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Working together for better food and nutrition safety

29/2022, 17.08.2022

German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) and World Health Organisation (WHO) initiate global cooperation of national risk assessment authorities

"In the face of hunger crises and inequities in access to healthy diets it is extremely important to have agreed international methods to assess health risk from food and to describe cost effective interventions to provide safe, healthy and sustainable diets to all" says the Director of the Department of Food and Nutrition Safety at the WHO, Dr Francesco Branca. A first step is the bilateral meeting of experts from WHO and BfR on 16-17 August 2022 in Geneva. "The initial aim is to create an international platform on which national risk assessment authorities from all over the world can exchange their respective findings and research results on health risks in food and make them available internationally," adds BfR President Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel.

In view of the scarcity of food resources worldwide, an essential point is a science-based risk-benefit analysis of measures to protect the health of the population from food-borne diseases while at the same time ensuring sustainable nutrition. The focus here is particularly on countries whose populations have to get by on a low income. The first step here is to make methods developed by BfR available and jointly develop them further so that they can be used by other risk assessment and risk management authorities.

Another issue is how BfR and WHO can pool their knowledge in capacity building. The aim is to establish a global network of risk assessment authorities

About the BfR

The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) is a scientifically independent institution in the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (BMEL). It advises the Federal Government and the Federal States on issues of food, chemical and product safety. The BfR conducts its own research on topics closely related to its assessment tasks

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