Economic Rationale for US Involvement in Public-Private Partnerships in International Food Safety Capacity Building

Abstract

The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) places more responsibility on the private sector to ensure the safety of imported food. It also requires the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to provide international food safety capacity building on the new regulations and to monitor and evaluate those efforts. However, public resources to support programs abroad are limited. International capacity building supported by the private sector, which sometimes has its own standards that suppliers need to meet, can complement public efforts. This chapter discusses the market failures associated with food safety provision and why both the public and private sectors have been involved in international food safety capacity building. It reviews public and private sector efforts and some of the partnerships that have formed. It discusses the limitations of monitoring and evaluation efforts when relying solely on publicly available data. It argues that mobilizing public-private partnerships in monitoring and evaluation can make it easier to capture the collective impact of international food safety capacity-building efforts.