Vietnam collaborates with Ireland to enhance the food system

The seminar is part of the implementation of the "National Action Plan for Transforming the Transparent, Responsible, and Sustainable Food System in Vietnam by 2030," based on Prime Minister's Decision No. 300 of March 28, 2023, and promotes the Ireland-Vietnam Agri-food Partnership (IVAP) from 2023 to 2028.

Mr. David Butler, representing Sustainable Food Systems Ireland, said that Ireland has witnessed tremendous agricultural changes in recent years, with agricultural export earnings having a big influence on the national economy. Recognizing the significance of food system transformation, Ireland wishes to engage with Vietnam in this regard, with the goal of adapting to similar trends.

"As part of Ireland's support to Vietnam, the Sustainable Food Systems Ireland (SFSI) will collaborate with Vietnam to develop and refine relevant policies to improve the system and related framework conditions," Mr. Butler went on to say.

Regarding the overview of implementing the National Action Plan for transforming the food system, Mr. Nguyen Do Anh Tuan, Director of the International Cooperation Department (Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development), stated that the transformation of the food system towards transparency, responsibility, and sustainability, based on local advantages, ensures national food security and nutrition, enhances people's incomes and quality of life, prevents natural disasters.

With proposed task groups and solutions to implement the food system transformation, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, together with relevant ministries, sectors, and international organizations, will establish the Transparent, Responsible, and Sustainable Food System Transformation Partner in Vietnam (or the Food System Partner) to enhance cooperation, allowing better coordination among ministries, sectors, and relevant partners to leverage the

As a result, the expected working groups include ecological agriculture, nutrition and local product diversification, food loss and waste, responsible consumption, policies, and institutions chaired by the Ministries of Agriculture and Rural Development, Health, and Industry and Trade.

In terms of collaboration with Ireland, representatives of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development proposed Irish assistance to Vietnam in areas such as training, enhancing the capacity of Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development officials in formulating solutions, policies, and conversion strategies; learning from Ireland's experience in implementing the food system transformation; supporting short-term training programs, Master's programs on foo

Mr. Tuan also proposed Ireland's aid in forming and coordinating technical working groups to carry out the food system transformation, such as preparing activity plans for technical working groups and monitoring indicators for their actions.

Additionally, the leaders of the International Cooperation Department also requested Ireland's support in providing technical expert packages to help Vietnam establish safe agricultural product chains, build a national origin traceability system for key products (cultivation, livestock)...

Speaking on activities related to the implementation of the National Action plan on food system, Dr. Tran Cong Thang, Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture and Rural Development (IPSARD)  informed that developing indicators for monitoring and evaluation of the implementation of the National Action plan is one of the programs and tasks. 

IPSARD has cooperated with international partners including Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT, FAO and SFSI to make food environment policy landscape analysis in Vietnam to develop sustainable Food System Country Profiles in Vietnam. 

The team is also drafting a set of monitoring and evaluation indicators for the implementation of the National Action Plan for Transparent, Accountable, and Sustainable Transformation of the Food Systems in Vietnam by 2030. 

They mobilize domestic and international experts for feedback and suggestions to refine the set of indicators and implement a pilot of the monitoring and evaluation indicator set to carry out the Action Plan for transparent, responsible, and sustainable transformation of the food systems.

As explained by Mr. Thang, monitoring and evaluation (M&E) is a continuous management function aimed at assessing whether a program ensuring its plan in reaching expected outcomes, identifying bottlenecks in the implementation process, and clarifying the impacts (positive or negative) of the program.

The monitoring and evaluation indicators set of the National Action Plan of Food System is a collection of individual indicators reflecting changes over time in the results of the implementation of the NAP-FST. This set includes both relative and absolute indicators.