11. the departments, divisions and other major units(continued)

Department of General Affairs and Information

Development Department

The Development Department as presently constituted includes, in addition to the immediate Office of the Assistant Director-General, the Field Programme Development Division, the Investment Centre, and FFHC/Action for Development. Its origins can be traced back to 1950 and to the advent of FAO's field programme, financed with resources made available through the Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA). Some field activities were carried out prior to that time (e.g. country missions sponsored by the Organization, and the field projects carried out by the former Agriculture Division under the UNRRA Transfer Fund), but the Organization's field programme structure, as such, had its beginnings in the EPTA-financed projects. Here it should be recalled, as was noted in Chapter 10, that the relative emphasis upon the Field Programme in terms of volume and resources, as compared with the Regular Programme, has increased substantially over the years, reflecting to a considerable degree the change in the proportion of developing countries among FAO's members.

The history of the Department is in fact quite complex, since many different organizational provisions have been made for handling its present functions. Too, there has been an intertwining of field and regular programme functions, several of which are now assigned to other departments or to the Office of the Director-General. In the following outline, primary emphasis is placed on the functions currently assigned to the Development Department, since the others are treated in greater detail elsewhere.

On 16 November 1949 the UN General Assembly took formal action to establish an Expanded Programme of Technical Assistance (EPTA), and a few weeks later the Fifth Session of the FAO Conference decided that FAO should participate in it.

On 24 October 1950, Dr. F. T. Wahlen (Switzerland), Director of what was then the Agriculture Division, was also appointed Chief of EPTA within FAO. He carried this special responsibility until 15 January 1952.

The Second Special Session of the FAO Conference, in November 1950, was informed that up to31 October 1950 34 requests for assistance had been received, and that agreements had been signed with ten Governments. The Conference noted that progress on the rendering of technical assistance was being limited by two factors. First, the great majority of governments that had promised contributions had not yet paid them into the Special Account; as of 31October 1950 less than $7 million had been received by the United Nations. Second, many potential recipient countries were not yet informed of the conditions under which technical assistance could be granted. However, in the early months of 1951 the first experts were reporting to Headquarters in Washington, and following the transfer of Headquarters to Rome their number rapidly increased.

On 15 January 1952, responsibility for general supervision of technical assistance was assigned to the Deputy Director-General as Chief Coordinator of Technical Assistance, and an officer who had assisted the Chief of EPTA was designated as Deputy Coordinator. From this time until January 1956, a central unit in the Office of the Director-General, including a Fellowships Section, dealt with EPTA affairs.

In January 1956, a Programme and Budgetary Service was set up in the Office of the Director-General, to deal with both the Regular Programme and EPTA. In May of the same year, this was divided into a Programme and Budgetary Service and a Field Liaison Service (incorporating the former Fellowships Section). Associated with them was the International Agency Liaison Service. These three units were merged in January 1959 into a new Programme and Budgetary Service with broader terms of reference, organized into branches to deal with seven areas of activity: Programme Service, Programme Research and Evaluation, Budget, Programme Liaison, International Agency Liaison, Field Operations, and Training and Fellowships. The Director of this new Service was elevated to Assistant Director-General rank in July 1960. The structure of the Service remained essentially unchanged until June 1962, when it was reorganized as follows:

Programme Formulation and Budget Division
Programme Formulation Branch
Budget Branch

Programme Liaision Division
Regional Liaison Branch
International Agency Liaison Branch
Food Standards Branch

Division of Technical Assistance Coordination
Country Operations Liaison Branch
Technical Cooperation Branch
Fellowships and Training Branch

The FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme was assigned to the Service in April1964.

Effective 1 June 1968, as part of a major reorganization of the Headquarters structure, the structure of the Programme and Budgetary Service was modified as follows:

Area Service Division

FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme

FAO/Industry Cooperative Programme

International Agency Liaison Division
International Organizations Branch
Food Standards Branch

Programme Formulation and Budget Division

On 8 July 1968, the Development Department was formally established with the structure shown above, except that the FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme was redesignated Investment Centre at the same time.

There were a number of changes in the structure of the Department over the next ten years:

at the beginning of 1970, the Programme Formulation and Budget Division was dissolved, with the Budget Branch being transferred to the Office of Controller; a Programme Formulation Unit was maintained in the Development Department until 1972, when it was transferred to the Office of the Director-General;

in August 1972, the International Agency Liaison Division was removed from the Department. At the same time, a Research Centre was created, for the subsequent history of which see pages 113–114;

in January 1973, the Evaluation Branch was transferred to the Department from the Economic Analysis Division and redesignated Evaluation Service;

in February 1974, the Area Service Division was renamed Field Liaison Division;

most of the Development Department's activities of an operational nature were discontinued following the establishment of the Agricultural Operations Division in March 1974;

in January 1976, Freedom from Hunger/Action for Development was transferred from the Office of the Director-General to die Department, and the Field Liaison Division was redesignated Field Programme Development Division;

in January 1978, the Evaluation Service was transferred to the Office of Programme, Budget and Evaluation;

the FAO/Industry Cooperative Programme was discontinued on 30 June 1978.

