The Safe Food Imperative: Accelerating Progress in Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Food safety is vital for achieving many of the Sustainable Development Goals, including ending poverty and hunger and promoting health and well-being. Unsafe food can cause illness and death, and it keeps people from working and thriving. It undermines food and nutritional security, imposes costs on the food economy and public health system, and disrupts international trade. The global burden of foodborne disease falls disproportionately on children under age five and on the populations of low- and middle-income countries in Asia and Africa. Low- and middle-income countries are estimated, in aggregate, to experience a productivity loss of some US$95 billion per year as a result of unsafe food. The Safe Food Imperative argues that much of the health and economic burden of unsafe food can be avoided through preventive measures, investments, and behavioral changes adopted from farm to fork. It draws attention to policies and approaches that governments can use to invest wisely in food safety, to better leverage private initiatives, and to engage effectively with consumers. Both its analysis of food safety challenges and its recommendations for priority public and other stakeholder actions are differentiated for countries at different levels of economic development. The Safe Food Imperative will be of interest to food safety and development practitioners, as well as to policy makers and policy analysts in low- and middle-income countries---those associated with technical ministries (especially agriculture, health, and trade) and those involved with economic and development planning and budgetary and fiscal management.