GLOBAL THINK LABS Opening Remarks

Dear Colleagues,

It is always nice to see all of you in person, as well as on screen as we take advantage of the Digital FAO. It is difficult for me to travel to meet all of you in person, but I try my best.

The Global Think Labs are unique fora that bring together Country Offices, Subregional and Regional Offices with headquarter units, offices, and divisions to share knowledge on topical subjects.

During the pandemic I asked DDG-Laurent Thomas to ensure this kind of global linkage. At the start it was to enable us to address all the emergencies, but now after the pandemic we started to think of it as a new business model.

We need to meet virtually more often and once annually in person. That is my new design.

That is what DDG-Maurizio Martina has helped me to change moving from emergency management to regular management.

We need to evolve into an agile FAO, combining both modalities of doing business, combining the advantages, saving costs, and enabling a more convenient way of working.

The reality is that you cannot stop doing business only to attend meetings. Of course, meetings are important, but meetings are not deliverables, the outcomes of meetings are just brainstorming.

This is at the core of the Organization: thinking together, learning together, working together, and contributing together as ONE FAO!

I have said this so many times during the past four and a half years, so I think that most of you who are representing me and FAO on the ground, should be very familiar with this!

Before I came, I know that many of you felt alone, with limited contact with headquarters, but since taking office I have encouraged all of you to work together, communicate together cross-country and cross-continent, from the field to headquarters and vice-versa.

We are one big family, we should work as a big team. That is my real philosophy behind my encouragement to you to communicate more because if you do not understand each other, the rules are worth the paper they are on, but if you learn from each other, then you can share FAO’s best practices on how to work for our Members on the ground.   

And to become a ONE FAO family we must ensure that all employees are provided with the instruments and knowledge they need to become a Global Team that provides the support requested by Members and by the other partners.

We must share information and consult before we work in silos. There are so many silos! How do we kill those silos? The only way, I think, is with communication.

Communication is important for all FAO employees, whether General Service or Professionals or Consultants.

Many colleagues are increasing their deliverables because they have good communication skills on how to address challenges, seek support from donors, partners, and colleagues. There is real potential if you seek support from colleagues, no matter where they are based. Because a lot of colleagues have a different backgrounds and opinion, different ways of thinking, a different way of finding solutions.

Learning from each other has almost a zero cost. You only need goodwill and the right approach to contact the right person.

To efficiently and effectively transform global agrifood systems to be more efficient, more inclusive, more resilient, and more sustainable, it was critical that we undertook the restructuring of FAO’s headquarters structure. Now I think the headquarters structure is clear, especially after the pandemic two years ago, and people are now traveling more and more. But this is no excuse to not keep doing business as usual – the new Digital FAO allows us to keep working even while we are traveling.

We also followed with the review of Regional and Subregional Offices, to ensure we were fit-for-purpose to support Members in their national pathways towards the transformation. And now we are moving towards the restructuring of Country Offices.

That is why during 2024 you should take advantage of the Regional Ministerial Conferences. The Ministers of Agriculture from each of the regions will differentiate their priorities during the regional conferences in line with their local and regional needs and will set out what they need from FAO and how we can help them. In turn, we will offer them proposals in response to their regional priorities.

For this reason, the Asia and Pacific Regional Ministerial Conference closed with a good consensus and a clear message supporting what we proposed.

The Near East and North Africa Regional Ministerial Conference was also very successful, notwithstanding the many challenges, both man-made and natural, facing the region.

Next, we will be addressing the challenges related to the Latin America and the Caribbean region, followed by Africa and then Europe and Central Asia.

So, we want to have more reliable, more professional Country Offices, with more deliverables that lead to more efficiency and effectiveness. For this reason, we need to have a structure and mechanism reform, so that donors will increase their support to FAO because you are our deliverables window.

The Liaison Offices should increase the resources mobilized. I remember raising this issue with Mr Vimlendra Sharan when he was the Director of the FAO Liaison Office for North America (LOW), and then again with Ms Jocelyn Brown Hall: what is the Liaison Office of one of the richest countries doing to increase resource mobilization?

The same applies for the Liaison Office in Moscow, and the one in Tokyo, and the ones in Europe.

The Country Offices need to be able to use the resources mobilized by the other offices, divisions, and units to increase their deliverables, to effectively feed the purpose of what member countries need the most through the different initiatives and through policy dialogue with the Members.

Through joint efforts, we have already started to see the fruits of these reforms, which aim at increasing efficiency, breaking down silos, and ensuring cross-regional and intra-regional collaboration, among others.

My focus has always been on increasing collaboration with and between the Country Offices, and across-continent. To support this, I intend to nominate FAORs across the continents: from Africa to Asia, from Asia to Africa, from Europe to other regions, from Latin America and the Near East to others. It is a way to learn the different cultures, different backgrounds and to share knowledge and experiences. I think this will transform the FAO business model for Country Offices to maximize delivery and impact on the ground,

While providing them with the adequate support needed to better position them within the UN wide system. Each time when I visit a country, I always ask to meet the Resident Coordinator (RC). I know that some colleagues feel they need to compete with the RC, but this is not necessary. A FAOR is distinct from the RC.

We are more technical, and we seek their support from a political perspective. They have a coordination role, and we welcome their coordination function and support.

