Alignment of Pesticide Regulations and Standards in Africa

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As many African economies grow, governments are wrangling with complex public health issues including a pronounced need for updated food safety regulatory systems. While food safety modernization is an essential part of effective agricultural regulation, this has also resulted in an increase in non-tariff barriers to trade. For example, Maximum Residue Levels of pesticides(MRLs) may be set to a level not based in science or consistent with good agricultural practices.Overly stringent MRLs that are non-science based are contrary to the World Trade Organization(WTO) Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Agreement and can unnecessarily restrict trade. Efforts to build regulatory capacity and encourage the adoption of import tolerances and Codex MRLs when appropriate, can help reduce these trade barriers, especially in horticultural and specialty crops. This NOFO provides funding to harmonize pesticide maximum residue limits (MRLs) in Africa, and support adoption of regulations that are science-based and backed by the WTO SPS Agreement. Expected outcomes of this project will be the alignment of pesticide registration systems and MRL standard setting across the four regions of Africa. Objectives: USDA/FAS is seeking partners with whom to coordinate and implement a strategy focused on leveraging regional networks, with the identification of countries to be leaders in each region, to support the establishment of strong, science-based regulatory systems for pesticide MRL regulation. Specifically, a partner would use these regional networks: 1) to establish regionally harmonized regulatory systems; and 2) strengthen laboratory capacity and the development of regional lab networks. The program’s outcome is an improved understanding by regional authorities on avenues for efficiently and safely harmonizing regulations on MRLs in a science-based manner, which could (for example) include the following: •Crop grouping adopted at the regional level for registrations and MRL establishment •Mutual understanding of efficacy trials across African countries •Common registration requirements and formats for dossiers •Registration assessments/evaluations/decisions based on risk •MRL decision pathways adopted that are trade-facilitative •Adopt crop grouping MRLs based on Codex groups •Regional mechanism established to prioritize pesticides for registrations and MRLs •Residue data generation programs established in at each of the African regions to conductsupervised residue field trials •Establishment of a residue trial training center

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