Dr. Francesco Branca

Director, Department of Nutrition and Food Safety, World Health Organization (WHO), Switzerland Francesco Branca is the Director of the Department of Nutrition and Food Safety in the World Health Organization (WHO). In 2008 to2019, he was the Director of the Department of Nutrition for Health and Development. During this period, WHO developed a Nutrition Strategy, established a new nutrition guideline development process and created a Comprehensive Implementation Plan on Maternal, Infant and Young Child Nutrition with six global targets. He led the preparation of the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition and the Secretariat of the Decade of Action on Nutrition. Before that, from2005 to2008, Dr Branca was the Regional Advisor for Nutrition at the WHO Regional Office for Europe. Between 1988 and 2005, he was a Senior Scientist at the Italian Food and Nutrition research Institute, and from 2003 to 2007, he servedas the President of the Federation of the European Nutrition Societies. In 1985-1986, Dr Branca was part of the medical staff of a Primary Health Care project in Southern Somalia run by the Italian NGO, CISP. Dr Branca graduated in Medicine and Surgery and specialized in Diabetology and Metabolic Diseases at the Universita’ Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Roma. He later earned an Msc and a PhD in Nutrition from the University of Aberdeen.