The functions of the Development Department, in broad outline, are to increase the flow of financial, technical and educational resources to developing countries; to help donors and recipients of resources to coordinate their activities and to focus on highest-priority development needs; to assist developing countries' governments to identify and create opportunities for successful innovation, and to become more self-reliant in their own development efforts; and to coordinate the work of Regional Offices and FAO Representatives with that of Headquarters.

More specifically, in relation to FAO's field programme, the Department negotiates at the policy level with major donors, whether for development assistance or for investment; coordinates the Organization's working relationships with sources of finance, both governmental and non-governmental; maintains liaison in particular with UNDP, the World Bank, Area Banks and IFAD; approves TCP-and Trust-Fund-financed projects under delegated authority from the Director-General; and maintains close working contact with the operations services and substantive divisions in the Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Departments which operate or provide technical backstopping for field projects.

The Development Department also serves as the primary link between Headquarters and the Regional and Liaison Offices. Although the Regional Representatives and Directors of Liaison Offices represent the Director-General and have direct access to him when necessary, their day-to-day contacts with Headquarters take place through the Department. It also exercises oversight in respect of the FAO Representatives and their offices.

In view of the complexity of its antecedents, it is hardly possible to provide an accurate ancestral record of the Development Department and those who have headed it and all its predecessor units. Hence, reference is made here only to those who have provided leadership with the rank of Assistant Director-General since it was formally designated as a Department:

Field Programme Development Division

The predecessors of this Division, in reverse order, have been the Field Liaison Division, the Area Service Division, the Division of Technical Assistance Cooperation, the Field Operations Branch, the Central Programme and Liaison Service, and the Chief Coordinator of Technical Assistance and Chief, Expanded Technical Assistance Programme. The manner in which each of these fitted into the evolutional process has already been set out in general, so reference is made here only to the Division's three most recent precursors. The Division of Technical Assistance Cooperation, formed in June 1962 and maintained through May 1968, included a Country Operations Liaison Branch, a Technical Cooperation Branch, and a Fellowships and Training Branch, and it performed some operational and other functions which are no longer the responsibility of the Development Department.

In June 1968 it was redesignated Area Service Division, and on 8 it July 1968 it was assigned to the newly-established Development Department. At that time, the following units were incorporated into the Division: the Country Operations Liaison Branch and the Technical Cooperation Branch from the former Division of Technical Cooperation, the Regional Liaison Branch from the former Programme Liaison Division, and the members of the Office of the Assistant Director-General, Technical Department, who had been dealing with UNICEF, WFP and FFHC on project development and operations. The Division was organized into five Regional Services, a Field Programme Coordination Service and a Reports Unit. In October 1971, an Operations Centre was added.

On 1 February 1974, the Area Service Division was transformed into a Field Liaison Division. Its structure and functions were similar to its predecessor division, except that the Operations Centre was abolished, the Field Programme Coordination Service was renamed Special Programme Liaison Service, the Regional Services were renamed Bureaux, and the functions of the Europe Service were transferred to the Regional Office for Europe.

The Division was redesignated Field Programme Development Division in January 1976, with a structure similar to that of the Field Liaison Division, except that the Policy and Programmes Control Unit was eliminated, and a Technical Cooperation Programme Unit and a unit to deal with FAO/Government Cooperative Programmes were added. In January 1978, a Field Programme Coordination Service was added and as of 30 June 1978, the FAO/Government Cooperative Programme Unit was removed:

The following officers have been responsible for the Division and its three most immediate precursors:

Investment Centre

The present Investment Centre grew out of the FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme, based on an agreement signed on 2 April 1964 and established as a sector of the Programme and Budgetary Service in the Office of the Director-General. Other agreements were entered into with the Inter-American Development Bank (approved by the FAO Conference in 1965) and the African and Asian Development Banks (approved in November 1967). When the Development Department was formed on 8 July 1968, the FAO/IBRD Cooperative Programme was combined with these investment-related activities into an Investment Centre. Later, in May 1972, the FAO/Bankers Programme was created, although a first meeting with private bankers had been held in May 1969.

