Multinational - Regional Strenghtening and Harmonizing Food Safety Standards In East Africa

This project concerns the Regional Strenghtening and Harmonizing Food Safety Standards In East Africa. It aims to strengthen food regulatory systems and promoting competitiveness of Agribusinesses especially the MSMEs will be crucial to tackling non-tariff barriers as relates to sanitary and phytosanitary measures, thus effectively facilitating the trade of safe and nutritious food. Moreover, reinforcement of food value chains will ensure non-disruption of food supply, which is critical to the sustenance of populations in the wake of the on-going COVID-19 pandemic and other stresses such as the ongoing desert locust outbreaks and droughts in some countries of the region. It also provides an important opportunity for the Bank and the FAPA Donor to follow-up and support the implementation of the food safety policy action plan through financing and investment. The project seeks to improve intra-regional and international trade in food by enhancing capacity of the Standards Committee food safety coordination mechanism, National Bureaux of Standards and National food safety laboratories to promote high quality and safe products starting with the EAC Partner States. The project comprises four main components, namely: (1) regional Harmonization Capacity Development, (2) training of Trainers (TOT): Strengthening National Food Laboratories, (3) improving competitiveness of SMEs through technical advisory support and (4) project coordination, monitoring and evaluation.