A.R. MIHURA (Argentina): La República de Argentina, como país productor de alimentos, tiene clara conciencia de la importancia que revisten las pérdidas de alimentos durante y posteriormente a las cosechas. Por esa causa le asigna fundamental importancia a los esfuerzos que pueden realizarse en aras de la disminución de estas pérdidas.
Al someterse esta iniciativa en el 71° período de sesiones del Consejo, la delegación argentina apoyo entusiastamente la filosofía de la propuesta, así como el enfoque adoptado al identificar las causas principales que ocasionan pérdidas de cosechas y las posteriores a la recolección. En esta ocasión nuestra delegación formuló ciertas consideraciones sobre el enfoque y sugirió la conveniencia de llevar más allá la iniciativa y explorar la posibilidad de obtener el apoyo de instituciones internacionales de financiamiento para obras de infraestructura tendentes a evitar las pérdidas posteriores a la cosecha.
Asimismo, nuestra delegación sostuvo en esa oportunidad, al igual que otras delegaciones, ciertas reservas con respecto a la utilización de los fondos de la cuenta transitoria y la creación de un fondo ad hoc para esta iniciativa por la amenaza que conlleva en cuanto a la fragmentación de programas y recursos; sin embargo, las aclaraciones que en su momento expresó el Presidente del Comité de Finanzas, así como los debates que tuvieron lugar en el 71° período de sesiones del Consejo, han satisfecho varios reparos de los que mi delegación mantenía; asimismo el objetivo de programas, sus potencialidades para posibilitar un principio de solución a un problema que comprometía seriamente los progresos que los países en desarrollo efectúan para acrecentar su capacidad de producción de alimentos, nos lleva a superar las reservas que aún puedan persistir.
Por ello, y sin perjuicio de los debates de más profundidad que tendrán lugar seguramente durante la Conferencia, deseamos anticipar nuestro apoyo al proyecto de resolución contenido en el documento C 77/Inf.18.
E. SAENZ (Colombia): Agradecemos al Sr. Presidente la oportunidad de concedernos una vez más el uso de la palabra, y en esta oportunidad nos dirigimos al Consejo en forma por demás breve en nombre del GRULA, y en especial de aquellos países de nuestra América que no son miembros del Consejo, que se hacen presentes a esta iniciativa del Director General, para reafirmar tal y como fue apoyada por el grupo latinoamericano durante el debate sobre las pérdidas de las cosechas en el cuarto período de sesiones del Comité de Agricultura y en el 71° período de sesiones del Consejo; queremos reiterar y hacer expreso el apoyo del grupo latinoamericano a la creación del Grupo especial para la prevención de las pérdidas de alimentos y por ello el grupo latinoamericano, al cual tengo el honor de representar, apoya la propuesta del Director General tal y como aparece en el proyecto de resolución presentado en el documento C 77/Inf.18.
G.V.K. RAO (India): The subject of food losses, to quote from the document itself, has been on the agenda of many meetings of the FAO and other bodies, such as the World Food Conference in 1974, which gave due attention to it and to the possibility of increasing food availability by drastically reducing losses. The FAO Council at its 70th Session last year recalled the Resolutions passed by these bodies, in particular that of the 7th Special Session of the United Nations General Assembly, calling for a 50 percent reduction of postharvest losses by 1985 and -- it is important to note it --requested the Director-General to prepare an action programme to reduce post-harvest losses and to present a proposal for a $50 million fund for this purpose. The Director-General was specifically asked by the Council to do this job; in fact, he has no option but to do it. The action programme was discussed at great length by the 4th Session of the Committee on Agriculture which made many suggestions to improve it. The FAO Council at its 71st Session unanimously approved the action
programme as endorsed by the COAG, and a large majority of the Council also agreed with the proposal for an FAO special fund for reduction of food losses. A resolution to establish the fund presented by the Finance Committee was discussed with the Council which deferred a final decision to its 72nd Session. It is desirable to recall these things, because we appear to have departed from all of this and tried to open the subject de novo.
I submit that it would not be quite correct for the Council, let alone any individual members, to reopen all that has been decided. The Director-General had no alternative but to present a proposal for creating the fund. The Council has gone ahead with a number of steps and it is only the passing of the formal resolution that is now being considered. In fact, so far as the prevention of food loss is concerned, and as Canada has quite emphatically pointed out, there is no difference of opinion at all on the merits of the programme. There is no controversy at all about the details of the programme.
But somehow we have brought ourselves to a position where there is a feeling that there is a very severe and strong difference of opinion. I would submit that the time is too late to take such an attitude. If any stylistic amendments to the Resolution are necessary, this is the time to seek to have the amendments accepted. But stylistic amendments surely cannot go in a particular direction which takes away the substance. Style should only improve the substance; style does not take away the substance.
I would therefore submit if the Council in its wisdom decides to improve the style the stylistic amendments should be accepted. And the delegate for Pakistan has brought back the Resolution by way of suggesting further amendments, and if any amendments have to be made, the amendments made by the delegate for Pakistan should be accepted.
I would therefore submit that the Resolution as now proposed is a continuation of a number of steps which have been taken in the past, and it is not desirable to go slowly in these matters. People outside want to know how we function.
Losses, so far as food is concerned, are very great, and it is not desirable for us to postpone matters on the grounds of style of for any other consideration. Food loss covers a lot of things such as fish, fruits, vegetables, etc. These are subject to losses also. Fish is a perishable commodity, and the loss there is very great.
In my view, the Programme does not go far enough, It is only a token attempt to tackle the problem of food losses. We are also not quite happy that an amendment should have been suggested that the Fund will be financed from external sources, in particular voluntary contributions from member nations. We think this should be a subject which should find a place in the budget of FAO year after year.
It is also not quite correct to say that the monies in the Special Fund will be carried on until the Conference decides to close the Special Fund. We will have food losses for a long time to come, and it is necessary to pay attention to this. In making compromises many a time we give up the substance, and it is not desirable to do this. So far as the Special Fund is concerned, this also is a subject which merits deeper consideration by all of us. Somehow we have come to the conclusion that any savings should be given back in proportion to the member countries. This was done when we were not quite clear about the kind of role the FAO itself would have to play.
What we are contributing is something like what may be called a planetary income tax. We have to pay taxes on our income. It has to be distributed and equitably used by all the countries in the world. What applies to the people of a nation also applies equally to nations. When we pay expenditure tax to the governments under whom we serve and live, the governments have their budgets - sometimes a surplus budget and sometimes a deficit budget. There are many countries in the world with a surplus budget, but the surplus is never distributed to the tax payers, it continues to take care of the deficit which may come later or is invested to be used for a rainy day.
I would insist there should not be a refund at all. The whole concept is wrong. The contributions of all countries are in the nature of a planetary income tax which I hope will come sooner or later. It will lose all its grace if we ask for a refund.
I submit the Draft Resolution which has been produced by the Director-General should be accepted by us all unanimously.
E. CAKAJDA: (Tchécoslovaquie): La délégation tchécoslovaque déjà, à la session précédente du Conseil, a appuyé les efforts du Directeur général pour que la FAO, dans l'esprit de la septième session extraordinaire de l'Assemblée générale, contribue à la solution du grave problème des pertes alimentaires dans tout le processus de la production agricole. Notre propre expérience dans mon pays nous démontre qu'une possibilité technologique se manifeste pour diminuer essentiellement ces pertes et trouver une réserve importante pour améliorer le bilan mondial de la productivité dans le secteur agricole alimentaire. La nouvelle formule proposée par le Directeur général dans le projet de résolution, y compris le paragraphe 8, va renconter l'existence de différends dans le système d'administration financière des Etats Membres. Nous ne partageons pas l'avis qu'il s'agit là d'une nouvelle destination des contributions des pays membres mais objectivement du regroupement, du reclassement des moyens disponibles à l'intérieur du programme approuvé par le Conseil, et du progrmme qui est recommandé pour l'approbation de la Conférence de la semaine prochaine.
