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Food security Working towards a world without hunger
Shoko Kinoshita
SETTING THE TABLE FOR BETTER NUTRITION IN VIET NAM
“Through my work, I helped to set the table for the future When Shoko Kinoshita arrived in Viet Nam in 2018, she joined a growing
global effort to make food systems more responsive to nutritional
success of the nutrition-sensitive food systems project.
needs. As a UN Volunteer Food Security and Nutrition Specialist with
It was a great experience, and I am grateful to everyone FAO, her work became part of a Japan-funded initiative implemented
across Ghana, Kenya and Viet Nam, countries where rapid development
who supported me during my assignment.”
coexists with persistent nutritional challenges.
In Viet Nam, progress in food security has improved notably over the
50 past two decades. Still, undernutrition, overnutrition and micronutrient
deficiencies remain widespread. Shoko’s role was to help ensure
that agriculture, food science, and business sectors, not just health,
contribute to healthier diets. “Small and Medium-sized Enterprises
(SMEs) are critical to developing nutrition-sensitive food systems given
their potential for reaching more vulnerable populations,” she noted.
She co-authored a background paper with national and FAO experts,
identifying key challenges and areas where Vietnamese SMEs could
better support access to nutritious food. “This paper will be used to
design e-learning models and will help sustain these efforts over time,”
she added. Her work also involved training university students, and
engaging government, academia, civil society and the private sector.
Shoko Kinoshita, UN Volunteer Food Security and Nutrition
Specialist at FAO Viet Nam, helped identify areas where SMEs
could better support access to nutritious food in the country.
[FAO, 2019]
