Partner to provide technical support in conducting a baseline assessment of nutrition labelling implementation and sodium content of prepacked food

Call for Expressions of Interest and Proposal

#031: A contracting partner to provide technical support to the WHO Viet Nam Country Office in conducting a baseline assessment of nutrition labelling implementation and sodium content of prepacked food.

1. Background

Viet Nam is facing the increasing burden of NCDs, which includes four out of every ten deaths attributed to heart disease, with hypertension as the leading cause. There was a significant increase in the prevalence of raised blood pressure from 18.9% in 2015 to
26.2% in 2021. One important risk factor of hypertension and some other NCDs is excessive consumption of salt. Average salt consumption in Viet Nam is 8.1gr per day per person (STEPS 2020), which is 60% higher than WHO recommendations (less than 5g).
Creating supportive environments to motivate people to choose healthier diets including less salt consumption is one of the key interventions to reduce NCD risk factors and help address this preventable disease burden.

In December 2023, with WHO and development partners’ support, the Ministry of Health issued Circular No. 29 on “Guidance on the content and how to write nutritional ingredients and nutritional value on food labels”. The Circular is the first-ever policy requirement for nutrition labelling in Viet Nam. Foods produced, traded, imported, and circulated in Viet Nam must have the nutritional ingredients recorded on their packages.

The Circular is in close alignment with WHO-CODEX recommendations that call for companies to have product nutrient contents on packaging, including protein, energy, carbohydrate, sugar, fat, and sodium details. The food industry must be compliant with the Circular, including producing, printing, importing, and using labels that are compliant by 1 January 2026.

In March 2024, the Ministry of Health’s General Department of Preventive Medicine issued Guidelines No. 249 on “Recommendations for maximum sodium in processed and packaged foods” for some commonly used pre-packaged foods in Vietnam. The Circular provides recommendations for the lowest maximum sodium content for 100g of food for 11 main food groups and 46 food sub-groups that are consistent with the management list in Decree 15/2018/ND-CP and products available in the Vietnamese market. This further supports the implementation of the National Strategy for NCDs Prevention and Control 2015-2025, which set a target of reducing 30% average salt consumption per capita.

WHO plans to work with a contracting agency to assess the current situation of nutrition labelling and providing baseline data on the current situation of nutrition labelling and on the nutritional content of pre-packaged foods, with focus on salt content, to assess the impact of the nutrition labelling circular and salt level recommendation guidelines.

2. Planned timelines (subject to confirmation):

Start date: 07/09/2024
End date: 30/12/2024

3. Work to be performed

Method to carry out the activity

The research/assessment team will work in close collaboration with WHO CO, WHO HQ, and Resolve to Save Lives to produce the following outputs/deliverables:

Output 1: Develop the methodology for baseline assessment

• Deliverable 1: Draft of Protocol of the baseline survey on the current situation of nutrition labelling implementation and salt levels of most used pre-packaged food is developed, including assessment and data collection methodology including data collection method and tools to have a list of the most commonly used pre-packaged food, review the labelling of these pre-packaged food to see their current implementation of NL, and lab testing to measure nutrient ingredients (30 September 2024)
• Deliverable 2: Finalized indicators, tools and assessment agenda after getting comments from all relevant experts from MOH, NIN, WHO and relevant national and international experts through consultation meetings (15 October 2024)
• Deliverable 3: All documents needed for ethical clearance at the country level are developed and submitted to the local ethical committee together with the agreed protocol, translated as needed as for the locally requested procedures (30 October 2024)

Output 2: Conduct assessment

• Deliverable 3: The pilot is commenced and a list of the most used pre-packaged food is developed (15 November 2024)
• Deliverable 4: Data collection is completed, and the data set is cleaned (15 December 2025)
• Deliverable 5: Data is analysed, and a report on the situation of nutrition labelling implementation and salt levels of most used pre-packaged food is drafted with inputs from all relevant national and international experts (30 December 2024)

4. Specific requirements

a. Qualifications required:

Essential:

Having postgraduate degreesin relevant areas of public health and nutrition

b. Experience required:

The assessment team is expected to have the following experiences:

Essential:

• At least 10 years of experience in public health and nutrition including policy review, conducting nutrition research, data analysis, and writing reports
• Knowledge of principles of good practices in research
• The contracting partner has a capacity of lab testing for nutrient ingredients

Desirable:

• Working experiences in health sector and with international agencies/UN partners is desirable
• Working experiences in national and international publications in medicine and/or public health
• Involved in the process of development of the Circular on Food Labelling and the recommendations on target salt levels.

c. Skills / Technical skills and knowledge:

Ability to interact with health and other professionals at various levels and to work with government officials and nongovernmental organizations

d. Language requirements:

• Excellent knowledge of spoken and written English and Vietnamese

5. Place of assignment

Viet Nam.

6. Medical clearance

Medical clearance is not required for this contractual partner.

7. Travel

Travel to project target will be required.

8. Budget

Please take note of the following when submitting application:

- The contractor will be responsible for paying taxes, if any.

Those who are interested can submit application letter, proposal and budget indicating post title and vacancy notice # on or before 30 August 2024 and should be addressed to:

[email protected]

For further information on this TOR, please contact:

[email protected]