More recently, links have been established with other financing institutions, including the various Arab funds, some sub-regional financing institutions, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). All FAO's activities under these agreements, programmes and other arrangements are carried out through the Investment Centre. (The agreement mentioned above between FAO and the Inter-American Development Bank has expired.)

The basic function of the Investment Centre is to help governments identify and prepare projects for financing, usually in two stages. The first stage is reconnaissance or identification. The second consists of guiding government agencies in project preparation, and aims at the production of a feasibility study for submission to a financing institution. Increasingly, this second stage has become a joint undertaking involving the Investment Centre, government departments, agencies or local banks, and local counterpart staff. A third stage, appraisal, which is a last check on all aspects of a project, is the responsibility of the financing organization and the government.

The present form of the Investment Centre began to take shape in June 1973 when, following the reorganization of the Agriculture Department of the World Bank along regional lines, it was reorganized into two services, each with responsibility for specific geographic areas. A third service, the Investment Support Service, was created in June 1976 to deal with the activities carried out with financing institutions other than the World Bank.

In August 1979, the operational aspects of the Investment Centre's work were reassigned among five services, the first three relating to the Cooperative Programme with the World Bank, and the last two to cooperative work with other financing institutions, as follows:

Europe, Near East, North and East Africa

Asia and the Pacific

Latin America and West Africa

International Funds and National Banks

Regional Development Banks

The Director of the Investment Centre is assisted by two Deputy Directors, one dealing with the Cooperative Programme with the World Bank, the other with cooperative activities with other financing institutions.

Leadership of the Investment Centre and its predecessor has been provided by the following officers:

Freedom from Hunger Campaign/Action for Development

The idea of a Freedom from Hunger Campaign was first mentioned by Director-General Sen in a speech to ECOSOC in July 1958. Three months later he placed a formal proposal for such a campaign before the Twenty-Ninth Session of the FAO Council. The Council welcomed its objectives and established an Ad Hoc Committee to assist the Director-General in preparing more detailed proposals. These were placed before the Thirty-First Session of the Council in June 1959, which gave its unanimous support, and in the autumn of that year, the Tenth Session of the FAO Conference gave its approval (Resolution 13/59). Then, in May 1960, a first conference of international nongovernmental organizations was held to establish a basis for cooperation between them and FAO.

The Campaign was officially launched on 1 July 1960. In November 1965 the Thirteenth Session of the FAO Conference agreed that it should be extended until the end of 1970, and in November 1969 the Fifteenth Session of the Conference decided to extend it until the end of 1980. It also concurred with a proposal of the Director-General that the future activities under the Campaign should become more action-oriented. In June 1970, the name “Freedom from Hunger Campaign/Action for Development” (FFH/AD) was adopted. In January 1976, the FFH/AD Coordinator and his staff were transferred from the Office of the Director-General, where they had been located since 1960, to the Development Department. In 1979 the Conference approved continuation of FFH/AD as a part of Organization's Programme of Work for 1980–81.

Special actions organized in connection with the Campaign have included a special assembly of eminent personalities in Rome on 14 March 1963, to issue a manifesto on Man's Right to Freedom from Hunger; a World Food Congress in Washington in June 1963; and a Second World Food Congress in The Hague in June 1970.

In addition to its various informational and educational activities, the Campaign has sponsored many field projects, financed either by donor governments or by non-governmental organizations. In order to implement such projects, an FFH/AD Project Unit had been set up, and in August 1971 it was transferred to what was then the Area Service Division. In January 1976, it reverted to the FFH/AD Coordinator's Office, which had been transferred to the Development Department.

One outgrowth of efforts under FFHC was the former FAO/Industry Cooperative Programme, approved by the Thirteenth Session of the FAO Conference in 1965 and operated under a Trust Fund to which participating industries contributed. It was designed to help accelerate agro-industrial expansion in developing countries through closer cooperation among FAO, industries and governments. In 1977 it was decided that this activity should not be continued as a part of the structure of FAO, and it was terminated on 30 June 1978.

The following officers have served as Coordinator of the Freedom from Hunger Campaign:

Since February 1979, A. Peña Montenegro (Chile) has served as Officer-in-Charge of FFH/AD.

This Department currently consists of four divisions: Conference, Council and Protocol Affairs; Information; Publications; and Library and Documentation Systems. It has had a varied and complex history, in part because of the multiple functions it has been called upon to carry out, and in part because of changes in approaches to the execution of these functions.