Lorsqu'il s'agit de certains objectifs dans le sens de financement de ces activités, nous sommes d'avis qu'il s'agit là d'un programme à longue durée, et que limiter d'avance les programmes futurs ne serait pas avantageux.
Nous sommes satisfaits de voir reconnu le principe de contributions volontaires dans la proposition.
En résumant nos arguments, nous tenons maintenant à nous déclarer d'accord avec le projet de la résolution, tout en étant persuadés qu'un consensus à ce sujet est possible et souhaitable.
G. de BAKKER (Netherlands): I would like to contribute to this discussion which we feel is a very important one as much for the substance as for the mode in which we work in the future. In our delegation without any doubt we do endorse the statement of the Director-General in the Draft Resolution recognizing the crucial importance, for the purpose of meeting the food needs of the world, of preventing food and particular post-harvest losses. We fully endorse that, we have always approved the idea of having a special programme for this important issue. We also note with satisfaction that the Director-General has taken action to implement the words of the World Food Conference suggesting ways of doing this.
When we come to the problems of today we must study and report on some of the principles we see are involved in this matter - issues of principles on which our government has certain views and which I want to state again. In the first place, during the last Council meeting we made it clear - our Director-General on Foreign Affairs spoke himself about this - that next to the central role of the UNDP we see a place for FAO also. Whenever a special problem arises they should have their own programme with its own special funding. We see a reason for that, especially for the problem areas which are common for many nations for which overall planning and overall preparation are more appropriate than waiting for the request from individual countries to come through the IPF to UNDP. FAO may be in a better position to initiate and develop programmes more naturally in close contact with the countries where the programmes must be executed, at their own request and according to their own priorities. We feel that this is the right approach although in general and in principls we still do subscribe to the consensus of a few years ago that UNDP plays a certain coordinating role.
We want to make that quite clear, first because it is a bit of a change of our attitude to the special funding by Specialized Agencies. Our position is that we feel for those kinds of programmes and also for the UNDP programmes the contribution of countries is most important, and we do not like to call that charity. The whole system of the post-war period of technical assistance has been based on the voluntary contributions. There is a very practical reason for this to continue, because for historic and philosophical reasons - sometimes for religious reasons, there are great difficulties for countries to make large contributions to some kind of programme in a certain area; they want to do it they way they like it and have done it in the past. To contribute through United Nations agencies with great amounts of money is only done by quite a small number of countries, and it would be harmful for the total amount of money to be collected if it is done through assessed contributions.
We feel voluntary contributions for programmes like this are also quite important for the future. To come more down to earth again I can announce to you that the Netherlands Government has authorized me to state here that they are willing to contribute to this Programme for Prevention of Food Losses quite substantially in principle. We cannot yet announce the amount of money, as first we want to hear about what other people think about it, and you will understand in principle why I want to come back to that. Secondly, when we give that contribution we want to consult with the FAO Secretariat about the projects and the aims of the projects for which the Dutch contribution money is spent. We would like to have some influence on the way the money is spent and indicate that if it is possible we would like to contribute our share to the personnel who are used for these programmes if we have good enough people available. In this context we can quote the role we play in the Food Security Assistance Scheme which is developing quite nicely with the Secretariat and in which the consultations take place without any problems.
Now for the issue of today - the big problem of the Suspense Account. We feel it is mostly a problem that must not stand in the way of coming to a conclusion today or tomorrow, it must be solved, it is not a matter on which you can change your opinions or you can divert your opinions so much that you cannot come to a conclusion. It must be possible. Therefore, we appreciate the attempts of the Director-General to meet some of the objections on some of the major contributions to FAO and also most probably to this programme. The objections are based on the generally accepted rules of financing the governments and the management of financing the governments. We have those rules. They are generally accepted and we feel that we cannot divert from them.
The Netherlands would like to make a contribution to this fund on the understanding that we are quite willingly giving part of our suspense account to this fund, but first in principle get it returned and then give it back the same day, the same second, if you wish. We would like to contribute a much higher amount than our share in this suspense account but we say that the total contribution must have the character of a voluntary contribution. I repeat, we must find a solution to meet the concern of the Director-General that he must have the money available readily and speedily, that he must know about the order of magnitude of the money so that he can know what kind of programmes he can start. We must make sure that the resolution is so clear that the Director-General can go ahead from the beginning of January next. On the other hand, there are objections by several countries. We cannot overlook them, so we must try to find a solution. I do not feel that this is altogether impossible. In matters like this we must not use the world impossible. It was used here this morning. I do not know whether it was really meant. It is not necessary to use the word impossible in policy matters like this, because we always find solutions to problems of this kind and I would regret it if this led to real controversy. The Finance Committee is a very small body, a few people sitting around a table for two or three weeks. I regret that they did not try to come up with a compromise formula that we could have discussed here because it is my strong conviction that we will never solve this problem in a Plenary Meeting. This is the kind of problem that can only be solved when the people most involved have the gift of formulating well and have a feeling for the positions of other people and will give in a little without giving up their own position altogether. This work ought to be done in a small group. Therefore, since this has not been tried in the Finance Committee I feel that I must support very strongly the suggestion made by the delegate of Gambia this morning. I admired this way of stating matters and of urging us to come to a solution. Perhaps I could make what he said a little more pointed by suggesting that the Chairman sets up for discussion this afternoon a small contact group in charge of finding a solution and not going to bed before it is found. I think the Director-General would like to have a representative there to help to come to a formulation that is also acceptable to him. I am sure there is a man available who I see at the podium who would be eminently suited to do this kind of job. I feel that when we return tomorrow morning and that small group has done its homework well we can carry on with the rest of the programme so speedily that perhaps we will finish the same day. When this big problem has been solved the rest will go much faster.
I would like to finish with a little comparison. We must find a solution, and this food losses programme is in the springtime. You know how it is, in spring sometimes there are beautiful days and then suddenly the clouds come and take away the spring feeling. I would feel very sad if the cloud of this suspense account took away the nice springtime feeling that we all have. A few small white clouds make the day even more beautiful, so I can accept a few small clouds because the blue sky becomes more beautiful with that contrast with the white. So I hope that tomorrow morning we will find a nice springtime day and blue skies, perhaps with a few little clouds which will later disappear.
LE DIRECTEUR GENERAL: Je voudrais, tout d'abord, répondre à une remarque qui a été faite ce matin par le représentant du Canada. Je suis content de voir qu'il est ici, parce que je voulais déjà lui répondre ce matin. Cette remarque, qui a été reprise par le représentant des Pays-Bas, se réfère à la notion de charité que j'ai mentionnée ce matin.
Le concept de charité est particulièrement noble et humain et je ne vois pas pourquoi ces deux délégations m'ont reproché d'avoir employé ce terme. Si je l'ai utilisé, c'est que je ne pense pas qu'il soit possible de fonder des programmes internationaux sur le bon vouloir d'un nombre limité de pays, quelques généreuses que soient leurs intentions. Une telle pratique ne serait pas conforme aux règles d'une bonne administration et ne respecterait pas non plus la dignité des pays en voie de développement .
