Internship at ADB Headquarters (Rakibul Hassan)

From February 10^th to April 25^th of 2025, I had the wonderful opportunity to conduct an internship at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) headquarters in Manila, Philippines under the supervision of Mr. Eisuke Tajima, Principal Education Specialist, and Mrs. Lisa Shawqui Lahalih, Senior Education Specialist, Sectors Group – Human and Social Development (SG-HSD), ADB HQ.

ADB was planning to pilot school meal programs in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Before piloting the programs, the bank wants to conduct rigorous research on the best global and regional practices in school meal programs and design the programs based on the research findings. During the internship, my core duty was to analyze global and regional best practices in school meal programs and assess their potential implementation in Pakistan and Afghanistan. My key activities were the following:

• Comprehensive Literature review: Conduct a comprehensive review of existing school meal programs globally (and in particular, countries that are close in nature to Pakistan and Afghanistan like Bangladesh, India, etc.), their impacts on health and education attainment of children and their successes and challenges.
• Data collection: Gather secondary and primary data on current school meal programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan, their impacts on health and education attainment of children and their successes and challenges.
• Analysis: Evaluate the effectiveness of these programs and their impacts on health and education attainment of children and identify key success factors and challenges.
• Recommendations: Develop actionable recommendations for improving school meal programs in Pakistan and Afghanistan based on the analysis and literature review.

To achieve all those mentioned above, I reviewed the grey and well-designed academic literature, interviewed experts, and analyzed data on school meal programs. The literature review part was divided into two parts: (1) systematic review of rigorously designed academic studies and (2) document analysis of grey literature. For the systematic review, I reviewed recent and rigorously designed (RCT/Quasi-Experimental/Controlled Before-After) studies on school meals. For the grey literature review, I reviewed a total of 217 program documents and impact evaluation studies on school meal programs worldwide that included 135 Country Reports by the Global Child Nutrition Fund (GCNF), 65 Annual Country Reports by the World Food Programme (WFP), and 17 impact evaluation and policy studies. In addition, I analyzed the latest survey data on 207 national school meal programs worldwide.

Besides the desk research, I interviewed 12 experts on health and education who actively work in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and who have expertise on school meal programs. Furthermore, I attended high-stakes meetings between UNICEF Afghanistan and ADB regarding the updates on nutrition and education and how ADB can collaborate with UNICEF. Likewise, I actively worked with the key counterparts in Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Indonesia Resident Missions. Those meetings and collaborations helped me gain contextual knowledge.

As key successes of my work, I would like to mention that my presentation was featured in OneADB Today, the ADB portal. In addition, my report is on the process to be published as one of the technical assistance report of ADB. Finally, and which is more, many of my program design recommendations are being processed to be included in pilot program design for Baluchistan school meal program.

My academic advisor, Professor Keiichi Ogawa, always encourages me to obtain an internship at international organizations which will greatly improve my potential for a career at one of these organizations. With the encouragement and guidance of Professor Ogawa, I applied for the ADB Internship Program and got selected through a rigorous and multi-stage selection process.

Overall, the internship at ADB was a great opportunity for me to harness myself for a career at international organizations, and I could understand why Professor Ogawa always encourages us to conduct internships at international organizations.

I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisors at ADB HQ, Mr. Eisuke Tajima and Mrs. Lisa Shawqui Lahalih, and my academic supervisor, Professor Keiichi Ogawa, for their continuous mentorship and support during my internship. Thanks to them, I could obtain invaluable experience of working at ADB which significantly contributed to my professional development. Their continuous encouragement has been pivotal in molding my experience and facilitating my development.

Authored by Rakibul Hassan (Master’s Student)