PRESS RELEASE
PRESS/314
27 September 2002
(02-5199)
FOOD SAFETY AND RELATED MEASURES
World Bank grant kicks off Bank -WTO assistance on standards
New facility to help developing countries meet standards, smoothing the path to global
markets. Partners urge G-8 and donor support for the new venture.
The World Bank and the World Trade Organization are establishing a new fund, called the
Standards and Trade Development Facility, as part of their efforts to link aid to trade opportunities
in the fight against poverty.
The fund — in cooperation with other organizations — will provide a stimulus to important new
projects for developing countries in this critical area, helping them shape and implementinternational standards on food safety, and plant and animal health. The goal is to provide grants
and financial support for technical assistance projects in developing countries through enhanced
collaboration between the international organizations involved.
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), th e World Health Organization (WHO) and the World
Organization for Animal Health (OIE) are expected to join the Bank and the WTO in the facility.Also expected to participate are the Codex Alimentarius (the food safety standards-setting
organization run jointly by the FAO and WHO), and the Secretariat of the International Plant
Protection Convention at the FAO.
Developing countries say they often have difficulty meeting disease and contaminant standards for
their food exports to richer countries’ markets. The new facility will help these nations strengthenand better implement food safety and plant and animal health measures — a win-win outcome for
developed and developing nations. This will help smooth the path for exports from the developing
world to global markets, thereby spurring gr owth and poverty reduction in poor countries.
The initiative also represents a concrete commitment of the Bank and WTO to place developing
countries in a stronger position to take advantage of the WTO agreements, and in particular of theAgreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures.
The World Bank has agreed to provide an initial US$300,000 to establish the new fund, and the
WTO will allocate funding from the Doha Development Trust Fund to launch the Facility. The WTO
will administer the facility for the partners.
Members of the Group of Eight — meeting in Kana naskis, Canada, in June — pledged to back new
initiatives in standards, and the WTO and the World Bank hope the G-8 members will follow
through with pledges of new financing to support the facility.PRESS/314
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“This facility represents a concrete step toward giving the developing world a greater voice in the
world trading system, and in a way that can brin g real benefits through greater exports,” World
Bank President James Wolfensohn said in announcing the facility’s creation. “The Bank has made
standards and related trade facilitation measures a key priority for our institution — the success ofthe Facility is an important part of that long-term commitment.”
The WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said “Enhanced technical assistance and capacity
building are essential if developing countries are to participate more fully in the multilateral trading
system. In the area of sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) regulations developing countries have
often had difficulty in meeting standards set in developed countries. This World Bank initiative willgreatly assist developing countries in meet ing these important SPS regulations and should
facilitate more trade and higher living standards in the developing world. We applaud the Bank’s
initiative.”
In a joint statement issued at the Doha Minister ial Conference in November 2001, the heads of the
World Bank, the WTO, OIE, FAO and the WHO declared that they were committed to work togetherto help developing countries participate more fully in setting and making use of international SPS
standards. (See press release 254 at
http://www.wto.org/english/ news_e/pres01 _e/pr254_e.htm )
According to World Bank research, Africa could gain over $1 billion a year from higher exports of
nuts, dried fruits, and other agricultural commodities if it participated in the development ofinternational standards, and implemented those rules. Bank studies also show that if governments
followed international standards for pesticide residues in bananas — instead of the more restrictive
national standards set by many developed count ries — African banana exports would jump by
$410 million a year. The same is true for beef. The adoption of science-based international
standards for minimum residue levels of veterinary  drugs could boost South Africa’s beef exports
by $160 million a year, for example.
Related websites : World Bank www.worldbank.org ; and www.world.org/wbiep/trade/standards ;
World Trade Organization, www.wto.org ; WHO www.who.int ; OIE www.oie.int ; Codex Alimentarius
www.codexalimentarius.net ; IPPC www.ippc.int
(Press release issued simultaneously by the World Bank in Washington and the WTO in Geneva)
END