The views of the Council concerning preparations for the Special Session of the Conference were reported in full to the Conference. It is deemed unnecessary, therefore, to repeat here those matters which were of purely short-term significance. The recommendations of the Council to the Conference concerning finance are dealt with under “Financial Matters,” page 23.
In setting up a tentative agenda for the Special Session of the Conference, the Council at its Ninth Session had included provision for the submission by governments of any questions felt to require immediate Conference decision. All such requests for Conference deliberation were considered by the Tenth Session of the Council, which agreed to recommend that the following questions be handled thus:
The Report of the Committee on Commodity Problems 1 should be included under Agenda Item VII - “Other Questions Requiring Urgent Decision.”
Relations between the Near East Regional Office and the Government of Israel 2 should be considered by the Conference in connection with Agenda Item II - “Program of Work and Budget for 1951.”
Regarding a fundamental revision of the scale of contributions, 3 the relevant papers should be placed before the Conference in order that the Conference might make its own decision concerning inclusion of this question in the agenda.
The Council added two other subjects to the provisional agenda under Item VII:
relief and rehabilitation work in Korea; and
the draft of the plant protection convention;
and one subject under Item V “Constitutional and Procedural Questions”:
date of membership of original members of FAO which signed the Constitution ad referendum.
1 Request by the Governments of Denmark and the Netherlands.
2 Request by the Government of Israel.
3 Request by the Government of India.
The provisional agenda for the Special Session of the Conference, as approved by the Council, appears in Appendix B, page 36. This agenda was subsequently adopted by the Conference.
In recommending the provisional agenda to the Conference, the Tenth Session of the Council in a note (C 50/2) drew attention to the fact that the agenda was larger and more detailed than had been contemplated. This, coupled with the severe financial and physical limitations affecting the servicing and duration of the session, would oblige the Conference to work closely to plan in order to finish its work in the available time. To assist the Conference toward this end, the Council made specific suggestions as to the committees which might be set up and appropriate terms of reference for these committees, and outlined a tentative time table which the Conference might follow.
