consumer groups certain actions needed to be taken, including specific education programmes to enhance the awareness of consumers. It was also mentioned that international or regional network might be a useful tool to increase the consumer participation.
37. The Representatives of the Consumer International and the Arab Consumer Federation expressed their appreciation to the Coordinating Committee’s initiative to address this subject at its First Session. The Coordinating Committee noted the interest of consumer groups in participating in drafting food standards and in regional/international study groups. National Codex committees were expected to play an important role to distribute information to consumers. Consumers needed most reliable information on controversial food safety issues such as foods derived from biotechnology and BSE. From the viewpoint of consumer protection appropriate measures should be taken to prevent any misinformation and fraud.
38. Some Delegations observed that noting the importance of the consumer involvement in the implementation of national food safety policy where the government should have the primary responsibility, more efforts needed to be made to improve cooperation between the Government and consumer groups.
