Policy framework, legal and regulatory review is one of activities of Component 1 of the SAFEGRO project, funded by Global Affairs Canada, on Technical assistance to improve the policy framework on food safety in Vietnam, which took the longest time in the third year (2022-2023) of implementation. The main objective of this activity is to assess the current status of institutions and policies in food safety control, including evaluating the current system of legal documents, standards and technical regulations on food safety and conducting analysis of legal documents according to the policy framework. Since then, the report has made findings and recommendations in the implementation of the Food Safety Law.
Food Safety Policy Review Report was briefly presented at the SAFEGRO Project Consultation Workshop held in Quang Ninh on March 24-25, 2023 and received a lot of comments. Some of the contents of the report that received high consensus from the delegates include:
- The current system of legal documents on food safety in Vietnam is quite complete, but the implementation is still ineffective due to lack of implementation programs.
- Lack of guidance on applying the food safety risk management approach in practice
- Current regulations are still paper-based, much of which focuses on managing input conditions and processes (records) rather than focusing on outputs (products)
- The stability of a number of legal documents is not high, it must be amended in a short time, leading to difficulties for the organizations/individuals in complying with regulations…
In addition, the delegates also had a number of additional proposals related to the development of local standards for agricultural products imported into major cities to standardize management; capacity building for ward/commune, district/district officials concurrently performing the state management of food safety; strengthen the role of political and social organizations involved in food safety management…
In the coming time, SAFEGRO Project will continue to update the current system of legal documents on food safety following the policy clusters in the national food control system and system of national standards and technical regulations divided by respective policy groups on Project’s website and Facebook fanpage.