The Conference, Council and Protocol Affairs Division can be traced back to August 1946, when a Chief Administrative Officer (Mr. M. Veillet-Lavallée, of France) was appointed, in the Office of the Director-General, to supervise various administrative and financial activities and to deal with constitutional and legal matters and external affairs. His title was changed to Senior Executive Officer early in 1947. In July 1948, his administrative and financial responsibilities were transferred to a new Administrative Division, while constitutional, legal and external affairs matters were pursued in the Office of the Director-General, under Mr. Veillet-Lavallée, with the title of Secretary-General.

The Information Division and the Publications Division both have their origins in the appointment of a Director of Information (Mr. Gove Hambidge, of the United States) in December 1945. An Information Service was constituted during 1946, and this Service and its successor organizational units were responsible for both information and publications functions until December 1958, when the two functions were separated.

A library was also established very early in the Organization's history, at FAO's provisional Headquarters in Washington, and the first Librarian, Mr. H. Jenssen (Norway), was appointed in January 1946. A very substantial library built up by the International Institute of Agriculture was one of the IIA's assets taken over by FAO. Following the transfer of FAO Headquarters to Rome, the two sectors of the library were merged, and in June 1952 the collection was named the David Lubin Memorial Library.

In January 1959, all these functions, with those of the Legal Counsel and what was then the Rural Legislation Branch, were consolidated into a Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs.

In June 1968, the Office of the Legal Counsel reverted to the Office of the Director-General and the Department was downgraded to an Office of External Relations and Information, retaining all its other functions. In January 1970, the Office was-redesignated Office of General Affairs and Information. In January 1971 the Legislation Branch (ex-Rural Legislation Branch) was transferred to the Office of the Director-General, where it became part of the Office of the Legal Counsel. In July 1976 the Office of General Affairs and Information was again upgraded into a Department of General Affairs and Information.

Those who provided leadership in the Department and its precursors include —

Before turning to the Divisions of this Department, mention should be made of one special aspect of the Department's work which is conducted directly from the Office of the Assistant Director-General: the Money and Medals Programme. It was initiated in November 1966 as a Coin Plan, and its scope was broadened in 1971 to include Ceres and Agricola medals, featuring contemporary women and men who have made significant contributions to promoting the ideals of FAO. The FAO coins are the first in monetary history to be inspired by a common international theme: food for all. By 1980, nearly 100 countries had issued over 400 of them, and more than 5.5 million pieces, with a cash value of about $250 million, were in circulation. The officers who have carried responsibility for this Programme are —

Conference, Council and Protocol Affairs Division

During the initial years of the Organization, a number of the functions of this Division were performed in the Office of the Director-General under an officer with the successive titles of Chief Administrative Officer, Senior Executive Officer, and Secretary-General. These activities were loosely structured, but from February 1946 to October 1948 an Office of External Relations existed within this complex.

When FAO Headquarters was transferred to Rome early in 1951, a General Secretariat was created, under the Secretary-General. It had no formal structure, but included officers to deal with external relations, Conference affairs, official correspondence, and liaison. By 1953, a Liaison and Legal Affairs Section and a Conference and Council Affairs Section had emerged. By the spring of 1954, the title of the former had been changed to Legal Affairs Section, and an External Relations Section had been added. By September 1956, a Protocol Section had been added, and the name of the Legal Affairs Section was again changed to Legal Section.

When the Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs was created in January 1959, it contained inter alia a Conference and Operations Branch and an Office of Liaison and Protocol. Responsibility for legal matters was placed in a separate Office of the Legal Counsel, while legislative questions were dealt with by a Rural Legislation Branch.

When Mr. Veillet-Lavallée left the post of Assistant Director-General of the Department, he served from August 1963 to October 1964 as a Special Assistant to the Director-General, and in this capacity he retained his functions as Secretary-General of the Conference and Council. Upon his retirement, Mr.A.C. Janssen (Netherlands) was appointed Secretary-General of the Conference and Council, and he served in this capacity from June 1965 to February 1970, being attached first to the Office of the Director-General and subsequently to the Office of the Assistant Director-General of the Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs.

When the Department was transformed into an Office of General Affairs and Information in June 1968, the Conference and Operations Branch and the Office of Liaison and Protocol, redesignated a Branch, were placed in a new Conference, Council and Protocol Affairs Division, and Mr. Janssen became its Director, continuing to carry responsibility as the Secretary-General of the Conference and Council. In June 1978 the latter function was assigned directly to the Assistant Director-General of the Department.

In February 1970 the Visa Desk was transferred from the Personnel Division to the Liaison and Protocol Branch, and in January 1980 the Conference Facilities Unit was transferred from the Administrative Service Division to the Conference Operations Branch. At the same time, the Interpretation Section was removed from the Conference Operations Branch and transformed into an Interpretation Branch within the Conference, Council and Protocol Affairs Division.

