Raschad Al-Khafaji, an Austrian national was appointed Director of the FAO Liaison Office with the European Union and Belgium, effective 1 August 2021. He started his career at the United Nations Office at Vienna (UNOV) in Austria and worked at the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) and the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty Organization (CTBTO). In 2003, he joined FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Department at headquarters where he worked as Liaison and Meetings Officer. From 2013 to 2019, he served as Attaché de Cabinet in the Office of the Director-General and, subsequently, became Deputy Directeur de Cabinet ad interim. He has been serving as Special Assistant to the Director-General since 2019. He holds a Magister in Economics with an emphasis on International Development and Marketing from the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien (Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration) in Austria. He is fluent in Arabic and German (both mother tongues) as well as English and French; and has basic knowledge of Italian and Spanish.