AFDO Strategic Plan
Strategic Plan - Vision
The vision statement describes what AFDO will look like in the future as we fulfill our mission. The vision guides us in the direction that AFDO is moving.
AFDO is an international leader and trusted resource for building consensus and promoting uniformity on public health and consumer protection issues related to the regulation of foods, drugs, devices, cosmetics and consumer products.
Strategic Plan - Mission
The mission statement is a declaration of AFDO’s purpose. It clarifies why we do what we do and describes the basic purpose of AFDO.
The Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO), established in 1896, successfully fosters uniformity in the adoption and enforcement of science-based food, drug, medical devices, cosmetics and product safety laws, rules, and regulations.
AFDO and its six regional affiliates provide the mechanism and the forum where regional, national and international issues are deliberated and resolved to uniformly provide the best public health and consumer protection in the most expeditious and cost effective manner.
AFDO Accomplishes its Mission by:
- Promoting education, communication and cooperation among government, industry and consumers.
- Fostering understanding and cooperation between industry, regulators and consumers.
- Promoting the adoption and uniform enforcement of laws and regulations at all levels of government.
- Providing guidance and training programs for regulatory officials and the regulated industry, to promote nationally and internationally uniform inspections, analyses, interpretations, and investigations.
- Identifying and resolving inconsistencies in consumer and public health protection laws, regulations, standards, and policies.
- Providing a permanent working committee structure to research current issues, obtain input from interested parties, and produce recommendations for action.
- Developing model laws, regulations and guidance documents and seeking their adoption throughout the United States.
- Obtain, develop and disseminate information that increases local, state and federal regulatory agencies ability to prevent the deliberate contamination of food, drug, medical device, cosmetic and other consumer products and increase the ability of these agencies to detect, contain and recover from any act of consumer product terrorism.
- Conducting an Annual Educational Conference, where for over a century, AFDO has provided the opportunity for individuals from government, industry, and the public to participate, listen, and learn valuable information and develop initiatives concerning food, drug, medical device, cosmetic and product safety issues.
Strategic Issues
Strategic issues are fundamental questions that AFDO must answer to achieve its vision. The strategic issues reflect policy choices that are pertinent and vital to AFDO’s mission, management, customers, and resources.
Membership - How will AFDO increase the size of its membership and foster active involvement by its members?
AFDO Affiliates - How will AFDO develop and maintain a stronger, more coordinated, more interdependent relationship with its affiliates?
Funding - How will AFDO assure adequate funding on an ongoing basis?
Staffing & Structure - How will AFDO assure that headquarters resources are adequate to provide essential support services?
Training - How will AFDO broaden its training to reach all constituencies and assure that training initiatives are successful?
Outreach - How will AFDO become more visible in accomplishing its vision?
Uniformity - How will AFDO more effectively foster uniformity in the regulation of foods, drugs, devices, and consumer products?
Strategic Plan - Goals
Goals are the targets for AFDO’s success. The goals are broad statements that say how AFDO’s mission and vision will be achieved. They describe the general direction we will take to move AFDO from its current reality to its desired future. Our goals are to:
Goal 1: Increase the number and active involvement of AFDO members. AFDO is viewed primarily as a federal/state regulatory and industry organization. It must encourage the participation of local regulatory agency members. AFDO must provide real incentives and added value for prospective local agency members.
Goal 2: Broaden the scope of AFDO membership to include more members who work with or for the drug or medical device industries.
Goal 3: Increase AFDO’s capacity and influence by improving communication and coordination of vision, mission, and activities with AFDO’s affiliates. This improvement must be primarily web-based to ensure broad outreach and availability. AFDO’s continuing expansion of its website will be greatly instrumental in achieving this goal.
Goal 4: Develop ways to assure adequate, continuous funding necessary for AFDO to aggressively pursue its vision by pursuing grants/cooperative agreements and contracts.
Goal 5: Assure that AFDO has the capacity, expertise, and structure to pursue and support activities identified as key to achieving its vision and mission.
Goal 6: Expand and support successful training efforts in all areas: foods, drugs, medical devices, and consumer product safety. Increasingly utilize AFDO’s Website enhancements as an on-line training workshop and classroom as well as a gateway to FDA’s online training program, ORA-U.
Goal 7: Increase the visibility and effectiveness of AFDO activities intended to resolve or promote public health and consumer protection issues.
Goal 8: Increase the visibility and effectiveness of AFDO efforts to foster regulatory uniformity through cooperation.
Other Actions in Pursuit of AFDO's Vision:
- Continued a partnership with the FDA via a Dietary Supplement Workgroup. The objectives of this workgroup are to determine the training and information needed to enable state agencies to bring greater value to the preventive and enforcement activities related to the regulation of dietary supplements. As a product of this workgroup, FDA sponsored a meeting with the AFDO representatives, CFSAN, ORA, and FTC in April 2003.
- Develop a national meeting to integrate food security programs (federal, state, local, industry, etc.). A workgroup was established and it developed an agenda and objectives for a national meeting to be held in the spring of 2004, gathered support from various agencies and industry groups and sent out a security survey to all the state and local food and agriculture agencies.