OTTAWA, (Pakistan Point News - 08th Jun, 2020) The international community will mark tomorrow the World Accreditation Day, a global initiative established by the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation, ILAC, and the International Accreditation Forum, Inc, IAF, under the theme ''How Accreditation Improves Food Safety.'' World Accreditation Day takes place each year on 9th June to act as a springboard for awareness-raising actions and to promote accreditation to governments, the public and private sectors, and, more generally, citizens. It also provides national organisations the opportunity to organize activities related to the theme of the day.
This year’s theme focuses on how accreditation supports food safety, bolstering the confidence of consumers, suppliers, purchasers and specifiers in the quality and safety of food.
Accreditation has an important role in food safety, by ensuring competent and impartial inspection, certification and testing services in all parts of local, national and international food chains.
A joint statement released by the IAF and ILAC introduces the importance of accreditation in food safety, noting how it ensures competent and impartial inspection, certification and testing services in every part of local, national and international food chains. In doing so, accreditation supports the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals, SDGs, in particular, the Good Health and Well-being Goal (SDG 3).
Some 33 million years of healthy lives are lost due to eating unsafe food globally each year, they said, citing the World Health Organization, WHO, estimates.
In April 2019, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, FAO, the World Health Organisation, WHO, and the World Trade Organisation, WTO, stated in a joint statement, "Foodborne diseases have a significant impact on public health, food security, productivity and poverty. Nearly 600 million people fall sick and 420 000 die prematurely each year because of foodborne diseases. "
''Accreditation aims to help support the reduction of these incidences through driving up the performance of organisations in the food supply chain,'' the IAF and ILAC concluded.
