1. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the World Health Organization (WHO) jointly convened the FAO/WHO Regional Conference on Food Safety for Africa (the conference) in an effort to facilitate discussion on practical actions and recommendations to promote food safety in the countries of the African region. The conference was held in Harare, Zimbabwe from 3 to 6 October 2005 at the request of the African countries. The conference was attended by high-ranking policy officers and technical experts from 45 member countries of the African region of FAO and WHO. It was also attended by nine international governmental and non-governmental organizations as observers. A list of all participants is included in Annex 1.
2. This conference is part of a series of global and regional events that FAO and WHO are convening to meet the needs of member countries for policy guidance and capacity building in food safety. This series includes the First and Second FAO/WHO Global Fora (GF) of Food Safety Regulators (GF1 - Morocco, 28 to 30 January 2002 and GF2 - Thailand, 12 to 14 October 2004), and regional events in Europe (Hungary, February 2002), Asia and the Pacific (Malaysia, May 2004), and the Near East (Jordan, March 2005). The conference was convened in light of the recommendations and feedback from these events, direction from FAO/WHO governing bodies, and the request of the 15th Session of the FAO/WHO Coordinating Committee for Africa (CCAfrica-Kampala, Uganda, November 2002).
3. The objectives of the conference were to i) facilitate dynamic and sustainable communication on continuing and emerging food safety issues important to all countries of the African region and identify harmonized, practical and sustainable actions to address these issues; ii) identify opportunities for improving international and regional cooperation in promoting food safety in order to protect consumers and their health and to develop positive food trade relations, taking into account the prevailing conditions in the entire food chain; iii) promote the strengthening and/or the establishment of regional and sub-regional networks for the exchange of food safety-related information and experiences among all stakeholders; iv) encourage public/private partnerships for consumer awareness raising, capacity building, and food safety issues in general; and v) identify strengths in specific subjects of food safety within the region and means to utilize these strengths as part of an over-arching policy to continuously improve food safety.
4. The Provisional Agenda for the conference is found in Annex 2 (CAF 05/1).
