The flow of the course is as follows: it starts with legislation‚ administration and legal reforms by the central government in Tokyo‚ then moves on to the implementation and management by the local government in Kitakyushu → the handling of agricultural‚ livestock and marine products → processing‚ distribution and marketing → central and regional food analysis systems. The course does not simply focus on the administrative work of ministries and government offices‚ it emphasizes giving the participants a real feel of how that work is implemented in the field.

The strong point of Japanese work sites connected with food hygiene is that each facility has a full range of analytical devices. Their facility can swiftly pinpoint the source of any illness or the like caused by hazardous organic or inorganic substances‚ and is also utilized as a means to convince businesses and consumers. However‚ there is insufficient infrastructure related to food analysis like this in place in the participants’ homelands. Although the expansion of such infrastructure is something that should happen sooner rather than later‚ each country has put budgetary allocations to increase the number of devices and analytical personnel on the back burner‚ and it is likely to be a long time before that expansion actually happens. Given the circumstances‚ our aim is that‚ during the course‚ the participants will identify what they can do once they have returned to their homeland. Conditions are very different in each country‚ so the participants need to accurately identify pressing issues and focus on them. At the start of the course‚ each participant prepares a job report collating issues. Defining the issues gives them a clear view of what to focus on in each part of the program. Naturally‚ new issues sometimes come to light during the course... The main measures to deal with issues do not involve hardware such as analytical devices‚ but rather intangible aspects such as legislation‚ human resources‚ and audit/supervision methods.

Apparently the issue in one participant’s country is the overlap between ministries in terms of their legislative powers and authority to issue permits and approvals. Business operators must submit the same application to multiple ministries‚ which requires a lot of work. The participant studied the division of roles in Japan’s central government agencies‚ and how roles are divided between the seat of government and regions‚ and drew up an action plan for after their return to their homeland. This action plan incorporated the administrative structure of their country‚ and reviewed food safety administration and the role of ministries and government offices.

Another participant‚ who works in the board of health in one of the states of their country‚ focused on administrative measures for food safety‚ with the objective of first of all thoroughly managing food safety in restaurants located in international hotels within the state. Apparently a comparison with food safety initiatives in Japan made them realize that sanitation was totally inadequate even in their country’s international restaurants. As there is a strong awareness of hygiene in restaurants that are representative of their country‚ the participant decided to ask such restaurants to adopt the ideas and methods for sanitation gleaned from this course‚ and to actively commit to making improvements. If that goes well‚ it will no doubt make it easy to roll out this model laterally to other facilities.

There seem to be many participants from landlocked countries who want to do something to improve the current situation where non-standard contaminated foods and expired foods are illegally imported and find their way onto the market. Apparently there are also cases where low-priced illegal pesticides and livestock drugs are sold directly to farmers‚ and illegal food imported privately via the Internet is sold at markets. Such things are difficult to crack down on until they become very obvious‚ and the harsh reality seems to be that regulators with few resources cannot control the situation.　Although the environments in Japan and the participants’ countries are very different‚ the fact that Japanese public health centers are developing activities that focus on fieldwork‚ determining priority issues‚ systematically visiting food stores and restaurants‚ and quickly grasping the situation and providing guidance‚ seems to have been of great help to the participants.