Je voudrais également rendre hommage à l'appui que la Chine et la Tchécoslovaquie, pays qui contribuent tous deux d'une façon très importante au budget de la FAO, .nt apporté à mes propositions. La République populaire de Chine paie 7 pour cent de notre budget et n'accepte aucune aide de la FAO. La situation est analogue pour la Tchécoslovaquie, qui ne s'attend pas non plus, je pense, à recevoir une aide de ce programme.
Mais je dois dire que j'ai été particulièrement impressionné par l'intervention du délégué des Pays-Bas. Après avoir écouté ce délègue, je crois qu'il n'est pas impossible d'arriver à un accord, surtout après avoir entendu la phrase dans laquelle il a dit que, si une formule pouvait être trouvée, par laquelle les pays pourraient retirer leurs fonds et remettre les sommes qu'ils auraient retirées dans le fonds commun, son pays serait prêt, le jour même où il recevrait la part des 10 millions de dollars qui lui reviendrait, à la remettre dans le fonds commun; je ne sais si j'entendrai de telles paroles de la part de ceux qui se sont opposés à ma proposition. De plus, je voudrais indiquer qu'une formule encore plus attirante serait de ne pas permettre le retrait des fonds avant qu'il y ait une garantie en ce qui concerne la mobilisation des 10 millions. J'espère qu'une formule de ce type pourra être trouvée.
Il appartient au Président de décider maintenant s'il faut continuer à écouter les autres pays très importants qui ont certainement des positions à exprimer. Il vous appartiendra aussi, Monsieur le Président, de décider avec le Conseil du moment auquel un groupe de contact pourrait être établi. Je serais moi-même heureux d'y participer. Nous pourrions partir de la déclaration de Monsieur le délégué des Pays-Bas, qui nous a assurés que son pays est prêt à reverser immédiatement la somme qui lui revient.
De plus, le Délégué des Pays-Bas a également promis que son pays verserait une contribution plus importante que sa quote-part des 10 millions de dollars. Je sais que son pays est très généreux, comme en témoignent nos programmes sur la production laitère, la sécurité alimentaire et la production de la viande, qui ont tous été essentiellement financés par des pays tels que les Pays-Bas, les pays nordiques et l'Allemagne.
Mais je dois mettre en garde Monsieur le délégué des Pays-Bas a propos de ce qu'il a dit sur l'influence que son pays voudrait avoir sur les types de projets qui pourraient être financés dans le cadre de ce programme. Dans le cas de ce programme particulier, la procédure ne sera pas la même que dans d'autres cas. Il ne s'agit pas d'un programme "multi-bi". Une fois que les fonds seront disponsibles, le Directeur général aura besoin de toute la flexibilité possible pour répondre aux demandes qui seront formulées par les gouvernements. Ensuite, il ne sera plus tenu de demander à chaque pays s'il est d'accord sur l'utilisation qu'il est envisagé de faire de la partie du fonds provenant de sa contribution et s'il est d'accord sur le pays qui en bénéficiera. S'il en allait ainsi, il s'agirait d'une aide liée.
Je tenais à attirer l'attention du représentant des Pays-Bas sur ce point. Il doit bien être entendu toutefois que, si son pays envisageait d'apporter des fonds allant au-delà de sa contribution normale, les conditions d'utilisation de ces fonds supplémentaires constitueraient une autre question.
EL PRESIDENTE: Yo comparto la opinion del Director General sobre el espíritu constructivo de la propuesta que acaba de hacer nuestro distinguido colega y amigo de Países Bajos, la cual podría contribuir a que desaparezcan las nubes, como él ha dicho. Le propongo al Consejo que conservemos en nuestra mente con ánimo favorable esa propuesta; que si los demás oradores que están inscritos en la lista quieren intervenir, lo hagan así, naturalmente, de la manera más breve y concreta posible y que al final de la lista de aquellos miembros del Consejo que quieran intervenir, procedamos a la constitución del grupo de contacto. Naturalmente, aquellos oradores que están en la lista que no quieran intervenir ante esta situación, pues contribuirían positivamente al avance satisfactorio de nuestros trabajos.
Si el Consejo está de acuerdo con esta propuesta, vamos a llamar a los oradores inscritos en el orden que están, rogándoles que contribuyan a que avancemos satisfactoriamente.
B. de AZEVEDO BRITO (Brazil): I am happy to speak at this stage and by pure chance I speak after what are the new developments. I was already going to start my statement by making the remark that, if I understood correctly, our colleague from the United States made, who made it clear that he had an initial position. His position was not final and therefore he was also open to a dialogue, and the intervention of our colleague from the Netherlands - although I have a specific point which, by the way, the Director-General made, on which I really could not quite agree - the intervention of the delegate of the Netherlands surely helped us to come to a conclusion. At this stage I should like, very briefly, to make just three points.
First, the question of urgency. I think it is very important that we realise that we have a programme which has to be implemented now. We all know the vagaries and uncertainties of voluntary funds. A number of voluntary funds have been established in the past and never seen the light, and here we need action,
initiatives to be taken right now. We need a programme to be started and therefore it causes us considerable difficulty to accept an approach which will leave completely in the air, with no guarantees, the question of when the real programme will start. There is thus a matter of urgency here which is important.
The second basic point is the question of the principles. Many references have been made to principles. Well, Sir, we also have our principles. May I say in this connexion that, as far as essential elements of international cooperation for development are concerned, the payment for them should, as a matter of principle, be by the international community. If harvest losses are so fundamental in solving the problems of food in the world, then it will be only reasonable that harvest losses be paid for by assessed contributions. Therefore, what we have here before us right now is a compromise. You have a voluntary fund and only the seed money started with an amount of money which comes from windfall gains. But in principle we could very well argue that the whole programme should be paid for - being so important and essential - by the Regular Budget, and therefore we are moving in a matter of compromise to a formula by which the fund is voluntary; just the seed money to permit to start immediately is coming from what is not even really assessed contributions because it is windfall gains more than anything else. That is the second point, the question of principle.
The third point is the question of efficiency. In terms of efficiency we need to plan, and I think the Director-General has made this point quite clear. Anybody who plans needs to know with a certain degree of assurance what is the amount of money you have at what time, and for that purpose the proposal before us is quite wise. While keeping respect for the preference of some donors to keep the fund voluntary as a whole, it gives a minimum basis for planning.
Finally, I come to the point which was already taken by the Director-General, and I must say it was the only point really causing me a certain concern in the intervention of the delegate of the Netherlands. I can agree on many points he made, and I can agree on that: our reluctance to accept the voluntary approach, because we disagree with the privileged condition of the influence of donors when we refer to programmes of development. We are prepared to discuss equally programmes of international cooperation for development, but as equal partners, and not from a position in which some countries, because of their sheer economic power, have a privileged position in this case, influencing perhaps in a very significant manner decisions affecting other people and other countries. Therefore, this is a point of principle, since we are speaking so much about principles, and I hope our Dutch colleague will understand the constructive way in which I am making my comments to his observations.
I must say, however, that we very much hope - as has just been expressed by the Director-General and by the delegate of the Netherlands - that a solution can be found. I think in fact a compromise is already the position presented before the Council since last June and, in fact, as many have said before me, it is a rather surprising tenure whereby we are supposed to act on a decision which has just been deferred; but we are very happy to continue the dialogue in the manner the Council might feel was the best one.
SRA. G. RIVERA MARIN DE ITURBE (México): Trataré de abreviar mi intervención; pero es el sentir de mi delegación exponer que el Gobierno de mi país ha sentado ya una postura muy clara en lo que respecta a la creación del Fondo Especial para la prevención de las perdidas de las cosechas. En este sentido tengo instrucciones de apoyar en la forma más amplia la resolución propuesta por el Director General que está a la consideración de este Consejo en el documento C 77/INF/18.
