The Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS) has the pleasure of inviting you to a Global Economy Monday seminar on:
Standards, Trade and Africa: Research, Capacity Building and Policy Outcomes of the SAFE Programme
Monday, 14 June 2010, 10.00-11.45
Danish Institute for International Studies
Main Auditorium
Strandgade 71, ground floor, 1401 Copenhagen K
Background
A growing proportion of global agro-food trade is currently managed through the use of standards. This is the result of increasing consumer concern with food safety and ‘sustainability’, the leading role assumed by large supermarkets and processors in agro-food value chains, and massive investments by these in brand development and protection. These trends have led to concerns among researchers and development agencies that low income country operators, particularly small-scale producers, will become excluded from remunerative value chains and from developed country markets. In response to these concerns, development assistance has been targeted at a range of standards-related objectives.
This seminar presents the results of the four-year ‘Standards and Agro-Food Exports’ (SAFE) research and capacity building programme, which was designed to address some of these concerns. The programme, funded by the Consultative Research Committee for Development Research (FFU) and other sources, was jointly conducted by DIIS and Sokoine University of Agriculture in Tanzania. The seminar follows the final conference of the programme – taking place at the end of May in Tanzania. It will also include the launch of the edited book, Global Agro-Food Trade and Standards: Challenges for Africa, published in May 2010 by Palgrave.
The research programme included fieldwork-based studies of issues of standard-setting in Northern countries and standards conformity and certification in several African countries. It included food safety standards, fair trade standards, organic standards, labour standards and several kinds of environmental standards and labels. Products covered included tropical commodities, fresh and processed agro-foods, fish and cut flowers. Four PhD students were trained, including three Tanzanians.
Stefano Ponte is Head of the Research Unit on ‘Global Economy, Regulation and Development’ (GEARED) at DIIS. Peter Gibbon is Coordinator of the Danish part of the SAFE research programme. Together with Evelyne Lazaro, the Tanzanian coordinator of this programme, they are the editors of Global Agro-Food Trade and Standards: Challenges for Africa.
Linda Fulponi is Senior Economist in the Directorate for Food, Agriculture and Fisheries at OECD. She has published extensively in the area of standards, including in the American Journal of Agricultural Economics, European Review of Agricultural Economics and Food Policy.
Programme
10.00-10.10 Welcome
Nanna Hvidt, Director, DIIS
10.10-10.35 Standards and Agro-Food Trade in Africa: Research and Capacity
Building Activities and Outcomes of the SAFE Programme
Stefano Ponte, Senior Researcher, DIIS
10.35-11.00 Donor Interventions on Agro-Food Standards: Policy Lessons
from SAFE Programme Research
Peter Gibbon, Senior Researcher, DIIS
11.00-11.15 Discussant
Linda Fulponi, OECD
11.15-11.45 Open discussion
11.45-12.15 Book Launch
Practical Information
The seminar will be held in English.
Participation is free of charge, but registration is required. Please use our below online registration form no later than Friday, 11 June 2010 at 12.00 noon.
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