To support increased collaboration with and between Country Offices, last December I convened the first Global Working Conference of FAO Representatives in Rome.

This first historical meeting gathered 115 participants from Country Offices, including 88 FAORs, for 3 days in headquarters to jointly identify ways to improve delivery at country level.

It was an increasable sharing of experiences and knowledge among yourselves because you are the experts, you are the professional staff from FAO. As Director-General, I am only offering a platform for you to learn among yourselves.

The next Global Working Conference will be in Bangkok in December this year. The details of the programme are still being finalized between the Regional Representatives, headquarters, and the government, but it will be combined with the International Soil and Water Forum.

Dear Colleagues,

I think that the dialogue that started in Rome proved to be very successful, with frank and open discussions, exchange of experiences, information, and concrete proposals for improvements.

I expect that every year will be an improvement. Now, under the supervision of DDG-Maurizio Martina, together with the other Core Leaders, we can do more and better.

As you can see, we are moving out from Rome to the Regions, to the countries!

If you look at my first speech after the 2019 elections, I said “we’ll go from Rome to the farmers’ fields”. That is the real nature of agrifood systems and rural development.

We need the Headquarters of course, with strong, professional, deliverables and especially services.

However, at the same time, we need to strengthen the Country Offices. That is clear. Regional and Sub-Regional offices are a mid-point, because FAO is so big, and the Regions are so different.

I have a request for all of you: you need to focus on the Regional Ministerial Conferences first, between now and July because these are major, systemic, important meetings.

During the meetings, I will try my best to get in touch with the Heads of State, to create political support for our offices and for our colleagues.

My impression is that now fundamentally all the leaders appreciate FAO’s professional and technical support.

The know that we are not a financial institution, but they really appreciate our technical support. I saw this firsthand in Sri Lanka and in Egypt.

In Egypt, I went to the countryside, to Minya, to see a project supported by the Canadians to empower women in the rural village. And now the scale up is going to be supported by Norway.

So, if FAO has good, successful pilot projects, there will be other donors willing to take the partnership to scale up.

I think that is something of value for FAO, for the new business model, because we are an intergovernmental specialized agency, and we need to scale up successful pilot projects.

In fact, all these initiatives that we have been implementing over the past four years, must now be consolidated, all in one.

To this end, I have asked my Special Representative, former DDG-Laurent Thomas, to help me to achieve this, together with other colleagues.

First, all the initiatives in the Headquarters that have a divisional office taking a leading role, must now all share the initiatives horizontally with relevant divisions and offices to see how to work together; and vertically you must work together with Regional and Subregional and Country Offices.

At the Country Office level, you will find many initiatives, many action plans, as well as big or small projects. You should reorganize yourselves, in consultation with the host countries, on what their priorities are, and then you will set up a new list of priorities to work together on, with relevant partners and countries. Then, you can consolidate all the FAO initiatives and action plans into one FAO proposal.

There are two cases that I want you to consider changing and improving:

First, some FAO offices just do their own business, based on the project, on resources, and on the Headquarter initiatives.

Then, they play their own business alone, and the host countries are not engaged.

Second, some FAO offices do not care. They just run their own business based on how much money they have. They have no real design, they do not follow the FAO initiatives led by Headquarters or other donors. They just get some money to do their job. That is really bad in my opinion.

You need strategic thinking based on the FAO Strategic Framework and flagship initiatives, and a strategic plan.

You need dialogue with relevant ministers in the host countries, first. Then based on that dialogue you can formulate the strategic plan.

First and foremost, you should change your website. Every Member, globally, will look at your website. For example, I can see that not everyone participating in this meeting has updated the FAO logo. As you can see, this is not a question of money, but of mindset! Innovation is not that difficult.

Remember, we are not a free market, but an organization. An organization has a constitution, rules, a logo, a common language, and a common mandate. Otherwise, we call it free market.

We have to build ONE FAO in line with the “Four Rs”:  Reform, Rebuild, Recovery and Renaissance - based on the “Four Es” Efficiency, Effectiveness, Extraordinary and Excellency.

Some people still refer to the Four Betters in the wrong order! Remember, it is first better production, then better nutrition, followed by a better environment, and finally a better life. When you speak, you are speaking on behalf of FAO, it is not your personal opinion.

Dear Colleagues,

I just want you to change some small things, based on FAO’s mandate and the ONE FAO culture. And based on the ONE FAO as an intergovernmental Specialized Agency. Do not play the political game at FAO. No matter where you are, it is ONE FAO, one logo, one Constitution and one mandate.

Thank you for your engagement and loyalty to the Organization and to FAO’s mandate, its Constitution, and its mission.

That is our common language: we think together, learn together, work together, and contribute together.

I wish you all the best. Take care of yourselves. Take care of your loved ones, and also take care of your colleagues. Nowadays in the UN culture, I feel you should take care of your colleagues. Because a lot of colleagues from different countries, far away from their homes, and even with different cultures, they need to have a small family feeling or flavour in your small office. Because after eight or ten hours of working in the office, maybe they are alone. So, please, we are human beings, and we should be civil towards each other.

Thank you to DDG-Maurizio Martina. Keep going, and we can be better and better, for years and years, step by step. Without your commitment and engagement, we could not even change the small things.

Thank you.