Mr Diego Varela started his professional careers as a food safety and quality consultant for the FAO regional Office for Latin America and the Caribbean. In that position he was part of a team that worked for the development of cooperation projects and provided advice and training to the 34 countries of the Latin American and Caribbean region on issues related to safe consumption of food, food legislation and trade, and fisheries and aquaculture development. Later he moved to the Chilean International Cooperation Agency, located in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, coordinating cooperation activities with Latin American and Caribbean countries in many fields, with a special focus on agriculture and food production.
Mr Varela is now the international affairs coordinator at the Chilean Food Safety and Quality Agency (ACHIPIA), which is located under the Chilean Ministry of Agriculture. His role includes overseeing the functioning of Codex at the national level, liaising with foreign agencies dealing with food safety, as well as with multilateral organizations such as FAO, WHO, Codex, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Bank and the World Trade Organization (WTO), among others, and coordinating international cooperation for food safety. He currently serves as a Focal Point for INFOSAN in Chile and is a member of the INFOSAN advisory group.