Señor Presidente, no escapa a mi Gobierno la necesidad de que la FAO institucionalice cada vez más sus actividades alejándola de la posibilidad de verse afectada por variaciones en los juicios sobre el beneficio o no de sus Programas. Mi Gobierno considera que la creación de este Fondo permitirá al propio Director General llevar a cabo Programas dentro de los objetivos precisos que le vayan señalando las necesidades de los países más necesitados de la participación de la FAO en materia concreta de las perdidas postcosechas, pues sabemos que los países más necesitados con estas pérdidas merman en forma considerable sus ya raquíticas y en alguna ocasión miserables cosechas agrícolas.
Mi delegación ve como un punto de partida sumamente positivo la transferencia de los 10 millones de dólares de las cuentas de excedentes motivados por los cambios monetarios para crear este Fondo, suma que esperamos sea debidamente incrementada en el futuro a fin de iniciar una nueva forma de acción mucho más moderna y dinámica por parte de la FAO. Esta acción moderna y dinámica que el Director General está empeñado en desarrollar, sólo podrá llevarse a cabo con el apoyo de todos los países miembros de la Organización aportando, como lo dijera ya el delegado de la India, su impuesto planetario, frase que me ha parecido acertada y feliz. Pues bien, este impuesto planetario, aportado a los Programas de la FAO tendrá una incidencia directa en el desarrollo rural de los países que, como México, son relativamente menos desarrollados que otros y todos sabemos, además, que luchando al lado de los otros países del mundo se obtendrá de ellos el apoyo en la cooperación técnica, tanto a nivel internacional como a nivel horizontal que México está en posibilidad de ofrecer. Con ello se mejorará la situación alimenticia de los
campesinos, a lo que indudablemente también va a ayudar el Fondo; Fondo que deseamos desarrolle una acción de considerable importancia y con mucho mayor efecto de lo que ha sido hasta ahora la cooperación técnica en los países con menores recursos y que están clasificados como los más necesitados de ayuda alimentaria urgente.
La posición de la delegación de México, y pido disculpas, señor Presidente, por haber hecho uso de la palabra después de su atenta invitación, no puede pasar desapercibida en este debate donde se están poniendo en juego posiciones de principio y posiciones de ideologías que nosotros sabemos debemos apoyar, como lo hemos hecho.
SRA. C.I. DOMINGUEZ (Panamá): La delegación de Panamá apoyó en el 71 período de sesiones del Consejo pasado la propuesta para la creación de este Fondo Especial para la reducción de las pérdidas posteriores a las cosechas. En esta ocasión nuestra delegación, siguiendo instrucciones de su Gobierno, desea confirmar una vez más el apoyo para la creación de este Fondo Especial y dar el apoyo a la resolución que aparece en el documento C 77/INF/18.
A. BAOUA (Níger): Tout comme l'ont souligné certained délégations qui ont précédé mon pays au micro, ma délégation soutient pleinement le projet de résolution concernant la création d'un fonds spécial en vue de prévenir les pertes alimentaires, notamment les pertes après récoltes, qui grèvent nos faibles productions déjà insuffisantes pour subvenir aux besoins alimentaires de nos populations. Il faut ajouter qu'il est complètement irrationnel de redistribuer ces sommes aux donaterus, vu l'effet négligeable qu'elles auront dans leur budget et, par ailleurs, nous pensons que ces économies reviennent de droit à la FAO parce qu'elles ont été réalisées sur des fonds mis à sa disposition.
En conséquence, le Niger se rallie à la déclaration du Groupe des 77 et des autres délégations qui sont intervenues dans ce sens. Nous proposons aussi que si une solution heureuse n'est pas trouvée au niveau du Conseil, le résolution soit transmise en tant que telle à la Conférence pour décisions finale.
L.C.J. MARTIN (United Kingdom): Until the intervention by the delegate of the Netherlands and the Director-General's reaction to that intervention, together with the remarks made quite recently by the delegate of Brazil, I had begun to think that we were in the middle of one of the more peculiar discussions that occur in United Nations fora. I say peculiar because in the course of the long discussion I have not heard anybody say that the establishment of a special fund or programme for the prevention of food losses is a bad thing. On the contrary, we have nearly all said how urgent and important it is. Nor have I heard anyone argue against the draft resolution on the grounds that his government wants to get back its share of the $10 million, and I am not going to argue on behalf of the United Kingdom that I will oppose the resolution because we want our money back. It had therefore seemed to me that it ought to be possible to arrive at a consensus and that there were two essentials. One, the urgency of the need that we have to start meeting, and the Director-General said this morning that he wanted to be sure immediately of the $10 million; and a purely voluntary process could not give him a guarantee of getting the money. I began to wonder what the meaning of the word 'immediately' in this context is, and I imagine that it means a start within the next few months, or certainly within the course of the next twelve months, but not a start by the day after the end of the Conference; and so, in terms of time there is little to be obtained.
The other important thing, and let me just add that I fully agree with the Director-General that he should be assured immediately, in the sense that I have just given to the word, of his $10 million for a start but the other important ingredient is to retain some concept of a voluntary decision to enable money to go into the fund. I fully understand and sympathize with the views expressed this morning by the representatives of the United States and by Canada. I Understand them because in my country we have something of the same problem and additionally I have technical problems that I will not bore the Council with but perhaps to enshrine the voluntary principle in quite the way that was suggested first by the representative of the United States does not go far enough to meet the clear, and I would add, the right wish of the Group of 77 to see that we have the money and get on with the important task. It may be possible, and I think this is also what the representative of the Netherlands had in mind, to do this in a reverse fashion and have a phrase in the resolution which in effect says to individual member states your money, your share of the $10 million, will go into the fund unless by a certain date you have done something to say that you do not want that to happen and that dateline
could be just long enough to allow any state to say no, although in the circumstances it would probably require a very brave member state to say no, and at the same time sufficiently immediate not get in the way of what the Director-General wishes to do and so I am very grateful to the suggestion of the representative of the Netherlands, the Director-General's very sympathetic response to it and similarly to the spokesman of the Group of 77. I would hope now that the Contact Group that has been suggested can get us all out of this last difficulty.
L. LAPEBY (Gabon): je crois qu'il est inutile que je formule la déclaration que je me proposais de faire, car le délégué des Pays-Bas a quelque peu sorti la situation de l'impasse, je dis bien de l'impasse. Par conséquent, nous pouvons considérer que les problèmes sont bien compris des uns et des autres, les deux volets sont très nets et le Directeur général aura l'assurance, après le groupe de contact, de disposer de ces 10 millions. Si ce groupe de contact n'arrive pas à ce résultat - je ne le souhaite pas, je dis "si" - à ce moment-là, je me réserve de faire une déclaration beaucoup plus forte, reprenant en cela certains avis qui ont été exprimés, certaines contradictions qui n'existent pas. Au sujet des "contributions volontaires", je crois que le représentant des Pays-Bas a été assez clair: il reprend et il donne tout de suite, mais c'est volontaire. Je ne vois pas la contradiction qui existe dans le paragraphe 8 de la résolution qui nous a été présentée, et je veux espérer que le groupe de contact nous proposera une résolution qui ira dans le sens que nous avons compris depuis l'intervention du délégué des Pays-Bas.
L. VELAY (France): Je pourrai être très bref car, lorsque j'avais demandé d'intervenir dans ce débat. j'avais l'intention de suggérer moi aussi la création du groupe de contact. L'intervention de l'honorable délégué des Pays-Bas me facilite donc beaucoup la tâche, et je ne crois pas utile de revenir une fois de plus sur le fond du débat.
