Challenges

Cabo Verde imports around 80 per cent of the food consumed in the country and 100 per cent of the wheat for the production of wheat flour, 100 per cent of its rice and around 80 per cent of its corn. The country also imports other food products, mainly from Brazil, such as meat, and exports such fishery products primarily to some countries of the European Union. The changes in the Cabo Verde economic structure and the need to adopt health and economic regulations and institutional reform measures require institutional capacity-strengthening. 

Toward a Solution

The Institutional Strengthening of the Agency for Regulation and Supervision of Pharmaceutical and Food Products (ARFA) of Cabo Verde project, “covering the areas of regulation of pharmaceutical and food products aims to strengthen the work of the Agency for Regulation and Supervision of Pharmaceutical and Food Products (ARFA) in the scope of the economic and sanitary regulation of medicines and foodstuffs in Cape Verde, and the creation of institutional management tools.”[1] The aim is for Brazil to provide the know-how and technical capacities acquired after the creation of the Brazilian National Sanitary Surveillance Agency in 1999 to a least developed country with similar challenges, with a focus on the training in policymaking for leaders and techno-bureaucrats in the infrastructure, health, water, food and sanitation fields.

The aim of the Brazil-Cabo Verde programme is to enhance the institutions and policies of the African country. For two years, a total of nine training activities with structuring purposes took place, with a focus on medications, sanitary control, economic regulation, food security and institution-building. Those activities centred on four thematic areas, which corresponded to key results to be achieved: (a) the operationalization of the activities of ARFA in sanitary control and economic regulation; (b) the operationalization of ARFA activities in food security; (c) the strengthening of ARFA-specific institutions; and (d) the monitoring and evaluation of overall actions. For the achievement of its general guidelines and specific goals, the Brazilian cooperation involved the structuring of the Cabo Verde Integrated System for Monitoring the Pharmaceutical Market and the National System for Food Control, coupled with the execution of 14 technical missions to the Cabo Verde facilities, with the training of over 30 professionals in different institutions.

With respect to the outcomes, the cooperation scheme is twofold. “In the pharmaceutical sector, the project will enable (i) the creation of instruments for the economic and sanitary regulation of medicines, (ii) formulation of instruments for the operationalization of the National Pharmacovigilance System, (iii) establishment of the drug registration process, and (iv) the preparation of strategic plans for intervention in the aftermarket (quality, safety, efficacy and use). In the food sector, it intends to operationalize sanitary regulation and surveillance in Cape Verde, through: (i) the creation of a technical and methodological regulation for the incorporation of CODEX ALIMENTARIU[S] in the Cape Verdean order, (ii) creation of instruments for the operationalization of the National Food Control System and Sanitary Licensing, and (iii) elaboration of methodology for investigation of outbreaks of food and waterborne diseases.”[2] 

The ABC initiative involves a South-South partnership between Brazil and Cabo Verde through their respective agencies for sanitary control, which aims at capacity-building, constructive dialogue and exchange of experiences alongside technical assistance in the design and implementation of regulatory instruments and technical support for the preparation of communication actions. The ultimate goal is to implement a national system that ensures adequate health and economic regulation of pharmaceutical and food products to ensure access to them and quality and safety in their use, thus protecting the public health of the citizens of Cabo Verde so that ARFA is fully capable of monitoring the supply and price of staples. Inserted within the scope of the cooperation agenda of the Community of Portuguese-speaking Countries, this project brings two Governments and their respective agendas and bureaucracies to the scene, which guarantees its sustainability in terms of long-term commitments.