UN food agency chief plans reform ahead of vote

By Robin Pomeroy 
September 29, 2005
Reuters 
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L27184875.htm


ROME, Sept 28 (Reuters) - Jacques Diouf, after 12 years at the helm of the U.N. agency in charge of beating starvation, will stand unopposed for a third term despite criticism from donors that his organisation is inefficient and poorly managed. 
Diouf has plans for radical changes during his third term as the director-general of the Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), which is in charge of boosting world food output. 
We got out of the box and reviewed the whole organisation as if we were creating it today, the 67-year-old Senegalese told Reuters in an interview. 
FAO diplomats welcome Diouf's plans to cut bureaucracy and improve relations with other agencies and private business but they question why it took him so long. 
The FAO was second from the last in a British government efficiency league table this year, comparing 23 international organisations, faring slightly better than the U.N. education, scientific and cultural agency, UNESCO. 
Last year, the U.S. ambassador to the FAO criticised its response to the African locust crisis, saying it suffered a lack of urgency and decent leadership in the field. 
Growing discontent led member states to insist on a thorough evaluation of its work -- starting next year and likely to produce a good deal of criticism and proposals for change. 
ONLY CANDIDATE 
Before then, Diouf will start his third six-year term after the unopposed leadership election in November. 
He says his reforms have nothing to do with the election or the review but stem from the realisation that it was timely when you go for another election to let member countries know what's your vision. 
The FAO was created in 1945 to help the world feed itself after the ravages of five years of war and Diouf noted: Most of the structures were a military type. We need to freshen that structure. 
The radical restructuring should help the agency -- most visible to the public when it gives advice on food and farming emergencies such as locusts, foot and mouth disease and bird flu -- do more with the resources it has, Diouf said. 
But the FAO's work is often hampered by a lack of political will, he says. Donor states largely ignored FAO warnings about Africa's locust crisis and a similar mistake may be occurring with bird flu, he said. 
We informed governments 11 months before and during those 11 months got only $2 million. When the crisis came and swarms of locusts of 72 kms (45 miles) in certain countries, within four weeks we received $54 million, but by that time most of the destruction had been done, he noted. 
The FAO says it has received pledges of only $20 million in response to its $100 million appeal to curb avian flu in birds in affected areas. 
Countries were stockpiling medicines in case of a mutation into a virus that would allow human to human transmission but they were not doing enough to stop it where it is now, at the level of animals, Diouf said. 
This is the kind of thing I believe we should correct and really plan ahead and address issues preventively rather than wait until we have a crisis before we react, he said.