8. Mr Richard Fadden, President of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, presented the first keynote address on Building effective food safety systems: application of risk analysis (Appendix VII). Mr Fadden recalled the current and future challenges to food safety and globalization. He outlined that the Canadian response to these challenges was based on the risk analysis approach developed by Codex, dividing responsibilities between Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. Mr Fadden stressed the importance of collaboration between federal, provincial/territorial authorities and all stakeholders in the food system and the importance of a strong governmental role in ensuring the safety of the food supply. Citing the example of the recent discovery of a BSE case, he demonstrated the Canadian risk analysis approach including a new risk assessment for food safety and animal health and regular communication with stakeholders and foreign governments.
9. Mr Stuart Alexander Slorach, Acting Director-General of the National Food Administration in Sweden and Chairman of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) presented the second keynote address on the Complementarity between CAC normative work and the Global Fora (Appendix VIII). He recalled the different kinds of texts elaborated by Codex, namely standards, guidelines and codes of practices. The speaker noted that while the Global Fora focus on information exchange and experience sharing, Codex activities consist mainly of normative work, but also include the exchange of information and promotion of capacity building. Hence, such Global Fora should facilitate consensus building in Codex negotiations. It was noted that both the SPS and TBT Agreements refer to international standard setting bodies with Codex being the main player in the food area. He suggested some questions for discussion concerning the areas respectively covered by Codex and the Global Fora as well as the way they can help developing countries to build effective food safety systems. Finally, he urged the participants to participate actively in the Forum discussions.
10. In order to focus the Forum discussions under the main theme of Building Effective Food Safety Systems, two sub-themes had been identified to meet the needs expressed by developing and developed countries, including: Strengthening Official Food Safety Control Services and Epidemio-surveillance of Food-borne Diseases and Food Safety Rapid Alert Systems. Under each sub-theme, some specific areas of concern were further discussed, all of which were introduced by working documents presented by food safety experts and further discussed in plenary.
11. Two workshops, one for each sub-theme, were organized to identify and promote partnerships in these fields based on the discussions in plenary and relevant Conference Room Documents provided by countries and international organizations.
