1. The Ninety-eighth Session of the Council was held in Rome from 19 to 30 November 1990 under the Chairmanship of Antoine Saintraint, Independent Chairman of the Council.
2. The Council examined the provisional agenda and was informed of the addition of two sub-items under Item 22, namely:
22.1 - Report by the Chairman of CCLM
22.2 - Options for a Form of Membership for Regional Economic Integration Organizations in FAO.
and two sub-items under Item 25, namely:
25.1 Changes in Status of Member Nations
25.2 Appointment of Representatives of FAO Conference to Staff Pension Committee
3. With the above amendments the Council adopted its agenda and timetable. The agenda is given in Appendix A to this Report.
4.The Council elected three Vice-Chairmen for its Session: Jalal Rasoolof (Islamic Republic of Iran), Yousef Ali Mahmoud Hamdi (Egypt) and Tadeusz Strojwas (Poland).
5. The Council elected Muhammad Saleem Khan (Pakistan) as Chairman of the Drafting Committee with the following membership: Argentina, Canada, Cameroon, Colombia, Finland, France, Indonesia,/Japan, Morocco, Netherlands, Nigeria, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia (Kingdom of).
6. The Council paid tribute to the memory of His Excellency,Bashir El Mabrouk Said, Permanent Representative of Libya to FAO and Chairman of the Group of 77, for the tragic and untimely death which befell him in his home country. The Council noted that Bashir El Mabrouk Said was a profoundly devout man of goodwill, an upright man who favoured balance and justice, and who worked for the well-being of his country and for that of the international community. The Council said that his loss was irreplaceable, and extended its sincerest sympathies to the Government and people of the Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.
7. His Excellency Muftah Khleif, Secretary ad intexim of the People's Committee of Libya in Italy, thanked the Council for the many expressions of condolence. He assured all delegations that the Libyan people would follow the example of Bashir El" Mabrouk Said and would continue to pursue his struggle to solve the problems of the Third World.
8. After welcoming Council members and highlighting the recent changes in the international political scene, the Director-General spoke of the acute financial position of the Organization which remained his greatest worry and which had forced him for the first time to use the authority conferred on him by the Conference to borrow. Despite all the efforts of recent years to pare down lower-priority activities, it was becoming increasingly difficult to follow the course traced by the Twenty-fifth Session of the Conference. Moreover, the Organization was suffering from the consequences of a declining dollar, which represented a loss of several millions.
9. In this connection, the Director-General drew the attention of the Council to the fact that any hasty changes in the arrangements for reimbursement of UNDP support costs would further aggravate the financial position of the Organization. He therefore expressed the hope that government delegations attending the UNDP Governing Council would bear in mind the budgetary repercussions their decisions would have on the programmes of cooperating agencies.
10. Referring to the world food and agriculture situation, the Director-General stressed that, despite an overall improvement, serious problems remained and had in some cases actually worsened. In particular, the situation of African countries gave rise to serious concern, especially that of Sudan, Ethiopia, Angola, Mozambique and Liberia, as did the unfavourable crop outlook in several Sahelian countries. Furthermore, the Director-General stressed that the current malaise in world agricultural trade was a striking portent of the likely implications should the Uruguay Round of Multilateral Trade Negotiations of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) fail to achieve a full and ambitious package of results in December 1990.
11. In conclusion, the Director-General drew the Council's attention to the specific items on its Agenda dealing with forestry, plant genetic resources, environment, the International Conference on Nutrition and implementation of the conclusions of the Review, and expressed the hope that in its deliberations, the Council would provide support and guidance on these issues as well as on all other subjects submitted for its attention.
12. The full text of the Director-General's Statement is given in Appendix D to this report.
1CL 98/1, CL 98/INF/1; CL 98/PV/1 ; CL 98/PV/19
2 CL 98/PV/1; CL 98/PV/3; CL 98/PV/19
3CL 98/PV/l; CL 98/PV/19
4CL 98/INF/5; CL 98/PV/l; CL 98/PV/19
