Food Safety and Standards Advisor

The Food Safety and Standards Advisor leads capacity development work with the Food Safety Regulatory Agencies (FSRA) of the Department of Agriculture and Food and Drug Administration (FDA), involving selected local government units under the Department of Interior and Local Government as needed.  The Advisor leads the project’s work on benchmarking capacity needs and alignment of Philippine SPS regulations with international standards (Activity 1) and capacity building of FSRAs in risk-based systems, facilitating access to food safety testing laboratory facilities and strengthening interagency coordination including LGUs (Activity 2).  This work will also support the streamlining of biotechnology-permitting procedures and the mainstreaming of modern biotechnology in the Philippines (Activity 3). This staff will bring experience and knowledge in SPS systems, Good Agricultural Practices, Good Management Practices, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point, and other international compliance standards.

Essential Functions:           

• Lead the work under Activities 1 and 2 of the project’s work plan.
• Liaises with FSRA to support the development of standards, management procedures, and expand laboratory facilities to enable efficient testing of key export commodities.
• Identifies technologies, practices, or approaches in research, development, and uptake stages and in the improvement in packaging, equipment, transportation or cold storage to promote SPS.
• Supports Filipino small and medium enterprises to comply with food safety regulations in coordination with the Private Sector Engagement Advisor.
• Coordinates with FSRA, including the FDA and the Food Safety Regulation Coordinating Committee.
• Supports the Department of Agriculture and private sector enterprises in creating an enabling environment for the safe and responsible use and mainstreaming of modern biotechnology in the Philippines.
• In coordination with the Capacity Development Officer, develops and implements in-person and online training events in support of the project’s capacity development work.
• In coordination with the Communications and Learning Officer, develops content for a web-based platform to link buyers to food safety and SPS standards service providers and an SPS infrastructure system mapping for presentation at an investor forum.
• Develops the application of risk-based systems in ensuring food safety in wet markets, supermarkets, food processing and exports.
• Supervises the Regulatory Specialist and Risk Assessment Specialist.
• Supports MEL Manager in implementation of MEL Plan and tracking of key SPS related indicators particularly those tracking project accomplishments under Activities 1, 2, and 3.
• Supports SPS capacity gap assessment and benchmarking against international standards
• Contributes to the development of annual workplans, performance monitoring systems and tools, and writing of program reports under Activities 1, 2, and 3 of the work plan.