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The STDF Independent Dialogue highlighted why facilitating safe trade matters for food systems transformation, and how interventions to build sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) capacity for trade can have even greater domestic impacts including to to improve food safety for domestic populations. There has been a huge increase in global agri-food exports, from US$32.1 billion in 1961 to US$1,448.6 billion in 2018. This increases the need to manage SPS risks linked to trade, and also to better understand the complexities and trade-offs linked to the implementation of SPS measures. For instance, tr... Read moreade-offs related to the relationship between food safety compliance, trade and food security, such as questions related to the local sale and consumption of products that do not meet standards for export. These linkages and trade-offs are complex, with positive as well as potentially negative effects depending on the specific context. Trade plays a significant role in economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. Trade benefits vulnerable groups, including women and youth, and generates other positive impacts on domestic systems. While there is recognition that SPS capacity building and trade contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals – including cross-cutting impacts on gender equity, environmental impacts and sustainability, and other domestic impacts – there is a need to better understand these interactions and, in particular, to move from recognition to mainstreaming. Firstly, research has highlighted the linkages between gender and trade (including the Joint WTO declaration on Women and Trade in 2017). For instance, that women are disadvantaged in national and international food systems, or that they are more likely to be found in the informal trade sector, to face higher export costs and/or to be excluded in processes to promote compliance with SPS measures. In general, gender is not well mainstreamed in the design of SPS measures and SPS capacity building activities. Secondly, on environmental impacts and sustainability, there are critical interplays between the implementation of SPS measures and efforts to promote sustainable agriculture. For instance, SPS measures may be associated with the improved and/or reduced use of pesticides, which is critical for sustainable agriculture. However, while this is recognized to some extent, it is inadequately mainstreamed. Thirdly, the inter-linkages between SPS capacity development, trade and domestic impacts are not well articulated. While it is assumed that increasing SPS capacity to promote trade to regional and international markets generates wider, indirect domestic benefits (for instance for firms and groups not directly involved in trade), it is difficult to find examples of these indirect "domestic spillovers" in practice because they not identified and streamlined in the design of the capacity building efforts, and therefore not measured. Moving forward, the key question is how to mainstream gender, environmental sustainability, and domestic issues in the SPS arena around trade? This also very much depends on the stakeholders who are engaged, and the frameworks used for priority-setting and decision-making. The importance of partnerships for food systems transformation was emphasized. The STDF's multi-stakeholder partnership can play a role in promoting better practices to support the mainstreaming of these issues and food systems transformations. For instance, the STDF's evidence-based framework to prioritize SPS investment options for trade (P-IMA) identifies cross-cutting issues (including gender, environmental impacts and domestic impacts) as key decision criteria to be considered in ranking SPS investment priorities for market access. This is one example of an effort to begin to mainstream these topics. Other key messages from the panel discussion addressed the following: • the importance of international standards to promote harmonization and facilitate trade in support of food systems transformation. • the importance of greater transparency, engagement and more effective collaboration (including with the right partners) to strengthen results. This includes, for instance, collaboration and partnerships across diverse public sector stakeholders working across SPS systems and trade facilitation, as well as public-private cooperation. • The role and added-value of the "One Health" approach to promote synergies and address interconnected global issues (such as trade in wildlife or antimicrobial resistance) related to food safety, animal health and domestic public health. • the crucial role of the private sector and the need to find new ways to leverage the private sector's knowledge to drive innovation and for the public and private sector to work together more effectively and with greater impact. • the need for substantially increased resources and action to make access to safe and nutritious food a right, not a privilege. • the importance of a food chain approach and utilizing systems-based approaches to strengthen food safety as well as plant and animal health for trade that contributes to food systems transformation in a way that promotes gender equity, as well as environment sustainability and other domestic impacts. • emerging opportunities to promote innovation, including digitalization, to facilitate safe trade that mainstreams cross-cutting issues and promotes gender equity and environmental sustainability. 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The Dialogue focused on how the implementation of international standards (including Codex standards for food safety) and the facilitation of safe trade contribute to the transformation of food systems and the UN's Sustainable Development Goals. Recognizing the importance and urgency of such transformation to deliver food security for the future, the Dialogue aimed to better understand and position the facilitation of safe trade towards this outcome. Trade helps to create jobs, improve incomes, attract investment and boost economic growth. Meeting international standards for food safety, anima... Read morel and plant health is essential to facilitate safe trade. Safe trade enables developing countries to participate in and benefit from export-oriented agri-food value chains that generate employment and promote sustainable economic development. Safe trade protects the health of consumers, animals and plants, while helping to mitigate and adapt to the risks posed by climate change, promoting sustainable development. International standards for food safety, animal and plant health are at the core of STDF's work to facilitate safe and inclusive trade horizons for developing countries, building on STDF's Strategy for 2020-2024 "Safe and Inclusive Trade Horizons for Development Countries". Meeting these standards results in effective national food control, veterinary and phytosanitary systems, which facilitate safe trade, in line with the WTO's Agreement on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Meeting these standards promotes agricultural development, protects the environment and helps to mitigate against the risks of climate change. Like agri-food systems, effective SPS systems depend on inter-disciplinary, cross-sectoral and inclusive multi-stakeholder processes and approaches that cut across agriculture, health, environment, trade and development to enable diverse stakeholders to achieve more and stronger results together than would be possible alone. The STDF Dialogue engaged members of STDF's global partnership to: • Share experiences and learning about innovative and collaborative safe trade solutions in Africa, Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean, and explore how they are contributing to food systems transformation. • Reflect on how ongoing trends – from the growth in regional and South-South trade to digitalization and inclusive and sustainable trade – are influencing SPS capacity development, and what this means for food systems transformation. • Identify new opportunities for STDF's global partnership to influence and catalyse sustainable improvements in SPS systems that support agri-food systems to deliver for the world of tomorrow. Read less