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In 2006 and 2007, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and The Office of Global Health Affairs (OGHA) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), conducted three Food-Safety Conferences in Bahrain, Morocco and Egypt, respectively, for selected counterpart regulators from 17 countries from the broader Middle East- North Africa (BMENA) region. These meetings sought to foster regional infrastructural improvements to improve the quality of food exported regionally, and to the U.S. A secondary aim was to help encourage counterpart authorities to obtain improved information concerning the safety and quality of foods, and thereby foster safer, and greater, food trade.
Support for these workshops was provided by the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, Office of the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) of the U.S. Department of State. Substantial participation and assistance was also provided by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA), Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS), Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), and Agriculture Marketing Service (AMS), in the forms of logistical support and presentations on meat and poultry products. The U.S. Department of Defense Naval Medical Research Unit – 3 (NAMRU-3) also participated, and gave a presentation on Avian Influenza. The final workshop included representatives from representatives from the HHS Centers For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now working on the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Salm-Surv, and PulseNet Middle East laboratory networks. It also included active participation and moderation by a representative of the WHO International Food Safety Authorities (INFOSAN) Network, and a regional representative from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
The first MEPI food safety workshop was held June 4-7, 2006, in Manama, Bahrain, and invited food regulatory counterparts and industry from Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E.), and Yemen. In Manama, the FDA, USDA and NAMRU presentations detailed the basic elements of the U.S. food-safety regulatory system, and established valuable relationships with regional peers. Participants also submitted comments, and discussed resource needs. Among other comments, many participants mentioned that there was a need for laboratory capacities, and a regional network for information on food borne illnesses.
The second conference was held in Casablanca, Morocco from February 5-8, 2007, in English and French. It included food safety officials from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt. The U.S. delegation gave pre-translated, introductory presentations concerning all aspects of the U.S. food safety system.
The third workshop, held in Cairo, Egypt on 7-8 November, 2007 was called a “Senior Regional Food Safety Authority Response Coordination Roundtable.” This one sought to focus on developing specific regional strategies for coordinated response to future food-borne illness outbreaks, and was conducted in English and Arabic with simultaneous translation provided. With the assistance of U.S. State Department and USDA Agriculture Attachés in the region, more than 60 participants from Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Algeria, Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon, Oman, Canada, Mexico, UAE and Afghanistan, as well as the Secretariat of the Gulf Standards Organization of the Gulf Cooperation Council, attended.
The Cairo Program Presentations
The Cairo Working Groups´ conclusions