Lab capacity building has taken on a life of its own over the past few years. This facet of global food safety has drawn the attention of countries worldwide as well as all the other entities, e.g., international organizations, food industry, NGOs and regulatory agencies to address the need to improve the food supply in the 21st century. Each of the speakers will address how countries or their respective organizations address food safety within the confines of analytical laboratories. Specifically, they will provide insightful models that were successful and identify the challenges lie for the future. There remains significant obstacles at many levels to ensure global food safety; this symposium will address one issue-what are the challenges within individual countries to build their infrastructure to improve not only their own domestic consumption but also as a partner in the global economy. A number of international organizations, including government, food industry and the private sector have identified critical gaps in lab capacity. Improvement to an individual country’s ability to respond to food safety issues need to focus on a number of diverse but integrated aspects; appropriate management and leadership, laws, regulations, and policies, an understanding of QA policies and practices, procurement, information management system, training, and assessment of capabilities, infrastructure, and continuation of training for developing new skills for new technology. Using this information as a springboard to action, efforts by individual countries, NGOs, and WHO/FAO and domestic regulatory agencies have been implemented to move the infrastructure forward, including personnel training to physical improvements within the laboratory. However, there is much more to accomplish with the added challenges of working within this period of economic stress and uncertainty.

Presentations