1. The Fifty-Ninth Session of the Council was held in Rome from 20 November to 1 December 1972, under the Chairmanship of M. Cépède.
2. The Agenda of the Session as adopted is set out in Appendix A to this Report. The Council decided to establish a Committee-of-the-Whole, to deal with the constitutional and legal, as well as the administrative and financial matters on its Agenda. It was understood that, as had been the case at its previous session, no verbatim records would be provided for this Committee-of-the-Whole. The Council decided to continue for its present session the verbatim records of Plenary.
3. The Council elected O.R. Borin (Italy) as First Vice-Chairman and M. El Gabaly (Egypt) and M. Wanjigi (Kenya) as Second Vice-Chairmen.
4. The Council elected E.R. Woods (New Zealand) as Chairman of the Drafting Committee of Plenary. The members elected to the Drafting Committee of Plenary were Chile, Hungary, Japan, Morocco, Tanzania and the United States of America.
5. The Council elected K. Prasad (India) as Chairman of the Drafting Committee of the Committee-of-the-Whole. The members elected to the Drafting Committee of the Committee-of-the-Whole were Argentina, Canada, Egypt, Germany (Federal Republic of), and Zaire.
6. The Council heard an introductory statement by the Director-General, the text of which may be found in Appendix D to this Report.
7. The Council agreed to the request submitted by the People's Republic of Bangladesh, an applicant for membership in the Organization, to attend in an observer capacity the Fifty-Ninth Session of the Council.
8. The Council paid tribute to Viggo Andersen, Director of the Human Resources and Institutions Division, who was due to retire on 15 December 1972.
1 CL 59/PV/1 and CL 59/PV/2
2 CL 59/PV/1 and paras. 25–31 below on Streamlining FAO
3 CL 59/PV/18
