Director-General addresses Joint Meeting of Programme and Finance Committees and highlights the impact of inflation on FAO’s Programme of Work and Budget over the last 12 years
Rome –QU Dongyu, Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), made a forceful appeal for Members of FAO’s Programme and Finance Committees to offset the impact of inflation on the Organization’s Programme of Work and Budget, pointing out that FAO is receiving strong votes of confidence for its humanitarian and development initiatives.
“The Organization is now globally recognized as a professional, trusted partner of all stakeholders working to eradicate poverty, hunger and malnutrition,” Qu said.
Proof of that lies in the $2.1 billion in voluntary contributions that FAO mobilized in 2022, a 51 percent increase over the previous year, which had already broken a record, the Director-General told members of the FAO Council Committees.
Qu spoke at the Joint Meeting of the 135th Session of the Programme Committee and the 195h Session of the Finance Committee, which provide recommendations to the FAO Council on programmatic and budgetary matters related to the work of the Organization..
Citing four years of reform and the adoption of an effective new business model under his leadership, the Director-General said that FAO is now agile, quick and “more efficient, more dynamic, more innovative and more effective” to deal with global challenges.
He asked members of the Joint Meeting to look hard at the proposed Programme of Work and Budget (PWB), which includes higher regular funding inputs to mitigate the erosion of purchasing power at a time of high inflation.
FAO has had no nominal budget increases for 12 years, and that has translated into a real decline of as much as 40 percent, which impacts staff, procurement services and utility bills among others.
The Director-General invited the Members to consider what the Organization is achieving and where it needs to go, and that “within that perspective, Members will understand and support the budget proposal for 2024-25, with its modest increase to allow us to continue to operate as we have been doing over the past years.” He also noted that management is already and will continue to “do more and better with less” by seeking efficiencies and savings across the board and pursuing innovative approaches.
The road travelled, and then road ahead
The Director-General outlined key initiatives and services launched in recent years, including numerous campaigns to promote digitalization of agrifood systems, the Green Cities Initiative and the Hand-in-Hand Geospatial Platform, noting they are all now being implemented and providing necessary support to smallholders and rural farmers.
He also noted that FAO is on track to double the investment programming capacity of the Investment Centre to $18 billion, and that FAO’s Regional, Sub-Regional and Country Officers have been strengthened to help decentralized offices increase their services to Members.
“Changing the business model of the Organization for increased efficiency and impact depends strongly on the capacity and capability of our human resources,” Qu said.
“I believe that FAO’s great challenge over the next years is to shape the global narrative and put in place tailored country strategies through which the Organization can bring all its professional and technical expertise to provide solutions to how massive shocks to rural livelihoods and food security can be effectively, prevented, addressed and linked to investment sin longer-term agrifood systems transformation,” he concluded.
The Director-General’s full statement is available here.