International organizations like FAO are intrinsically multilingual. FAO is currently experimenting with semantic-oriented technologies based on ontologies, with the purpose of integrating data across various information systems and providing better services to end users. However, in order for these technologies to be used in real-life scenarios, models and tools for accommodating and managing multilingual data are needed. This paper analyzes the requirements for the treatment of multilinguality as resulting from the experience we gained at FAO.