Certes, la négociation au sein du groupe de travail sera difficile, mais nous considérons que, même s'il n'y avait qu'une chance sur dix d'aboutir à un consensus, il faut tenter cette chance.
Nous pensons très fortement que, si ce Conseil ne parvient pas sur chaque problème important à des consensus, alors, je le dis avec quelque solennité, ce sera très grave et pour la FAO et pour l'avenir de la coopération entre pays développés et pays en voie de développement dans le domaine de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation.
C'est pourquoi j'appuie très fortement la suggestion de désigner un Groupe de contact, Je souhaite qu'il se mette au travail le plus tôt possible et que, demain, nous puissions nous prononcer sur un texte qui pourrait faire l'accord de tous et permettre aux uns et aux autres de résoudre leurs difficultés présentes.
W.A.F. GRABISCH (Germany, Federal Republic of): I believe there is nobody amongst us who does not give high priority to the proposed programme to reduce food losses. I would therefore refrain from going into detail. Let me only mention two aspects again, first this task is, in the view of my Government, of such importance that it must be given priority within overall development efforts of the national effort of developing countries.
Secondly, for my Government I can state that we have already given high priority to measures and programmes to reduce food losses within the framework of our bilateral projects. In addition to the measures taken so far under our Technical Cooperation Programme we have now drawn up a regional programme to protect small farmers in Africa against post-harvest losses.
With regard to how the proposed programme for reducing food losses could best be financed, it is quite natural that there are different views around the table. It is not a question of a good heart or of charity. I have touched already very briefly upon our positive attitude towards this crucial area. It is in the case of my Government rather a question of maintaining financial principles. The Suspense Account in question has been established by the Conference Resolution 35/75 with specific terms of reference. If such agreements are changed later on one can expect that goverments will in future act rather reluctantly on similar proposals.
With regard to financing the action programme my Government still holds the view that the basic preparatory work for the programme should be financed through the regular FAO budget, if necessary by postponing other activities. For the project as such, in view of the priority importance of the
programme and its future magnitude, financial support should be separate from international financial institutions and their bilateral donors. These will act, without doubt, positively upon specific project requests. Under these circumstances the preparation and implementation of the programme could start very soon or immediately.
Having said this you will realize my Government's position differs in principle from the proposed resolution, in particular because the voluntary action upon the Suspense Account's individual's share is not taken into account sufficiently but if it were done so in the way of the United States and Canada's proposals my delegation would propose to its Government to reconsider its position.
R. TANABE (Japan): Since the time is late and my position is quite similar to that of some other delegations, I hope everybody knows the position of my delegation, I will refrain from speaking more at this moment if the dialogue will continue to take place.
L. PURMESSUR (Mauritius): We have listened with great attention to the various interventions made on the draft resolution submitted by the Director-General on the establishment of a special fund for the financing of the Action Programme for the Prevention of Food Losses. There is no argument as to the necessity for such a programme. It has the support of all the delegations. The argument is on the method of financing the action programme. We do appreciate the difficulties certain delegates have in accepting the Director-General's proposal in starting the implementation of the programme by transferring an amount of up to $10 million from the Suspense Account in the 1976/77 biennium, but what is the alternative we have: only voluntary contributions and we rather suspect from our experience voluntary contributions only come after some time, months or years may elapse. On the other hand, time is essential for starting a programme which is designed for food and harvest losses and thus reducing the food gap for many countries in the third world. It is difficult to see how the Director-General can implement a programme which we all consider to be very important and urgent if we do not provide him by this implementation with the resources necessary. My delegation hopes that following the proposal made by the delegate of the Netherlands it will be possible to reach a consensus on the establishment of the special fund.
J. LEIDO, Jr. (Philippines): We have listened very carefully to the interventions of various delegations on the very important question under the consideration of this Council. We have noted the unanimity of opinion regarding the importance of the programme for reducing post-harvest losses. Nobody has questioned the merits of the programme. Not a single delegation has questioned the validity of the programme proposed by the Director-General and for the urgency of its implementation and for this we have to commend the Director-General. All delegations have agreed its importance and it should start soonest. There seems to be consensus therefore on two things, the importance of the programme and the need to get the programme off the ground at the soonest. We appreciate, however, the very real apprehensions of the Director-General. The, nature of the problem is such that the Director-General must have the available force of funds so that he can start the programme and respect his commitments. No administrator would like to be in the position of having a mandate to accomplish a programme and not know whether the funds would be available, but we have also noted the reservation of certain countries of the methods of meeting the resources due possibly to certain legal and policy matters. There is now a polarization of opinion on how to finance the project but probably a stalemate is not necessary since we are all agreed that the programme is needed and that it should start soonest. Any suggestion to work out a way to iron out the differences and the way to get the programme off the ground soonest should be considered. Our delegation would therefore urge the Council to consider the suggestion so well initiated by the delegate of Gambia, that we pursue the task of resolving this issue in hand in the spirit of consensus and further articulated by the delegate of the Netherlands with the concrete proposal that a Contact Group be formed for the purpose, to be composed of members of the Council with the number that this august body may deem appropriate.
J. O. ALABI (Observer for Nigeria): Coming at this stage of the debate, many of the views we wished to express have been mentioned by other delegates. The Netherlands has put the idea very clearly. We were worried that we were heading for a deadlock. We are happy to note that things have changed for the better since the Netherlands spoke.
My delegation is happy to note the general support given to the Special Fund for Preventing Food Losses. From the statistics we have been given, effective control of food losses will mark the beginning of the elimination of hunger and malnutrition from the face of the earth, and that is the aim of this Organization. The fund will be financed mainly by voluntary contributions from Member Nations. The Director-General has suggested that $10 million from the Suspense Fund which is available now should be used in starting the Fund. Because of financial regulations by the treasuries of Member Governments, this idea does not appeal to delegates whose governments have in the past been very generous in contributing to all such funds. It is not that such delegates do not want to give up their share of the money due to them from the Suspense Account, but they want this money to be returned to their own treasuries first and then some other funds, which might even be lighter than the shares they have received, will be made available.
We share the Director-General's anxiety that once we dispose of this bulk sum which we have on hand it may be difficult and may even take a long time tobuild up the funds again. Let us all remember that it takes a long time to get funds at all. It has taken us over two years to put IFAD into operation. It is a golden opportunity we have to start this programme now with the $10 million from the Suspense Account. There are several millions of people who are starving and who need assistance. Let us not let them down.
Because we are all interested in establishing this fund to prevent food losses, my delegation has a humble suggestion to make for the consideration of the honourable delegates. We will not want them to stop giving us money when we ask. In view of the urgency of the programme, we recommend and urge Member Governments to take the money due to them from the Suspense Fund before we come for the next Conference. At the same time, the Conference should authorize the Director-General to go ahead with the programme for the prevention of food losses with the $10 million which is now available. That will enable them to pass a resolution urging Member Goverments to contribute generously to the Fund. When the contributions start coming in, funds will be available to give back to the Governments the shares due to them from the Suspense Fund which they can return to the Fund if they like. This way we will be able to start the Fund immediately and we will also have something to show our treasurers that their share of The Suspense Fund is forthcoming.
This suggestion may not be perfect, but we can perfect it according to the various points of view. Let us remember the hungry millions all over the world who are in need of asssistance. We suggest a Contact Group be set up to dissolve the disagreement. We hate to see this issue being put to votes. The support of all Member Governments is needed. Our humble suggestion is put to the honourable delegates for favourable consideration.
