On assignment from the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), Douglass Casson Coutts is a Distinguished Visiting Professor, Department of Nutrition and Food Science, College of Human Sciences at Auburn University. He is developing and teaching Auburn’s first undergraduate course on “World Hunger: Causes, Consequences and Responses,” assisting in designing a Hunger Studies Minor area of study, helping to establish an International Institute of Global Hunger at Auburn, supporting “Universities Fighting World Hunger” (UFWH), a joint partnership with WFP and Auburn University with 70 university members in North America, and is a guest lecturer at UFWH member universities.

As Special Advisor on Child Hunger to WFP’s Executive Director, he was previously based in Washington, D.C., and charged with working with institutions in North America as part of the new global Child Hunger Initiative being developed by WFP in conjunction with UNICEF and the World Bank. Within this framework, he was supporting efforts to launch an outreach and advocacy program with institutions of higher learning and was the WFP manager responsible for the WFP/Auburn University partnership and UFWH. He was also part of a team formulating a strategy for corporate partnership development in North America in support of WFP humanitarian and development operation worldwide.

Mr. Coutts has more than 23 years of experience with WFP, more recently as Country Director for Bangladesh, where he oversaw the organization’s single-largest development operation in the world - embracing integrated food security, school feeding and refugee operations, nutritional support and HIV/AIDS awareness/community health programs. He has represented WFP all over the wold, including a stint in 1997-98 as the UN’s first Humanitarian Coordinator for North Korea, responsible for implementing what at the time was WFP’s biggest emergency operation. He also served as WFP Country Director in Nepal and Namibia, and as WFP’s Representative to the United Nations, USA and Canada based in New York.

http://www.coss.fsu.edu/lectures/2009/douglas-casson-coutts