Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
Technical Cooperation Programme
Detailed Project Outline
Country: / Socialist Republic of VietnamProject Title: / Capacity building for the food inspection system in Vietnam
Project Code: / To be determined later
Starting date: / September 2009
Completion date: / December 2010
Governing agency / Ministry of Health (MOH)
Project focal point / Vietnam Food Administration (VFA)
138A Giang Vo Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi
Hanoi city, Vietnam
Implementing agencies: / VFA, Ministry of Health
Other departments belonging to MOH
Department of Health and Sub-VFAs of 63 provinces/cities;
MARD; MOIT; MOF; MOCI; MOST.
FAO contribution / US$ 366 176 in 2009
FAO contribution in 2010 will be determined later
Signed......
Ministry of Health
(For the Government of Vietnam) / Signed......
Jacques Diouf
Director-General
(On behalf of FAO)
Date of signature: ...... / Date of signature: ......
Table of Contents
1. / BACKGROUND / 41.1 / General Context / 4
1.2 / Sectoral Context / 4
Specialized Food Safety Inspection / 5
FAO and Vietnam / 6
2. / RATIONALE / 7
2.1 / Problem/issues to be addressed / 9
2.2 / Stakeholders and Target Beneficiaries / 9
2.3 / Project justification / 10
2.4 / Previous and related work / 10
2.5 / FAO’s Comparative Advantage / 11
3. / PROJECT FRAMEWORK / 11
3.1 / Impact / 11
3.2 / Outcome and Outputs / 11
3.3 / Sustainability / 21
3.4 / Risks and Assumptions / 22
4. / IMPLEMENTATION AND MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENT / 23
4.1 / Institutional Framework and Coordination / 23
4.2 / Government Inputs / 23
4.3 / FAO Contribution / 24
5. / OVERSIGHT, MONITORING, MANAGEMENT INFORMATION AND REPORTING / 28
5.1 / Monitoring and Knowledge Sharing / 28
5.2 / Communication and Visibility / 28
5.3 / Reporting Schedule / 28
ANNEX 1: Project Budget / 29
ANNEX 2: Indicative Work Plan / 30
ANNEX 3: Terms of Reference / 36
ANNEX 4: Description of Training Programmes / 36
ANNEX 5: List of food inspection equipment and tools required by Vietnam / 37
ANNEX 6: Decree No. 79
Acronyms
DH Department of Health
FAO Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
FSIC Food safety inspector collaborator
FSI Food safety inspector
FSIe Food safety inspectorate
FSISs Food safety inspection services
FSIU Food safety inspection unit
GDP Gross Domestic Product
MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development
MOCI Ministry of Culture and Information
MOF Ministry of Finance
MOH Ministry of Health
MOIT Ministry of Industry and Trade
MOST Ministry of Science and Technology
SFSI Specialized food safety inspection
TCP Technical Cooperation Programme
VFA Vietnam Food Administration
VIFIM Vietnam imported food inspection manual
VFIOM Vietnam Food Inspector Operations Manual
1. BACKGROUND
1.1. General Context
The Socialist Republic of Viet Nam, or Vietnam for short, is located on the Indochina Peninsula, bordered by China to the North, Laos to the Northwest and Cambodia to the Southwest with her eastern coast washed by the South China Sea. Being populated by over 85million people, Viet Nam is the thirteenth most populous country in the world. According to government figures, GDP growth was 8.17 percent in 2006, the second highest growth rate among that of East Asian countries and the highest in that of Southeast Asian ones. Agriculture plays a crucial role in the Vietnam’s economy, accounting 23 percent of GDP in Viet Nam in 2005. Women account for an above-average share of the farm population of 53% and agricultural labour force, and play a major role in food production, processing and marketing.
