Young Professional Officer (School Food and Nutrition)

The Young Professional Officer (School Food and Nutrition) supports FAO's efforts to improve school meal programmes through research, data collection, and technical analysis. The role involves collaboration with partners to enhance the nutritional quality of school meals and support nutrition-sensitive food systems.

Responsibilities

• Analyses relevant technical social, economic, environmental, and technology information, data and/or statistics for input in various documents.
• Maintains records and updates databases and web pages.
• Provides technical support to various projects.
• Collaborates in the development of training tools and materials and the organization of workshops/seminars, etc.
• Participates in the organization and follow-up of meetings, consultations and conferences, the production of required materials and the provision of information and assistance to partners.
• Compiles and reviews existing methodological approaches, tools, and indicators, related to school meal nutritional quality assessment.
• Supports the development of research proposals and survey protocols.
• Supports the development of guidelines and adaptation of standardized data collection tools (e.g. nutrition guidelines analysis, menu analysis, procurement tracking).
• Supports data collection with multiple partners.
• Supports data consolidation, cleaning, validation, and documentation of data collection processes.
• Contributes to the design of standardized data collection protocols, including sampling approaches and data collection instruments.
• Assists in piloting and field-testing data collection protocols and tools in selected countries.
• Supports coordination with partners and networks engaged in data collection activities on the nutritional quality of school meals.

Requirements

• Advanced university degree (Master's degree or equivalent) in nutritional sciences, nutritional epidemiology, or a related field.
• One year of relevant experience in nutrition research and data collection and analysis, particularly in the design, implementation, analysis and publication of quantitative surveys.
• Working knowledge (proficiency - level C) of English and intermediate knowledge (intermediate proficiency - level B) of another FAO official language (Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian or Spanish).
• Work experience in more than one location or area of work, particularly in field positions, is desirable.
• Research experience related to school meals is an asset.
• Extent and relevance of experience in collecting, analysing and summarizing technical information and data.
• Experience in research design and data collection in field settings across multiple contexts is considered an asset.
• Ability to work effectively in multicultural and multidisciplinary settings.
• Good analytical skills and technical communication and writing required.
• A PhD would be an asset.
• Candidates should be 32 years of age or younger as of 31 December of the year of application.

Skills

• Nutritional Sciences
• Nutritional Epidemiology
• Nutrition Research
• Quantitative survey design
• Data Collection
• Data Analysis
• Technical Communication
• Research Design
• Field Research
• Technical Writing
• Multi-cultural Team Collaboration
• Multidisciplinary Team Collaboration
• School Meal Research

Languages

English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Russian, Spanish