USAID’s Bureau for Resilience and Food Security, U.S. Department of Agriculture's Foreign Agricultural Service and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition are announcing a new phase of its food safety partnership through the Food Safety for Food Security (FS4FS) program agreement October 2022 until September of 2027. 

In 2016, the program partners identified a need for increased global trade capacity-building on sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) policy and regulatory issues as well as improved coordination among United States Government agencies working on food safety, animal health and plant health under the Feed the Future Initiative. The adoption of science and risk-based international SPS standards and measures is critical to agriculture-led economic growth, and greater access to safe and nutritious foods, through enhanced regional and international trade.

Since then, the Food Safety Network partnership made important strides to strengthen SPS systems globally, leveraging almost $20 million in resources for trade capacity-building activities in 20 countries. USAID Washington-held seed funds targeted activities across various regions, and Missions bought-in to the partnership to obtain SPS-related technical support. More specifically, the program provided a pathway for USAID Missions, USAID Bureaus, governments, private sector partners and others to cooperate on food safety programming within the context of current projects and investments. This included support to: 

• Conduct SPS country needs assessments in Nepal, Cambodia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Ghana, Senegal, Philippines, Nigeria, and Niger to guide investments as well as to partner and deliver products such as the African Union Commission's SPS Policy Framework for Africa.
• Develop SPScourses.com online distance learning platform whose materials have been downloaded by more than 3,700 individuals in 146 countries;
• Curate a clearinghouse of information via a dedicated Agrilinks Activity page, which has included 55 blogs and webinars on SPS topics; and
• Serve as a mechanism to deliver United States Government technical expertise to countries, such as during the fall armyworm outbreak in Africa. 

The new FS4FS program will continue with the same approach and focus on strengthening the enabling environment for SPS systems and measures in Feed the Future countries. A strengthened enabling environment, including policies and institutions, as well as farmer, consumer and industry readiness, is critical to the transformation and resilience of agri-food systems. The FS4FS program will aim to:  

• Develop the capacity of technical and regulatory bodies in targeted countries to facilitate regional and international trade in agricultural goods, while managing risks within domestic food systems; 
• Improve all private sector actors' ability to produce, process, and take advantage of regional and international trade opportunities, while managing risks within domestic food systems; 
• Leverage established Feed the Future Knowledge Management resources to identify, curate and disseminate relevant information and expertise identified at, and provided to, Missions and countries; 
• Improve coordination among United States Government programs and the private sector in targeted countries to achieve impact at scale; and
• Serve as a rapid response mechanism to deliver agricultural and trade-related technical assistance to Feed the Future countries.      

The program team encourages the Agrilinks community to explore the FS4FS’ resources and reach out to partner in the coming years. For more information, please contact [email protected].