1.2. Sectoral Context
For many years, Vietnam has paid close attention to the safety of the food it produces, processes, transports and trades since food safety is among the top priorities of Vietnam. As a result, Vietnam has made great progress in recognizing and responding to its food safety challenges recently. The National Ordinance on Food Hygiene and Safety (2003) allocated responsibility for food hygiene and safety to a number of Government bodies involved in food chain from farm to table, as follows: Ministry of Health (MOH) assists the Government of Vietnam in performing the consistent state management of food safety and hygiene; undertakes the prime responsibility for performing state management in respect of the food safety and hygiene of domestic and imported food products circulated in the market; acts as a standing member of the Inter-Sect oral Steering Committee for Food Safety and Hygiene at the national level and the Viet Nam Codex Alimemtarius Commission. Meanwhile, The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) shall assume the prime responsibility for overseeing food safety and hygiene of agricultural, forest and aquatic products and salt throughout the food production process from cultivation to harvesting and/or fishing, slaughtering, primary processing, processing, packing, preservation and transportation to domestic sales or exporting; executing the state management of safety and hygiene of the imports, temporary imports for re-exports, temporary exports for re-imports, border-gate transfer, transit, or transportation through the Vietnamese territory of animals, plants and raw materials for cultivation and/or raising and processing. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) supervises food processing establishments throughout the course of their production from the import of raw materials for processing, packing, preservation and transportation to domestic sale or export. Responsibility of the Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), the Ministry of Culture and Information (MOCI), the Ministry of Finance (MOF) and, last but not least, of the People’s Committees at all are clearly mentioned in the Decree 79 (Please see Annex 6). In this line, the Vietnam Food Administration (VFA), an agency established in January 1999 under MOH, functioned as the state management administration specialised in food safety and hygiene assists MOH in collaboration with other ministries and many provincial and municipal organizations. The aim is to improve the overall health of Vietnamese people.
As mentioned previously, the food control system in Vietnam is composed of multiple ministries/institutions. Hence, MOH has launched a multi-sectoral Food Safety Strategy for 2002-2010, which is intended to help coordinate work with other ministries. This strategy identifies how MOH should work with its partners; however, it appears that there is still a need for other ministries to look at how they will work with MOH to achieve an integrated farm-to-table approach to food safety. This is because that each ministry has right to set up and issue legislation and complementary regulations which are some of the fundamental components of a national food control system corresponding to the field of their management. In this line, these ministries also have their own separate inspection system covering specific food sectors with frequent overlaps or gaps between them. They do not coordinate actions with each other and often use widely varying inspection procedures. In response to this poor situation, the current legal framework has being strengthened with a new food safety law currently being drafted. It should be noted that, in its latest draft dated on 19th May 2009, Chapter XI would refer to specialized food safety inspection system (SFSI) aiming to clarify functions, responsibility of Food safety inspectors (FSIs) and Food safety collaborators (FSICs) in sectors of health and agriculture towards to integrated SFSI and harmonization of food inspection procedures.
Specialized Food Safety Inspections (SFSIs)
Sound food safety legislations and policies are meaningless unless they are effectively enforced through monitoring of inspection service. Hence, inspection service forms the core of the food safety system, giving government regulators, customers, and consumer regular information regarding conditions throughout the food chain and on farms that can impact the safety of the food supply. In addition, inspectors give the government in-house expertise that can be used to conduct investigations and respond to food safety emergencies. Although it is the focal point for many regulatory functions on food safety, the VFA did not have its own FSIs, and relied on the general health inspectors in the Health Inspection Department of MOH until at the end of 2008. However, a special attention of the Government has also been given to strengthening a specialized food safety inspection framework from the central to local levels with the issuance of the Decree No.79 on 18th July 2008. Currently, the responsibility for SFSI services are mainly undertaken by two government agencies, namely the MOH and MARD in collaboration with other ministries/sectors. It can be said that food safety inspection can be viewed as an inter-sectoral activity. Every year, inter-sectoral food safety and hygiene inspection and/or examination campaigns are organized, participated by the relevant ministries/sectors (MOH; MARD; MOIT; MOST; MOCI; and the People’s Committees at all levels.). Such campaigns are often carried out at times of peak interest: the Action Month for food safety, hygiene and quality, the Lunar New Year and the Mid-Autumn Festival. In addition to that, the inter-sectoral missions are established to conduct thematic inspection services such as food safety and hygiene inspection at collective kitchens, inspection of the compliance to regulations on food additives management, inspection of the production, circulation, and advertisement of functional foods, inspection of businesses and advertisement practices in nutritious products targets at small children, product-based inspections such as those in milk and milk products, alcohols, etc.
