Ethiopia, Italy sign grant agreement of €1.5 mln

Ethiopia has signed a grant agreement amounting 1.5 million euros with Italy on Thursday.

The agreement was held in a ceremony held at the Embassy of Italy in Addis Abeba, and it will be used to the implementation of “Food Safety Project”.

Semereta Sewasew, State Minister of Finance, and Agostino Palese, Ambassador of Italy to Ethiopia signed the agreement.

The overall aim of the project is to improve the food safety status in Ethiopia by providing technical support in managing the food safety risks, which are arising from food adulteration and poor food hygienic practices in major agro-food processors, and food marketers, and catering services.

The major activities planned to be performed by the project, include, but are not limited to, establishing a national surveillance system on food adulteration and food hygiene practices surveillance system in Ethiopia, strengthening human and laboratory capacity on food safety, and empowering agro-processors, food marketers, and catering service providers.

This project will be implemented in 25 major cities of the country, including Addis Abeba and regional capital cities, in which many agro-food processing and catering services are located and most food products, either raw or processed, are destined and where people obtain their food through purchasing only.