O. LUCA (Observador de Chile): Mi delegación considera de la mayor importancia la iniciativa del Sr. Director General encaminada a realizar un programa especial con la finalidad de contribuir a reducir en lo posible las pérdidas que ocurran durante y después de las cosechas, y estima que el mecanismo propuesto por el Sr. Director General para iniciar esta acción es el más adecuado.
Al recurrir para iniciar este programa a una parte de los fondos acumulados por conceptos de fluctuación de los tipos de cambio, se dará a estos recursos un destino muy útil que redundará en un mayor beneficio para todos.
Hay que tener presente que la negativa al establecimiento del fondo en los términos propuestos por el Director General debilitarían considerablemente la acción que se desea realizar dentro de este programa y, además, podría conducir a un menoscabo de las facultades y de la independencia del Sr. Director General para administrar estos recursos en una forma concordante con las necesidades reales de los países eventualmente beneficiarios.
Por estas breves consideraciones mi delegación espera que el Consejo preste su aprobación a la creación del fondo propuesto por el Sr. Director General con esta finalidad y está dispuesta a apoyar en la Conferencia la resolución que se presente autorizando el establecimiento del fondo en los términos que figuran en el proyecto presentado al examen del Consejo.
B. E. PHIRI (Observer for Zambia): So many suggestions are now floating in the air, and one does not really know which one we must finally take. They are good suggestions in a number of cases. I was particularly interested in the suggestion made by the United Kingdom as well as that suggested by the Netherlands. The way I looked at it was that we could ask Member Governments to contribute on a voluntary basis to this Fund, which in fact is what is advocated by the people who would like to take the money back. My suggestion was why can we not ask the Conference to discuss this along the lines that the $10 million which is carried with the Organization should be the first contribution of the member states? In other words, if we could find a way of resolving that, we would ask the Member
Nations to contribute voluntarily their shares' which are in the Suspense Account, the $10 million, and that they are asked to put further contributions so that we attain the minimum of $20 million. In other words, both this amount of $10 million which the Organization has will be a voluntary contribution, and then we should ask the Member Nations to make a further voluntary contribution so that we attain the $20 million. In that way, the Suspense Account will not have been used in a manner contrary to the financial management of governments.
The second option possibly is along the lines that was suggested by the Netherlands, that is, if governments could undertake that they are going to take their share back from the $10 million Fund, and at the same time they will have already gone through their legislative bodies and put in back at the same time, but that is more complicated, because, as we know, legislative bodies take very long to make decisions of this nature.
With all good intentions, you may find that one country is able to put back this money in January another will not be able to do so in December, and therefore the Fund, although we have agreed to have it set up, will not became operational in the near future. Therefore, I suggest another possibility and that is if this money at all costs must be taken back by member states, then we might as well as that let the whole $20 million be contributed on a voluntary basis but pledges must be made now that we are going to put in some money, and if we find the Fund can be set up, we decide on a date that these pledges must be paid to the Organization by such a date so that we know that by that we have the $20 million, and the $10 million can be withdrawn whenever the states are ready to take it back. But we need to be assured that a Fund is going to be set up and if it is to be pledged, then we must set a date, we know we shall have a Fund, or else we can say let the $10 million which is there be regarded as our first contribution to this particular fund and that in the meantime we should go out and fight it out with the legislative bodies for further funds to swell up this $20 million.
N. EL-SALEH (Observer for Saudi Arabia) (interpretation from Arabic): On several occasions we have tried to avoid taking part in the discussion because we are Observers, and I promise that I shall avoid taking the floor as often as I can. However, this time I must. This is a very important question. What we find important is the experience that we have acquired in the past. We thought of the programme, it is obvious that the initial amounts in the beginning were small, then they had to be expanded. We all know that. What we find important in Saudi Arabia is that we are going to be amongst the countries that have been requested to take part in the programme, as we have taken part in other programmes that involve considerable, not to say exorbitant, sums of money. Therefore, we feel obliged to speak on the matter.
We would agree to try to reduce post-harvest losses and to set up a special account or fund for that, but the sums of money involved concern countries, and for countries to want to withdraw sums of money is a perfect right. We must find out whether the countries really want to withdraw the money or not. Each country will have to decide whether it is going to do that or not. One day perhaps we shall be able to set up a far greater fund to cover post-harvest losses. The proposal of the Netherlands, that of the Contact Group, is a very useful one I am very happy that most of the delegations feel the same.
The point that we would like to raise about the Suspense Account for financing the Special Fund is as follows: the Director-General must be allowed flexibility of action. However, the paying-over of sums of money must be done in a proper fashion. The procedure must be well defined, and the Contact Group must take all this into account.
T. GLASER (Observer for Switzerland): I have asked for the floor to inform the Council that my government does not approve the manipulation of the Suspense Account as proposed in document C 77/INF/18.
But since the programme to better the reduction of food losses started to take shape, my Government planned in its budget a certain amount of money in order to be able to contribute fast to this action against food losses, which we welcome very much. This amount is a multiple of our share of the Suspense Account, but we would like it to be a voluntary contribution.
For the rest, I can stop here by saying Swiss views are very close to those so well expressed by the delegate for the Netherlands and also by Germany. If that sounds somewhat rude, it is just because I am trying to be brief.
M. BEL HADJ AMOR (Président a.i. du Comité financier): Je me suis permis de vous demander la parole pour répondre au délégué des Pays-Bas qui a fait mention du fait que le Comité financier ne s'est pas penché de nouveau sur cette question pour proposer d'autres mesures ou bien d'autres systèmes de financement.
Je voudrais remonter au mois de juin, et rappeler au délégué des Pays-Bas que le Comité financier a demandé expressément au Conseil à sa 71ème session s'il y avait des propositions concrètes. Aucune proposition n'a été avancée.
De même, je voudrais préciser que le Comité s'est réuni à huit clos, sans secrétariat ni interprètes, non seulement pour discuter de la question, mais pour revoir les déclarations qui ont été faites par les délégués. Nous avions constaté qu'il y avait des réserves, mais pas de positions définitives. Nous n'avions aucun élément nouveau qui mettait le Comité à même de faire de nouvelles propositions.
C'est pourquoi, après cette discussion, nous avions décidé de maintenir la recommandation que nous avions présentée à notre 39ème session et qui figure aux paragraphes 3.132 et 3.133.
Nous avions également estimé qu'il faudrait peut-être préciser dans la résolution le principe du volontariat pour ce qui est des contributions à ce fonds, et je crois que cela figure dans le projet de résolution révisé qui vous a été présenté.
Enfin, et je vous le dis très sincèrement Monsieur le délégué des Pays-Bas, le Comité a nourri l'espoir que nos délégués, qui connaissent bien la maison et qui ont tous souligné l'importance de ses activités, arriveraient probablement à convaincre les services financiers.
Voilà exactement quelle était notre position. N'ayant aucun élément nouveau, nous n'avions présenté aucune nouvelle proposition.
EL PRESIDENTE: Entiendo que el Consejo está de acuerdo en acoger la propuesta de Países Bajos en el sentido de integrar un grupo de contacto. Me permito proponer los siguientes países: Brasil, Jordania, Gambia, Pakistán, Estados Unidos, Reino Unido, Países Bajos, Finlandia y parece ser logico y conveniente que en este grupo de contacto participe igualmente nuestro Relator y Presidente del Comité de Redacción, señor Haque de Bangladesh. Espero que todos hayan captado bien la propuesta que les hago y si no hay ningún comentario por parte de los miembros del Consejo, entiendo que todos ustedes están de acuerdo en que se establezca ese grupo de contacto.