The functions of the Division as now constituted include the following:

• planning and servicing all sessions of the Conference, Council and related bodies, and the Regional Conferences; preparing in draft and final form the reports of the Conference and Council; assisting departments and divisions in planning and servicing other sessions and meetings, and undertaking negotiations with governments in this connection; coordinating negotiations for the use of the Organization's conference facilities by outside bodies; and arranging for and ensuring the availability of interpretation facilities for all FAO meetings;

• obtaining appropriate clearances for official correspondence between the Director-General and Member Governments, with respect not only to the organization of conferences, sessions and group training activities, but also to general policy matters;

• maintaining liaison with governments and their permanent representatives on matters of membership and constitutional and protocol relationships, and with the host government on the practical implementation of the Headquarters agreement.

Those who have provided the leadership for this group of activities, in the Division and prior to its formation, have been —

During the period April 1974–June 1978, Mr. Crapon de Caprona also served as Secretary-General of the Conference and Council.

Information Division

The Information Division, and the Publications Division which grew out of it, can be traced back to a common origin: the appointment of a Director of Information in December 1945. It was not until January 1959 that the two functions were clearly separated.

During 1946 an Information Service had been set up, becoming an Information Division in August 1948. It was responsible for public information, publications and the Library. In January 1952, it was redesignated Informational and Educational Services, and included Information, Documents, Library and Legislative Services.

When the Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs was created in January 1959, this unit was incorporated in it under the title of Information and Public Relations Service, again changed, in September 1961, to Public Information Service. In January 1966 the Service became the Division of Public Information, and in June 1968 its title was shortened to Public Information Division. Almost immediately — in July 1968 — the title was further shortened to Information Division, the same name as had been assigned to it in August 1948. Thus, in 20 years the name of the Division had come full circle.

The functions of the Information Division include —

• issuance of press releases, news features and radio and television material on current activities and events;

• liaison with news media, and organization of field reportage missions for media representatives;

• preparation of daily press summaries and selections of clippings for internal information;

• production of booklets such as Fighting World Hunger, leaflets, exhibits and display materials;

• preparation of special articles, and arranging for outside writers to prepare feature articles for placement;

• publication of the bi-monthly FAO Review of Agriculture and Development, Ceres;

• operation of photographic services, including photo missions, a photo laboratory and a photo library;

• assistance to Member Countries in development support communications for agriculture and rural development, particularly in the use of communication media to inform and motivate rural people and in the use of audio-visual means for training;

• provision of advisory and technical services to the World Food Programme in its various informational activities;

• servicing the administration of the A.H. Boerma Award; and

• liaison with the United Nations and other organizations in the UN system on public information and development support communication.

Those who have provided leadership in the Information Division and its precursors include the following:

From April 1976 to December 1977, Mr. Mackenzie served as Acting Director of the Division.

Publications Division

The publications activities of FAO were closely linked with its information activities from 1945 through 1958, and as such they constituted part of the responsibilities of the director of the unit whose history has just been traced. In January 1959 a separate Publications Service was set up in the newly-created Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs, and among its other functions it assumed responsibility for internal reproduction, distribution and sales matters, formerly handled by the administrative services. In January 1966 the Service was raised to Division status.

The Publications Division is responsible for the editing, translating and publishing of FAO publications, for the translation and publication of documents, and for the distribution of both publications and documents. Through a network of authorized sales agents and distributors, it makes FAO's priced publications available throughout the world, periodically preparing and issuing a catalogue of the available priced publications. The basic materials included in publications and documents are, of course, assembled in the technical divisions and departments of the Organization.

The officers who have provided leadership in the Publications Division and its precursors have been the following:

During the period August to November 1976, Mr. Enrique Navas (Nicaragua) served as Acting Director, Publications Division.

Library and Documentation Systems Division

This Division had dual beginnings and has undergone a number of changes, both in its internal structure and in its location within the structure of the Organization.

With the appointment of a Librarian in January 1946, a Library was initiated, located administratively in what was loosely called Common Programmes and Technical Services. It was placed in the Information Division in 1949 and remained there through 1958, its name being changed to Library Service in 1951. The International Institute of Agriculture (IIA) had assembled what was probably the second largest agricultural library in the world, and since the Institute's activities had been reduced during World War II, that library was in 1945 one of its principal assets which were to be absorbed by FAO. It was maintained as an adjunct to FAO's European Regional Office until the Headquarters was transferred to Rome, when the collection assembled in Washington, and the collection in the European Regional Office, were consolidated into the Library in the new FAO Headquarters. However, the former IIA's collection has been maintained separately within the FAO Library. On 10 June 1952, the Library was named the David Lubin Memorial Library, in honour of the man whose ideas and energy had led to the creation of the International Institute of Agriculture.

