51. The Council took note of the Sixth Report of the UN/FAO Intergovernmental Committee (IGC) of the World Food Programme to the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations and to the Council of FAO.1 The Report covered the period 21 April 1967 to 24 April 1968 during which the IGC held its Twelfth and Thirteenth Sessions. It consisted of a short introductory paper which highlighted the important matters dealt with at the two sessions and to which were attached the reports of these sessions. The Council generally approved the new format. It was suggested that the usefulness of the Report would be enhanced if it included a breakdown of the development projects approved by main categories.
52. The Council expressed its satisfaction at the appointment, by the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Director-General of FAO, of Mr. F. Aquino to the post of Executive Director of the WFP.
53. In introducing the Report, the Executive Director said that there had been little change in the resources situation since April 1968. As at 30 September 1968, the total available for the 1966–68 pledging period was $187 million and for the 1969–70 period $130 million. This was still far short of the targets for the two periods, and he earnestly hoped for a considerable improvement in the 1969–70 period. Many members of the Council stressed the value of WFP's work, the need to provide resources to enable it more adequately to fulfil the important role cast for it and consequently the urgent need for governments to contribute more substantially toward meeting the targets they had set.
54. The Council noted from the Report that the rate at which the resources available for emergency operations had been used up was such that the Committee at its Thirteenth Session had agreed that the Executive Director could submit for approval of the Committee by the correspondence procedure a request for an additional allocation over and above the $10 million made available for 1968, if such proved necessary. The Executive Director explained that the emergency situation had so developed that an application for an additional $5 million had been made and that it had become effective on 22 July 1968. The Executive Director said that only $2.5 million was still available for new emergencies, and it was thanks to the most vigorous application of the emergency operations criteria to the many requests received that even this amount remained. The Council took note of these developments, and welcomed the Executive Director's expressed intention to review the whole question of emergency operations in the light of recent and current events for discussion with the IGC at an early date.
55. Referring to the question of the 4.5 million tons of grain a year that had become available for food aid under the Food Aid Convention of the International Grains Arrangement and to the channelling of contributions through WFP, the Executive Director reported that the number of countries so contributing had increased to six for a total amount of 144 000 tons or about 3.2 percent of the annual total contributions. This, he thought was a disproportionately low share, especially in view of the prospects for using considerable quantities of the commodity in the establishment of national food reserves that had emerged from studies recently undertaken jointly by FAO and WFP and to which frequent reference was made in the course of the discussions.
1 See documents WFP/IGC: 13/20, WFP/IGC: 12/24, WFP/IGC: 13/21.
56. The Council devoted considerable attention to the question of the inclusion in the WFP resources of non-food items, which was particularly drawn to its attention in paragraph 13 of document WFP/IGC: 13/20. Many speakers considered that the benefits that would accrue from a combination of food aid and agricultural inputs provided on a multilateral basis would be such as to justify extending WFP's resources in that direction. The Council as a whole, however, agreed with the IGC that there was need for further study of the matter, and urged that the Committee should be put in a position to consider the question again as soon as possible on the basis of full documentation on the various aspects of the problem.
57. In connexion with the foregoing considerations and the general question of the extent and nature of WFP's resources and the scope of its activities, attention was drawn by several speakers to the important declaration on the world food problem contained in Resolution No. 9 adopted by UNCTAD at its Second Session (document TD/II/RES/9). This resolution stressed the great need for intensified development of agricultural production in the developing countries, and the role of the governments of developed and developing countries and of international agencies and programmes in this endeavour. At the same time, the resolution reaffirmed that the fundamental objective of food aid must be to mobilize the food production capacity of developing countries, and that the increased cash contributions to the programmes should be used, whenever feasible, to purchase foodstuffs from developing countries at economically sound rates. Several members urged that WFP should be enabled, by being provided with adequate and appropriate resources, to play the part of which it was capable in such accelerated expansion of the agricultural production of the developing countries.
58. In accordance with Resolution 4/65, “Continuation of the World Food Programme,” adopted by the Conference at its Thirteenth Session, the Council proceeded to the election of four FAO Member Nations to the Intergovernmental Committee of the World Food Programme, for vacancies that fell to be filled as a result of the expiry of the term of office of Argentina, Canada, India and the United States of America on 31 December 1968.
59. The Council elected Canada, Chile, India and the United States of America for a period of three years, from 1 January 1969 to 31 December 1971.