The existing SFSI system in the health sector has been developed from the begining of 2009 at the two levels. At the central level, the food safety inspectorate (FSIe) is organized under the VFA with a limited number of only about 20 inspectors by the end of 2009. At the provincial level, there is one to three inspectors in each Food safety inspection unit (FSIU) under the sub-VFA which in turn belongs to the provincial Department of Health. Yet, it is planned in the long-term by the Government of Vietnam that the SFSI system will be piloted at the district and ward/commune levels in Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and focal provinces. Besides, there is a network of Food Safety Inspector Collaborators (FSICs) who are assigned to conduct inspection at the request of a Chief Inspector or the head of a competent state agency and come from other divisions of VFA, sub-VFA, institutions and other different organizations relating to managing food hygiene and safety. Currently, 31 sub-VFAs with FSIU have already established and, to the end to this year, all of the 63 provinces will have sub-VFAs. Although it is expected that by the end of 2009 there will be 200 inspectors specialized in food safety and hygiene, such a number of food safety inspector will remain insufficient. This is because that there are 11 thousands communes; 689 dicstricts and 63 cities/provinces in Vietnam at present. So if there is one FSI in each commune, 5 ones in each district on average, there should be 12,000 to 15,000 food safety inspectors in Vietnam.
FAO and Vietnam
FAO started working in Viet Nam in 1978. Since then, FAO Viet Nam has provided technical assistance and advice to the Government of Vietnam and has been involved in the implementation of approximately 400projects in various areas, namely sustainable agricultural development, food security, food safety and nutrition, forestry and fisheries. During the 1980s, the Government of Viet Nam embarked on the process of Doi Moi. Since then, FAO has quickly become an important partner and the main contribution of technical assistance in a lot of sectors for Vietnam, including the health sector.
2. RATIONALE
Food inspection services must ensure that all foods are produced, handled, processed, packed, stored, and distributed in compliance with legislation and regulations. Food inspection and regulations should cover the whole process from the farm to restaurants, street vendors, and other retail venues. Thus, there should be a sufficient number of FSIs to allow an adequate inspection frequency. However, due to the nascence of the SFSI system as stated above, the current number of FSIs in Vietnam is very limited and only available at the ministerial and provincial levels. Thus, most of the food hygiene and safety inspections and checking are carried out by FSICs at provincial, district and community levels. This results in the optimum output of food hygiene and safety which can not be achieved as FSICs do not have adequate knowledge and skills to perform theirs duties. This is because they have been trained on ad-hoc basis in short courses organized by the Ministry of Health or local provincial health offices.
Furthermore, novel FSIs also are limited in knowledge and skills since they have not received any basic training on food safety inspection. One of the reasons is that there is no institution specialized in food safety and hygiene inspection training in Vietnam so far. In other words, there is a lack of professional training and systematic curriculum and/or training materials which are required to facilitate the development of the food safety and hygiene inspection specialization in the coming time. Meanwhile, the training needs are seen to be quite significant, especially when inspections are to be conducted at the district and ward/commune levels. This verifies the urgent need for training in food safety inspection skills and knowledge for FSIs and FSICs which is an important component of an efficient food-control system.
Due to the limited capacity observed in inspectors at different levels, including that in food sampling, most of the inspection missions have to invite representatives from laboratories to join for food sample collection in the grass root inspection. One of the reasons is that FSIs cannot collect the samples confidently and improperly for testing due to a lack of standardized sampling procedure; a shortage of primary equipment and tools to be used in premise inspection and food sampling; an absent of a plan and a mishandling during transportation to the laboratory. Meanwhile, food sampling is critical in the food safety inspection process. Therefore, all provincial Departments of Health and Sub-VFAs in the 63 provincies have requested the VFA to promptly organize training courses focused on sampling skills for FSIs and FSICs . Furthermore, there were no standardized and harmonized procedures and checklists on food inspection. Thus, the development of an official food inspection manual, including inspection and sampling method and procedure and planning for training for both FSIs and FSICs can be considered as a timely and appropriate move.