UNU-FTP short course on SPS Management for Caribbean specialists
Eighteen professionals, working in Fisheries Management, Animal Health and Food Safety and from across the CARIFORUM region, were specially selected to attend a SPS Management Course during 17-30 April 2016 at the Marine Research Institute in Reyjavik, Iceland. The course will expose the selected trainees to the full range of issues faced in fisheries value chain management, with special focus on achieving SPS measures and the institutional arrangements required for optimized performance of the fishing industry.
The training course was made possible through the EU-funded SPS project that is designed to help CARIFORUM countries increase their capacity to fulfill international sanitary and phyto-sanitary standards, and by this means, increase their capacity for international trade in agricultural products.
The UNU-FTP has cooperated in the past with the CRFM to develop and deliver other types of short-term training courses suitable for Caribbean fisheries management situations, and was awarded the contract to deliver the EU-sponsored SPS Management Course.
This two week course in Iceland was comprised of lectures, site visits, and group work. Topics included theoretical frameworks and practical applications in fish product quality management along the value chain, including cleaning and sanitation in the field and processing plants, traceability, value chain analysis, risk assessment, and the importance of making the most use of available fishery resources.
The SPS Project is a major intervention approved under the 10th European Development Fund Caribbean Regional Indicative Programmes (10th EDF CRIP), being implemented by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), in partnership with the CARICOM Community Secretariat and the CRFM. The CRFM is responsible for delivery of the fisheries component.