EL PRESIDENTE: Para el Programa Mundial de Alimentos hay dos subtemas que están especificados en el Orden del Día. Se trata de un Proyecto de Resolución sobre el Objetivo de las promesas de contribución al PMA para el período de 1979-80, y la Aprobación de las Normas Generales Revisadas del PMA.
Creo que conviene tomar conjuntamente los dos subtemas del tema 7. Concedo ahora la palabra al señor Ustün, Director Ejecutivo Asistente del PMA.
F.M. USTÜN (World Food Programme): The Executive Director, Mr. Vogel, is at present in New York for a discussion of the WFP in the United Nations General Assembly. He regrets his inability to be with you this afternoon and has asked me, on his behalf, to read to you the text of the statement which he had prepared for this meeting. I quote:
"Mr. Chairman, on the occasion of my first statement to the Council, I wish to express my pleasure and commitment in looking forward to close collaboration with you in the years to come. As the work of WFP and FAO continues to run a close parallel, we will I am sure continue to profit from many opportunities for reciprocal reinforcement and cooperative execution of our assistance to developing countries in tasks of rural development, agricultural expansion and nutritional improvement. Although the WFP has grown to be a very substantial source of such assistance, and the FAO is well established as a pillar of strength in the world of food and agriculture, we know that the problems before us of development and the combatting of hunger, are so great and growing that we must continue to act in combination: indeed, the whole United Nations system must integrate its effort to the maximum as it is now doing, for example, in the field of rural development to be able to respond adequately to the needs we exist to meet."
The size of the challenge before us leads me immediately to the question of the pledging target for contributions to the resources of WFP during the biennium 1979/80. I believe that the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes, after a careful review of the WFP, has been very wise in recommending to you and to the other international bodies concerned the target of $950 million. Let me indicate to you briefly some of the considerations which have given strength to the Committee's conviction on this point.
Significant supplementary pledges were announced during the meeting of our Committee and, as a result of this, pledges made for the 1977/78 pledging period have already amounted to 82 percent of the target. In the remaining 13 months of the period it is hoped that the target of 750 million dollars will be reached.
The Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes was informed that even if the proposed target of $950 million for 1979/80 is endorsed and actually attained, it will only enable the Programme to make yearly commitments during each of the three years 1978/80 at a level of $300 million, which has been the average of annual commitments during the last seven years. This level is very modest in relation to the total requests for food aid received by the Programme from the recipient countries and corresponds to almost one-half of the commitments which were made during the 1975/76 biennium.
The Committee recognized that the WFP in its short existence had proved to be one of the most effective development programmes within the United Nations system. It agreed that any decision on the target figure must be viewed in the light of the needs of the developing countries for project-oriented food aid and the managerial ability of the Programme to administer efficiently increased food aid. In this respect, there was agreement on the pressing and urgent needs of recipient countries for food aid and on the Programme's ability to handle a much greater volume of resources. Serious doubts have been expressed by a number of delegates to the effect that the proposed target could not be attained unless not only the existing donors increase their pledges but also new potential donors participate in supporting the Programme financially. Several delegates stressed on the other hand that the adoption of the proposed target was imperative in the light of proved requirements of recipient countries and their actual absorptive capacity as well as in view of the expected level of commitments throughout the remainder of the decade. Such a decision was also fully warranted in the light of the delivery capacity that the WFP has already acquired and of the small proportion of the global food aid channelled through the Programme. The consensus of the Committee was that the recent average annual commitment level of $300 million should not be allowed to diminish in the coming years; otherwise the momentum gained by the Programme would suffer, with the attendant consequences for developing countries. With this overriding consideration in mind and taking into account the overwhelming support of the members for the Executive Director's recommendations, the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes agreed to adopt the figure of $950 million as the pledging target for the 1979/80 biennium and to recommend it to the parent bodies of the Programme for final acceptance and subsequent endorsement by the United Nations General Assembly.
Kr. Chairman, the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations has already endorsed the recommended target and I would now ask the Council not only to endorse the pledging target of 1979/80 but also to add to the terms of the draft resolution which you approved at your last session as an instrument for your endorsement, an appeal to all potential donors to assist in reaching the target as soon as possible. If most pledges can be made at the pledging conference early next year or soon thereafter, the Programme will be in a stronger and surer position to maintain the level of its commitments to needy countries for development projects.
In addition to regular pledges and the contributions received under the Food Aid Convention, another important resource of the WFP is the International Emergency Food Reserve established pursuant to a recommendation of the General Assembly at its Seventh Special Session. You will recall that the Assembly proposed that this reserve should be placed at the disposal of the WFP so as to strengthen the Programme's capacity to deal with crisis situations in developing countries and that the Reserve should nave a minimum level of 500, 000 tons. Although the establishment of such a Reserve was unanimously accepted in 1975, the proposed level has not yet been reached.
At present, 258, 000 tons remain available to the Programme, taking into account also the contributions recently announced, a part of which will become available early in 1978. I . should like to express the appreciation of the WFP to all countries which are already participating in the Reserve, namely: Norway, Sweden, the Federal Republic of Germany, the United States, Canada, the Netherlands, Australia, and the European Economic Community and to express the hope that they will soon be joined by others. In this appeal for wider participation, I would include countries able to make cash contributions as this would greatly increase the effectiveness of the Reserve.
Mr. Chairman, I wish in this connection also to inform the Council that the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes has decided to increase the annual allocation for emergency assistance from $40 million to $45 million in both 1977 and 1978. Allocations for subsequent years will be decided in the light of a review in the 1978 Autumn session of the Committee, based on a study to be conducted by WFP jointly with FAO and the United Nations.
The other major subject before you concerning the World Food Programme is the revision of its General Regulations. This question is presented in document CL 72/16. The CFA at its first sesssion called for such modifications in the General Regulations as would be appropriate in view of the reconstitution of the former Intergovernmental Committee into the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes. All of the revisions except paragraph 14 decided upon by the CFA at its fourth session, the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes adopted the following wording for that paragraph:
"All States Members of the United Nations or Members or Associate Members of any specialized agency or of the IAEA shall be eligible to submit requests for consideration by the Programme."
In forwarding the text of the revised General Regulations of WFP to the UN Economic and Social Council and the FAO Council for approval, and after taking note of the relevant resolutions of the General Assembly of the United Nations and the Economic and Social Council, the Committee requested the two Councils to endorse also, at the same time, the following interpretative statement on paragraph 14 of said Regulations:
"The Programme may also consider other requests, including those from liberation movements recognized by the United Nations and the OAU, implemented with the agreement of the host countries, that are in conformity with specific resolutions of the United Nations and FAO, that meet the aims of WFP, the implementation being carried out in accordance with the criteria and procedures of the Programme, as appropriate".
This recommendation in shown in document CL 72/16 Supplement-1 which was circulated yesterday:
It is therefore for the Council, as it wishes, to approve the proposed revisions in our General Regulations.
Before closing may I be permitted to correct an omission in connexion with all language versions of document CL 62/16, Part B, paragraph 5(b) which appears on page A3. Since the word "cooperation" has inadvertently been omitted from the first line of the paragraph, the Council is kindly requested to insert this word so that the phrase will read: "… within the framework of emergency assistance cooperation in the United Nations system …"
D. BASSIOUNI (Sudan): Before my delegation makes clear its stand on the position of the World Food Programme we would like to register in this Council our appreciation of the operations of the World Food Programme in our country. In several programmes, like the relief organizations, we must say that the World Food Programme has conducted a very impressive role. We think there is still a lot for the World Food Programme to carry out in the developing countries. In some of these programmes, as relief organizations or relief programmes, there are no difficulties, but we think there are areas where World Food Programme activities still need some improvment. In certain projects, projects which are oriented towards development, for example, afforestation, there are problems of technical assistance because the World Food Programme cannot conduct a number of these activities by itself. In such programmes I think assistance from specialized agencies like FAO is necessary. And in this particular instance, when we think of afforestation and other specialized programmes, I think the World Food Programme should be given special support in this particular programme to enable it to implement the objectives for which food for work is being used in a particular country.
