This World Bank report assesses the status of biosafety regulation in developing countries and recommends ways for developing countries to advance their regulatory frameworks to improve the benefits from biotechnologies in their countries.
June 2012: The World Bank released a report on the Status and Impact of Biosafety Regulation in Developing Economies since Ratification of the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. The report recommends that developing countries harmonize risk assessment requirements, and ensure that development priorities such as agricultural productivity, food security and rural development are considered in biosafety decision-making along with environmental concerns.
Prepared by the World Bank’s Agriculture and Rural Development Department and Environment Department, the report explores how the Cartagena Protocol and other drivers have affected the regulation of genetically modified crops in developing countries, including the impact on research and development, and on product approvals.
The report notes that only a small number of developing countries have developed regulatory frameworks that go beyond the implementation of the Protocol by developing effective and predictable regulation that would make their countries attractive for private sector investment in biotechnology. In addition, very few countries undertake public sector research and development efforts. According to the report, the absence of such efforts will make public sector and donor initiatives to improve crop productivity using biotechnology unsuccessful, because there is no clear path for placing improved crop varieties on the market.
The report recommends that developing countries should advance their biosafety frameworks to benefit from biotechnology opportunities by: ensuring that biosafety decision-making is informed by development objectives such as food security, increasing productivity and rural development, not only environmental concerns; focusing risk assessment on plausible adverse effects on the environment; incorporating assessments of environmental benefits; harmonizing risk assessment between countries; and improving biosafety capacity-building. [Publication: The Status and Impact of Biosafety Regulation in Developing Economies since Ratification of the Cartagena Protocol]