In January 1959 the name of the organizational unit responsible for its management reverted from Library Service to Library, and it became a separate sector of the newly-established Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs. The post of Librarian was upgraded to that of Chief Librarian. This situation prevailed through 1967, when a Fisheries Branch Library was formed. During 1967 a Documentation Centre was formally set up in the Publications Division, work on it having been initiated late the preceding year. In June 1968, when the Department of Public Relations and Legal Affairs was transformed into the Office of External Relations and Information, there was created in it a Documentation and Library Service, consisting of the Documentation Centre, the David Lubin Memorial Library, and the Legislation Branch. In January 1970 the Documentation and Library Service was renamed Documentation, Legislation and Library Division. The Legislation Branch was transferred to the Office of the Legal Counsel in January 1971, and the Division was accordingly redesignated Library and Documentation Division, its basic components remaining the David Lubin Memorial Library and the Documentation Centre. A further branch library, the Lord Boyd Orr Memorial Food and Nutrition Library, was formed following a decision of the FAO Council at its Sixtieth Session in June 1973, and during the 1974–75 biennium a third, the Statistics Branch Library, was established.

The present name, Library and Documentation Systems Division, was adopted in January 1974. Since that time the Division has consisted of the David Lubin Memorial Library and the Systems and Projects Development Branch.

The Library and Documentation Systems Division is responsible for the maintenance of an effective library and of documentation services, for the use of these facilities in improving dissemination of knowledge in FAO's fields of competence, and for assisting Member Countries in establishing and strengthening their national agricultural documentation infrastructures. The David Lubin Memorial Library serves FAO's Headquarters and field staff, and, to the extent practicable, users in Member Countries, through the main Library and its three branch libraries, which contain materials on fisheries, nutrition and statistics, respectively. In addition to carrying out conventional library activities (selection and acquisition of library materials, serials control, cataloguing, classification and indexing, loans, reference and photo reproduction services), it can retrieve bibliographical data from in-house databases (FAO documents, library monographs, AGRIS) and a wide variety of external databases in the Organization's fields of interest. Many documents can be provided in photocopy or microfiche.

The Library also acts as coordinating centre for the Agricultural Libraries Network (AGLINET), a cooperative network of the main agricultural libraries in the world, initiated in 1974 and currently comprising 17 members. AGLINET facilitates inter-library loans and the provision of photocopies.

The Systems and Projects Development Branch serves all Member Countries in improving the transfer of agricultural information and in establishing and strengthening their capabilities for collection, storage, retrieval and dissemination of agricultural information, through AGRIS, CARIS and field projects.

AGRIS (International Information System for the Agricultural Sciences and Technology) is coordinated by the AGRIS Coordinating Centre in the Branch. It became operational in 1975, and by the end of 1980 more than 100 national, regional and international centres were contributing inputs to the database which was then nearing 600, 000 bibliographic references. Outputs are provided monthly, both on magnetic tape and in the printed bibliography, Agrindex. The latter has been published since 1977 by Apimondia, Bucharest and Rome.

The Current Agricultural Research Information System (CARIS) is also coordinated by a CARIS Coordinating Centre in the Branch. A pilot project carried out during 1974–77 had resulted in directories listing some 20, 000 projects and covering 2, 000 research institutions, 10, 000 research workers, and 3, 500 research programmes, on the basis of data provided by 60 developing countries and 8 international research institutes. In 1979 the activity was decentralized; 60 countries expressed willingness to participate, and technical assistance missions are being carried out on the implementation of the new methodology required for the decentralized CARIS programme.

Many field projects have been executed since 1974. Intensive training (particularly in AGRIS procedures), equipment, expert advice and fellowships have been provided. In 1979–80 a total of 33 countries benefited from projects aimed at creating or strengthening national documentation centres.

Those who have provided leadership in the Division, since its first establishment as a Documentation and Library Service, are the following:

For two extended periods, September 1972–October 1973 and July 1978–February 1979, Mr. G. Dubois (Belgium) served as Acting Director.

Within the Division, or in its predecessor units, leadership has been provided in library affairs by —

and leadership in the work on documentation systems has been provided by —

Administration and Finance Department

This Department consists of four divisions: Financial Services Division, Management Services Division, Personnel Division, and Administrative Services Division.

