Further to Council-endorsed adjustments to the 2016-17 Programme of Work and Budget (PWB) made in 2015, an assessment of the technical capacity of the Organization by a team of independent experts was commissioned to address the question of how FAO’s technical capacity had evolved between 2012 and 2016.

The main findings of the assessment, recently released in the draft report available here, show that despite a flat nominal budget and decline in posts overall, technical capacity in FAO has increased through the reinvestment of administrative reductions into technical posts and resources.

The report also finds that technical capacity increased both at headquarters and in decentralized offices and was aligned to the FAO’s strategic framework, noting the important role played by non-staff human resources in providing the necessary flexibility to meet demand.

Broad improvements were also found in most indicators related to staff quality and experience, as well as in the delivery of key products and services that drive the normative work of the Organization.

Issues for attention relate to continued improvements to the matrix management, and better monitoring.

Overall, the findings in the draft report are in line with recent assessments carried out by the FAO Office of Evaluation, the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network (MOPAN) and the United Kingdom Department for International Development (DFID).

For example, DFID’s Multilateral Development Review (MDR) for 2016 recently reported that FAO had turned its performance around, crediting the leadership, modernized management structure and efficiency savings for the positive outcome, and consequently rated FAO as "good", the second-highest achievement on a four-step scale.

The draft report of the Independent Assessment of FAO’s Technical Capacity (January 2017) is available here pending review and finalization by the independent experts. The final version will be available in mid-February.