This year marks the 50th anniversary of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific in Bangkok. The past five decades have seen big gains in agricultural and rural development in the region that have lifted living standards well above survival levels for significant segments of the people in Asia and the Pacific.
Yet, much more remains to be done. Every year, hundreds of thousands of people in the region die from causes that are closely linked to lack of access to the food needed for a healthy and active life. Most of these are children. Tragically, we see hunger amidst food abundance, reflecting failure of policies and lack of material and political commitment. With two - thirds of the world’s hungry people, the region is the focus of the 1996 World Food Summit pledge, reaffirmed by over 180 nations at the June 2002 World Food Summit: five years later, to halve world hunger by the year 2015.
As one of the largest UN specialized agencies with a mandate to fight hunger and rural poverty, FAO has provided its expertise in food production, distribution and rural development to member countries, gaining valuable experience and lessons in the process.
Asian and Pacific Island countries are home to three - fourths of the world’s agricultural households. The bulk of these are small and marginal farmers who depend on increasingly scarce and stressed natural resources for food and livelihood. It is these people who are the poorest and hungriest. Reaching out to the disadvantaged farmer is the core priority of FAO’s agricultural and rural development strategies.
More than before, governments have to take the responsibility of ensuring the most basic human right of food for their citizens. The international community too has to shoulder its responsibility. However, the past decade has seen sharp cuts in national and international support to agriculture. Since the late 1980s, official development assistance for agriculture and rural development has declined globally by 15 percent. Multilateral lending for agriculture and rural development too has slumped, with share of agriculture loans by the Asian Development Bank plunging from 31 percent of total bank lending in 1990 to just 9 percent in 1999.
This neglect of agriculture is widening rural - urban disparities, fuelling the influx of impoverished rural people into overcrowded towns and cities. It is contributing to widening the gulf between rich and poor, both between and within nations. This is unacceptable and can be reversed. That is the message FAO would like to give - not only to national leaders, but also to the public.
This publication describes priorities and programmes of the FAO regional office for Asia and the Pacific. The activities aim to bring about sustainable increases in the production of food and income from land, forests, lakes, rivers and oceans. It looks at the main areas of concern to rural people - from producing food and generating rural livelihood for food security to creating conditions that enable the needy to access food. Sections 1 and 2 present the developmental issues and samples of main activities carried out by the technical department groups. Section 3 analyses FAO’s support to countries - in policy assistance and operational services - and illustrates this effort through examples of support to field projects. The annexes present a summary of the main management issues together with listings of FAO staff at the regional office, the publications issued and meetings held since 2001.
FAO’s policy for a sharpened country focus and expanded alliance with development partners is exemplified in the two indexes which provide the reader a quick reference to the location and partnerships of the activities contained in this book.
The publication is mandated by the communications and publishing committee at the FAO regional office in Bangkok. Published by the FAO information office in Bangkok, it is the result of the joint efforts of all FAO professional staff in Bangkok. The first in this series of annual reports, the publication is issued rather late in the year and therefore covers activities undertaken by the regional office during 2001 up to the middle of 2002. Starting with its second edition, subsequent annual reports will be based on calendar years.
