For EatSafe, safer food and better health intersect in the traditional market

USAID’s Feed the Future Initiative, EatSafe: Evidence and Action Towards Safe, Nutritious Food, has honored this year’s World Food Safety Day (WFSD) with a special focus on traditional markets. The program’s aim is to to enable lasting improvements in the safety of nutritious foods in informal markets by focusing on the consumer. To commemorate this year’s WFSD, EatSafe led a series of activities, including blogs, events, resources, and even a podcast discussing what it means to “foster a culture of food safety”.

Kicking off the celebrations, EatSafe hosted a WHO Health Talk, Enabling Safer Food in Traditional Markets, which featured lively dialogue amongst experts discussings how food safety can be improved and supported in the “informal”, or traditional, sector. Building on this year's theme, “safer food, better health”, EatSafe showcased its formative research, presenting the strong connections between safe food and nutritional health and highlighting the importance of foundational inititatives like WHO’s Global Strategy for Food Safety.

Several national activities were hosted within EatSafe’s implementing countries, answering WFSD’s call to action to come together as all have a role to plan in food safety. In Nigeria, EatSafe participated in several celebratory activities, including training, rally, and presentations organized by the Nigerian Federal Ministry of Health, National Food Safety Management Committee. In Ethiopia, EatSafe participated in the Ethiopian Food and Drug Authority (EFDA)’s WFSD workshop in Addis Ababa.

This year marks EatSafe’s third year celebrating World Food Safety day. EatSafe is a consortium led by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition and implementing partners International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), Pierce Mill, and Busara Center for Behavioral Science.

Photo ©Yaayi Photography