Standards and Agro-Food Exports (SAFE): Identifying Challenges and Outcomes for Developing Countries

A Research and Capacity Building Programme

• The setting and implementation of new health and safety-related standards for agro-food products, as well as new social, labour and environmental standards – with a focus on public and private standards in the EU;
• The levels of compliance with new standards by producers and exporters in developing countries, costs and benefits, and pre-conditions and consequences (including distributional ones) of compliance and non-compliance.

• Identify the main challenges in the realm of agro-food standards facing developing country producers, and – via comparative work – the best practices for meeting them;
• Build a resource base in developing countries and in Europe for a better understanding of these challenges – with particular focus on research capacity building on standards at the Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness at Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania;
• Develop links between this resource base and the stakeholders of Danida’s Business Sector Programme Support (BSPS) and strengthen the capacity of these stakeholders to contribute to business sector development;
• Build links between researchers directly working on these issues in the countries of focus, and others working on them elsewhere in the EU, USA and South Asia.