In the early days of the Organization, when the staff and the budget were quite small, the functions now carried out by these divisions were performed by a number of small, loosely structured offices. Some organizational form appeared when a Chief Administrative Officer was appointed in August 1946 to supervise the work of these offices and to carry out some other tasks. In early 1947 this officer's title was changed to Senior Executive Officer. In mid-1948 he was transferred to other duties and an Administrative Division was established, with four branches dealing respectively with Budget and Finance, Personnel and Management, Plant and Operations, and Records and Documents.

When FAO moved to Rome in 1951, the Administrative Division was redesignated Administrative and Financial Services and assigned to the Office of the Director-General. In 1956 it was renamed Division of Administration and Finance and transferred out of the Office of the Director-General. As of July 1960 it was elevated to the status of a Department of Administration and Finance. Following further modifications in the overall organizational structure, which went into effect in January 1970, its name was changed slightly to the present one of Administration and Finance Department.

The following officers have headed this Department and its precursors:

Financial Services Division

This Division's initial precursor was a Budget and Finance Branch which functioned in Washington from 1946 until early 1951. Following the transfer to Rome, it was renamed Finance Branch, and the budget function was placed elsewhere. In 1962 it became a Division of Finance, and it continued as such through 1969.

In 1970 an Office of Controller was set up, recombining the functions of budget and finance, and this Office was maintained through 1973. At the end of that year, it was dissolved, the budget function was again transferred elsewhere, and the present Financial Services Division was established.

The functions of this Division are largely apparent from its name. They include the maintenance of accounts, preparation of financial statements, handling of contributions, banking operations, disbursements, payroll, travel control and claims, and commercial bills. The internal audit function was located in the original Branch until it was transferred elsewhere in mid-1949. Automation was introduced during the period 1956–1958; mechanization of the payroll was achieved in April 1958, and further mechanization occurred over subsequent years.

The evolution and growth of the Division have been linked closely to the growth and expansion of the work of the Organization as a whole. Major factors affecting its work and growth were the advent of EPTA and the Special Fund and their evolution into UNDP during the 1950s and 1960s; the development of the World Food Programme during the 1970s; the rapid expansion of Trust Funds during the last two decades; and the more recent introduction of TCP. Following the general reorganization of Headquarters in 1968–69 Management Support Units were established, and the decentralization of budget and financial services began with the setting up of outposted units in the Agriculture and Fisheries Departments and in the Rural Institutions Division. Similar units were subsequently established in the Forestry Department and in the Investment Centre of the Development Department.

Officers who have provided leadership to this Division or its predecessors over the years have included —

Management Services Division

Some of the present functions of this Division were initially combined with personnel functions in a Personnel and Management Branch, from late 1946 to early 1951. Following the transfer to Rome, these functions were assigned to a Budget and Administrative Planning Branch from March 1951 through December 1955. In January 1956 an Administrative Planning Branch was set up in the Division of Administration and Finance; in July 1962, renamed Management Branch, it was placed in the Personnel and Management Division.

In June 1968 it was transformed into a Management Services Division. The Division is presently composed of two branches and one unit. The work of the Organization and Methods Branch is designed to assist managers in performing all aspects of their managerial roles economically and with increased efficiency. The Computer Systems Branch is responsible for ensuring that full advantage is taken of the use of computers in the Organization's operations. The Management Information Systems Unit develops and monitors systems designed to satisfy management's need for information efficiently and economically.

Officers who have provided leadership in this Division and its predecessor Branches are the following:

Personnel Division

During the initial years of FAO in Washington, personnel activities were handled by a Personnel and Management Branch. A separate Personnel Branch was set up in 1951, following the transfer of FAO Headquarters to Rome. During the period 1951–1957, establishments and policy and procedures activities, which are currently functions of the Personnel Division, were handled by the Budget and Administrative Planning Branch. In 1962 a Division of Personnel and Management was established, the Personnel Branch constituting one part of it, while establishments and policy and procedures responsibilities were assigned to the Management Branch in the same Division.

