Interview of the month - July 2023 FAO and Ghent University collaboration

Thank you all for agreeing to talk with us about your experiences with the collaborative relationship between FAO and the Ghent University. It is very interesting to hear from you, Professor Carl Lachat, from you Giles Hanley Cook as PhD student, researcher and now working at FAO and from you, Maria Keuchkarian as student and intern at the FAO Brussels Office. 
So to start at the beginning, what made you decide to reach out to FAO?

Carl Lachat: I coordinate a master's programme in nutrition and food systems at Ghent University. The thematic focus and objectives of this programme very much align with the mission of FAO. As a result, we have established a fruitful collaboration between Ghent University and FAO over the years to shape and refine the vision of the programme and we have seen an increased interest in students to work with FAO. A great example is the FAO internship programme, which is an excellent opportunity for students to become familiar with an international organization. In addition, I have personally been collaborating with FAO for many years during my career. These last years in particular, we have jointly worked on a study to analyze which method was the most accurate to collect data on minimum diet diversity in women in low- and- middle income countries.  
Maria Keuchkarian: During my Master’s program in Nutrition and Rural Development at Ghent University, FAO was a key reference in nutrition-related scientific articles. This sparked my curiosity about the Organization itself and its work, as it is very common for academic studies and research to reference FAO as a reputable source in the field of nutrition and food security. Furthermore, I believe that working in an intergovernmental organization like FAO would also allow me to collaborate with professionals from diverse backgrounds, gain insights into global nutrition and food policies, and build a professional network that could benefit my future career. These were the reasons that made me decide to reach out to FAO for this internship. 
I am deeply grateful for the incredible support of the Flanders Trainee Program (FTP) for making this internship possible. The FTP provided guidance and support throughout the application process. Such programs play a crucial role in helping young professionals pursue their career goals and gain valuable international experience.  I hope that through my internship I also contributed to the ongoing collaboration between different nations and organizations in addressing global food security challenges.
Giles Hanley Cook: FAO’s Food and Nutrition Division, for which I currently work, is a knowledge leader in nutrition. This includes vital areas such as dietary intake and nutritional status assessment, as well as the analysis of healthy diet metrics, such as the Minimum Dietary Diversity for Women (MDD-W) indicator, that Carl also mentioned previously.   When I was a student at Ghent University, I had the chance to collaborate with the Food and Nutrition division during my doctoral research. Consequently, I now have the opportunity to help facilitate FAO Member Countries improve their populations’ diets and reduce levels of malnutrition (as stated in the Rome Declaration on Nutrition) and help mainstream nutrition across all of the work of the Organization.

Let me turn to you now, Carl. You have been working with FAO particularly with the focus on your Nutrition and Food Systems master’s programme. How do you see the agrifood systems approach being integrated in this programme?

For over 20 years we have successfully run a Master’s programme in Nutrition and Rural Development (www.nutritioncourse.ugent.be). The FAO/WHO ICN2 congress played a crucial role in putting food systems at the top of the agenda, recognizing the important concept for our programme, which looks at nutrition and its broader determinants. We think it is important to integrate an external perspective when revising the scope and curriculum of the Master’s programme. We invited FAO to take part in an advisory board and organized several meetings to reflect on a new vision for the programme. The current curriculum integrates a much broader view on food systems, beyond rural development. We regularly send students for an internship to FAO. This also provides us with feedback on the professional competencies and academic level of the students that graduate every year, which is important for us as we want to keep the quality of our programme high. 

Giles, you have contributed to the MDD-W indicator during your PhD study. Could you tell us a bit more about this experience and how do you think there has been a mutual benefit for both institutions?

Indeed, during my doctoral research, my collaboration with FAO led to a published multi-county study to assess the performance of various data collection methods for MDD-W. I believe the study highlighted the complementary expertise present within academic institutions, providing scientific guidance, with FAO contributing valuable normative and operational activities. Furthermore, at present, I am part of a team developing a soon-to-be-published, interactive MDD-W e-learning course. In addition, the team is conducting quantitative analyses to help validate MDD-W in other population groups than non-pregnant women and to assess the applicability of MDD-W for national and global monitoring of diets.

As a final question to all of you, would you consider that your expectations of collaborating with FAO have been met?

Carl Lachat: Working with FAO has been an immensely gratifying experience. Their global perspective on research, policies and programmes in food systems has been very informative, providing valuable insights here at UGhent. It has enabled us to understand the international context and priorities set by international organizations, allowing us to integrate this in our research and education. For students for example, the opportunity to interact with FAO, being able to know how their studies can contribute to healthier diets and food systems worldwide has motivated them to seek to learn more about the Organization.
Maria Keuchkarian: During my internship at the FAO Liaison Office in Brussels I was actively engaged in learning more about the Organization, its work structure and the flow of work across various sectors. In addition to this I got to learn more about how a UN agency works, so I can certainly say that my expectations as an intern at FAO Brussels were fully met!
Giles Hanley Cook: Far exceeded! My experience within the Food and Nutrition division's Nutrition Assessment team of FAO, where I currently work, has offered me sound technical knowledge but also highly motivated, dynamic and creative colleagues. I am extremely lucky to work with them on a wide range of essential public health nutrition topics. Our work includes harmonizing and disseminating high quality dietary data through FAO/WHO GIFT (Global Individual Food consumption data Tool) and coordinating a worldwide network to improve the quality, availability, reliability, and use of food composition data through INFOODS (International Network of Food Data Systems).

Thank you all, once more, for this interesting talk. We look forward to continuing this strong collaboration with UGhent and all of you!