capacity building for food safety to facilitate trade (World Bank, 2005) but such capacity building need not be limited to trade facilitation.

7.3.1.3 Food safety standards for domestic public health benefits

In theory, trade related food safety standards and control measures may also be applied readily to domestic food safety programs. In practice, according to developing country official respondents to survey input into the FAO/WHO Food Standards Programme Evaluation, developing countries adopt few international food standards into domestic legislation because they lack the resources and technical capacity to implement and enforce the standards (CAC, 2002).

     The unmet challenge remains, how to apply food safety measures not only for internationally traded products but for the great share of global food production that is not traded internationally. Of particular concern is the implementation of standards and other guidance to prevent foodborne illness resulting from new foodborne pathogens in domestically produced and consumed foods or from existing pathogens whose prevalence or severity has increased. The challenge of applying standards domestically for public health benefits is even greater in countries where food safety control systems are not integrated into the public health system but are instead largely confined to export establishments and import inspection. Policy options, outlined below, to meet this challenge should take into account capacity building challenges.

      Despite the proliferation of international public and private standards, compliance with which is required for market entry, there are relatively few public studies of sanitary/ phytosanitary (SPS) compliance costs for developing country agricultural exports (Pay, 2005). These few quantified studies indicate that existing levels and kinds of trade related technical assistance are far from providing the necessary facilities, such as accredited laboratories for measuring pesticide residue levels, to enable SPS standards implementation and enforcement (e.g., Larcher Carvalho, 2005). However, in some developing countries, qualitative needs assessments should suffice to demonstrate the desirability of donor financing of basic SPS infrastructure and training.

     Notwithstanding the technical capacity shortfall to implement the SPS requirements of trade agreements, the view that "aid for trade" should be a binding, scheduled and enforceable part of trade negotiations for least developed countries (WTO, 2004; Stiglitz and Charlton, 2006) has not received support from developed country WTO members. While "best endeavor" capacity building can be helpful, the tradeoff in depending largely on private sector SPS infrastructure investment is that WTO members not integrated into transnational corporate food supply chains likely will be unable to ensure that their agricultural exports meet SPS requirements.

      In the absence of adequate funding, proliferation of unfunded negotiating mandates may result in attempts to avoid SPS rule compliance. Furthermore, domestic adoption of international standards will not be enhanced by a simple increase in current capacity building initiatives, since there is a considerable disjuncture between the sanitary-phytosanitary technical assistance requested by developing countries,

particularly for SPS infrastructure, the assistance provided by donors that is often limited to training to understand SPS rules (CAC, 2002).

7.3.2 Animal health

Internationally, policies aimed at managing infectious animal diseases, including emerging or reemerging human diseases caused by animal-borne pathogens (Taylor et al., 2001), have been directed to improving preparedness. Methods of controlling and responding to zoonoses have been proposed, through developing and strengthening surveillance systems and identifying risks, including the economic, sociological and political implications and the need for intersectoral collaboration (e.g., WHO, 2004). It is particularly challenging for developing countries to try to meet internationally defined or driven regulations and policies for the animal health sector as these are continuously shifting in response to the increasing needs and ambitions of developed countries. This is assessed below in relation to the major groups of infectious animal diseases and the current principles for their control and regulatory support (Figure 7-9).

7.3.2.1 Major epizootic diseases and impacts on trade and developing countries

The effectiveness of current policies (eradication and SPS standards for maintaining disease free status) successfully applied in developed countries to prevent outbreaks of the major epizootic diseases (Leforban and Gerbier, 2002; DG SANCO, 2007) means that many developing countries will continue to be excluded from accessing the high-value international markets. This is generally because of the conflict between free trade and the protection of health status. The eradication of important epizoootic diseases, a core principle of the OIE who determine the animal health standards within the SPS Agreement, is not considered achievable in developing countries in the next decades because it requires significant efforts and investments in surveillance and veterinary service to meet eradication and control policies (Scoones and Wolmer, 2006). The magnitude of the challenges involved is demonstrated by the fact that an estimated 200 million poultry producers in Asia are on small holdings (e.g., 97% in Thailand and 75% in Cambodia (FAO, 2004a; Gilbert et al., 2006).

     International debate on this dilemma has focused on an increased implementation in developing countries of other policies such as using a risk- and commodity-based approach that allows an alternative to the total restriction in trade of animals and animal products (Brückner, 2004; Thomson et al., 2004; Perry et al., 2005; Thomson et al., 2006). The concept is that different commodities pose very different risks for the spread of pathogens. For example, deboned meat has a reduced risk in relation to whole carcasses and is applied by certain countries to facilitate import from certain foot and mouth disease infected countries (Sabirovic et al., 2005). Similarly, policies that limit import restrictions to certain export producing areas (regions) instead of restrictions on whole countries or continents are also recommended. Such regionalization is considered as a useful additional tool in maintaining trade flow by limiting import restrictions in the case of new outbreaks of animal