Young Professional Officer (School Food and Nutrition)

Organizational Context

FAO's Food and Nutrition Division (ESN) supports Members in improving diets and nutrition through evidence-based policies and strategies. The division focuses on areas like dietary assessment, nutrition-sensitive food systems, and effective nutrition promotion. School-based food and nutrition programmes are a key area, aiming to enhance child nutrition, support local agrifood systems, and foster healthy eating habits. FAO promotes an integrated approach to school meals, emphasizing supportive policies, healthier food environments, nutrition education, and inclusive procurement, all strengthened through robust partnerships.

Job Purpose

This Young Professional Officer position contributes to FAO's collaborative efforts with partners to generate crucial data for strengthening the impact of school meals programmes. The role involves research, technical analysis, and project support to enhance programme design and implementation. Key results include providing research and technical analysis to support project delivery. The incumbent will analyze social, economic, environmental, and technological information, maintain databases, offer technical project support, and assist in developing training materials and organizing workshops. Participation in meetings and consultations, along with providing information to partners, is also integral.

Responsibilities

The role involves compiling and reviewing existing methodologies, tools, and indicators for assessing the nutritional quality of school meals. Responsibilities include supporting the development of research proposals and survey protocols, and assisting in the creation and adaptation of standardized data collection tools for nutrition guidelines, menu analysis, and procurement tracking. The position will support data collection activities with multiple partners, including data consolidation, cleaning, validation, and documentation. Furthermore, the role contributes to designing standardized data collection protocols, sampling approaches, and instruments, and assists in piloting and field-testing these tools in selected countries. Coordination with partners and networks involved in school meal nutritional quality data collection is also a key function.

Work Experience

One year of relevant experience is required in nutrition research, data collection, and analysis. This experience should specifically cover the design, implementation, analysis, and publication of quantitative surveys. Experience in more than one work location or area, particularly in field positions, is desirable. Research experience related to school meals is considered an asset.

Skills

The role requires strong analytical skills and proficiency in technical communication and writing. Ability to work effectively in multicultural and multidisciplinary settings is essential. Experience in collecting, analyzing, and summarizing technical information and data is important. Experience in research design and data collection in field settings across multiple contexts is considered an asset. A PhD would be an asset. Candidates must possess working knowledge of English (Level C) and intermediate knowledge of another FAO official language (Level B).

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