In 1967, the Division of Personnel and Management was divided into a Division of Administrative Management and an Office of Personnel. The former was subdivided into a Management Branch whose responsibilities included the establishments function, an Office of Training and Procedures whose terms of reference included staff development and training and the policy and procedures function, and an Office of Health and Medical Services. The Office of Personnel was responsible for recruitment, servicing, social security and staff counselling. However, following a management study by a consulting firm in 1968, a complete reorganization took place, and a Personnel Division was created in which all these responsibilities were redistributed as follows:

Recruitment, Employment and Establishments Service
Establishments Group
Personnel Policies and Standards Group
Personnel Servicing Group (Recruitment, Personnel Operations, Social Security)

Fellowships and Training Branch
Staff Development and Training Section
Fellowships Section

Health and Medical Services Branch

Within this basic structure, some changes took place following the constitution in 1968–69 of Management Support Units in certain departments and divisions. The decentralization of personnel servicing began with the setting up of outposted personnel units in the Agriculture, Economic and Social, and Fisheries Departments, to deal with the staffing of field projects. By 1975 what was essentially the present divisional structure had emerged:

Establishments and Entitlements Service

Recruitment Planning and Staff Development Service

Health and Medical Services Branch (renamed Medical Service in 1977)

Outposted personnel units are now established in the Agriculture, Economic and Social, Fisheries, Forestry, General Affairs and Information, and Development Departments.

The Personnel Division, like its predecessors, is a servicing unit whose function it is to support operating programmes. While its outputs do not relate substantively to the subject-matter objectives of FAO, they have provided the Organization with appropriate guidance and services related to staff maintenance and deployment. The Division has grown over the years to meet the increasing calls on its services, and it has made many contributions to the conduct of work of the Organization. A few examples may be cited:

• a Clerical Cadet Training Course was operated from 1956 to 1968, to meet the lack of trained, locally-available stenographers of English mother tongue. The Italian trainees were schooled in English, secretarial and clerical skills and office procedures, and many of them now hold senior clerical and some professional positions within the Organization;

• each year for the last ten years, over a thousand FAO staff members have taken language training courses designed to support effective communication in an organization committed to a multilingual response to development issues. Training in communication, administrative and supervisory skills has been regularly conducted. Secretarial and clerical courses have been conducted since FAO's early years. Audio-programmed shorthand training was introduced in October 1980;

• the Medical Service, which was set up in 1951 with one nurse, has expanded to include five doctors, five nurses, and laboratory facilities and staff to cover a broad range of routine laboratory tests, vaccinations, and medical examinations. Consultations and counselling are also provided on a variety of diseases and other medical problems;

• after-service medical insurance for staff was introduced in 1970. In the same year, medical travel for field staff and their dependents was introduced, thus enabling them to travel at the Organization's expense to locations away from their duty stations to avail themselves of adequate medical facilities. A new medical insurance scheme was introduced in 1972 to provide staff, particularly those serving in the field and then-dependents, with world-wide coverage;

• a special effort to eliminate differential treatment on the grounds of sex was launched in 1975. Staff Regulations and Rules were amended, and in October 1977 the Director-General placed special responsibility on the Personnel Division to ensure that more qualified women were recruited and promoted. In 1978, Equal Employment Opportunity Liaison Officers were appointed in the departments to assist in implementing this policy;

• FAO has been in the forefront among the organizations of the UN system in the classification of posts on the basis of duties performed and responsibilities assumed. In recent years the Establishments Group has been expanded to enable it to carry out a larger number of desk audits, during which jobs are examined at the work sites;

• improvements were effected during 1980 in the external training programme originally introduced in 1975 to enable staff members to increase their job-related qualifications and also to develop their potential for career opportunities within the Organization. These improvements include provision for payment of the salaries of field staff members undertaking approved training programmes, ensuring them the same access to external training as their Headquarters colleagues;

• unlike other training programmes which apply to internal staff development, the PTAD Programme (Professional Training for Agricultural Development), originally introduced in 1974 under the name of the Internship Programme, was introduced to provide advanced on-the-job training to well-qualified professionals from the Member Countries of the Organization through direct participation in the activities of FAO for fixed periods of time (usually six months).

Officers who have provided direct leadership in FAO's personnel work have included the following:

Administrative Services Division

During the period from late 1945 to early 1951, two branches carried out functions related wholly or in part to those of the present Administrative Services Division: the Plant and Operations Branch and the Records and Documents Branch. Following the transfer of Headquarters to Rome in early 1951 these functions, in addition to that of supervising the restaurant and cafeteria services, were assigned to a new Internal Services Branch.

In 1956 the Records and Documents Section of the Branch was abolished, publications and documents services being transferred to the Information Division, and records functions assigned to the Administrative Planning Branch. In September 1961 the Internal Services Branch was renamed General Service Branch.

In September 1963 it was redesignated Office of General Services, and in September 1964 the post of its Chief was elevated to the grade of Director.In May 1968 the Office became the Administrative Services Division.

The functions of this Division are reflected in the titles of its various units. These include branches responsible for Buildings, Communications and Records; Contracts; Field and Headquarters Services; and Purchasing and Control, in addition to the Security force and the Commissary.

Officers who have been in charge of the Division, or its precursors, are —