In certain instances, when a country has an obligation to meet its own obligations, there are difficulties arising, for example, in inputs which a country cannot possibly provide. Let us say improvment of transportation in a certain country; we think an arrangement should always be worked out with the beneficiary government and WFP should work out a system whereby, in certain circumstances, a country can be assisted to improve the system of distribution. And what we would like to emphasize here is that the programme itself should not be looked at entirely as a programme for distributing food but that the objective for distribution should receive very adequate importance from both the recipient government and also from the World Food Programme itself.
Having said this, we would like to emphasize here that the role the World Food Programme is playing in the developing countries is important and should be given the support that it needs. My delegation wishes to state here our full support for the revision of the regulations and for the draft resolutions for 1979/80 target.
RAMADHAR (India): I should like to join the delegate of Sudan in complimenting the World Food Programme on improving nutrition and assisting the efforts of developmental projects in the developing countries. In my comment to Item 7 before us I will touch on two issues. The first one relates to the Draft Resolution on Target for WFP Pledges for 1979-80. In principle the text was already approved by the 71st Session of the Council and only the formal recommendation of the target was left to the 4th Session of the CFA and subsequently to this Council Session for final approval. Now, the CFA has considered this at its 4th Session and recommended a target of $950 million. My delegation fully supports this recommmendation and recommends its adoption by this Council.
The other issue before us under this item relates to the adoption of World Food Programme revised regulations. All the regulations except Regulation 14 were approved by the 3rd session of the CFA in May 1977. Now, the 4th session of the CFA which considered Regulation 14 recently proposed a draft. My delegation is of the view that these regulations are in conformity with the new responsibilities with which the CFA was entrusted; the proposed regulations remove many of the ambiguities and clearly demarcate the areas of responsibility, so that the programme will be able to achieve the objectives of securing the improvements in nutritional standards and enhancing the efficiency of food production and distribution.
My delegation, therefore, recommends that these new regulations be approved by this Council.
M.P. MASUD (Pakistan): On the question of target for the World Food Programme pledges for the period 1979-80, my delegation is pleased to note that the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes has been able to propose unanimously a pledging target of $950 million. We fully endorse this target which we think necessary in recognizion of the World Food Programme's acknowedged capacity to operate at progressively higher levels, and the growing needs of developing recipient countries for food aid for development projects. We are confident that this target should not only be achieved but exceeded and would urge that not less than one-third of the resources provided should be provided in the form of cash and services.
Regarding the World Food Programme's revised general regulations, we approve their adoption, including the compromise text of paragraph 14 and particularly the interpretative statement. We feel that these revised regulations should enable the World Food Programme and its governing bodies to fulfill its enlarged new functions. We are also gratified to note the increase in emergency assistance and would commend the flexible approach adopted by the World Food Programme. Such a flexible policy, we are sure,
will enable the Programme to meet emergency needs whenever and wherever they arise. In particular, we would hope that the World Foood Programme will pay special attention to the Sahel regarding which the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes heard and considered special reports.
E. HBAOUI (Liban) (Interpretation de l'arabe): Ma delegation voudrait parler de l'activité du Programme alimentaire mondial et de sa participation efficace au développement rural dans les pays en développement. Nous avons constaté les résultats du Comité du CPA et les résultats de la dernière session du CPA dans lesquels nous avons vu que l'objectif visé par le biennium 1979-80 sera de 950 millions de dollars. Nous avons grand espoir de voir le Conseil adopter l'objectif proposé et nous lançons un appel aux pays qui participent au financement de ce Programme d'augmenter leur participation, pour permettre au Programme de fournir des aides efficaces aux pays en voie de développement et ce, surtout, dans les cas d'urgence.
De même, nous appuyons les nouvelles propositions qui visent à améliorer les normes et les critères sur la base desquels les aides sont accordées.
E. SAENZ (Colombia): La-delegacióncde Colombia expresa su apoyo al proyecto de resolución sobre objetivos para las promesas de contribución del PMA durante el período de 1979/80 tal como aparece en el documento CL 72/10.
Asimismo apoyamos el documento CL 72/16 sobre la aprobación de las normas generales revisadas del PMA.
Nuestra delegación aprovecha esta oportunidad para expresar su agradecimiento al Programa Mundial de Alimentos, organismo que viene ofreciendo una valiosa contribución a nuestro país. En nombre del Gobierno de Colombia queremos agradecer a todos los miembros del PMA que en el ultimo período de sesiones de este organismo ofrecieron su apoyo para la aprobación de un importante proyecto colombiano, así como a la Secretaría, y en particular a los señores D. Pascual Mon anaro y D. Claudio Chaves, quienes vienen dedicando especial atención al PMA en Colombia.
F. REDA (Egypt) (interpretation from Arabic): We should like to state right away that we give our full support to the efforts made by the Secretariat of WFP which helped to carry out development projects in developing countries. There can be no doubt that these studies made by the Secretariat helped to reach the objectives which have been set. I also wish to say that we should like to give our support to the target determined for the period 1979/80 as it appears in document CL 72/10. This proposed target is of the order of $950 million, as you all know.
We wish to add that we agree with the report of the 4th session of the CFA and in particular with regard to the amendments made in paragraph 14 of the General Regulations. We say this especially for the intention of those members of the Council who are not members of CFA. We should like to tell them that we reached a compromise solution there which was accepted by a consensus. Of course in the report of the CFA the Members of the Council are going to find all the details and explanations on paragraph 14.
Furthermore, we support the proposal on emergency aid for which $45 million have been allocated instead of $40 million and in the framework of which it is said that the Specialized Agencies should coordinate their activities in the case of emergency aid. Cooperation between these Agencies is considered necessary in all activities concerned with development in developing countries.
Finally, I also wish to express support for the orientation given by the CFA at its last session with regard to the effort to be made in order to solve the problems of the Sahelian countries.
Ms. C. IRGMAN (Finland): The Finnish delegation would like to comment briefly on the documents concer ned. The two items, WFP's pledging targets and WFP's revised General Regulations, undoubtedly, in our view, belong to the most important issues deliberated upon by the CFA Committee in its 4th session which ended just last week. I will therefore limit myself to commenting on them.
First, concerning the question of the proposed target of $950 million for the WFP pledges for 1979-80, my delegation has taken due note of the discussions in the CFA, taking into consideration the growing needs of food aid programmes and the growing number of requests received, and in view of the role of the WFP as a major multilateral food aid agency, the Finnish delegation would like to concur with the decision taken by the CFA and propose that the Council decide to approve the Draft Resolution in question Naturally, Finland will also take part in the 8th Pledging Conference for the WFP.
Turning to the adoption of the World Food Programme's revised General Regulations, we note that these, as presented in document CL 72/16, were approved by the CFA at its 3rd session. Further, the CFA at its 4th session, after very thorought discussions, reached a compromise and approved a text on paragraph 14. The Finnish Delegation, conscious of the importance of this paragraph and willing to join the compromise spirit of the text, is ready to approve WFP's revised Central General Regulations as presented to the Council, and to endorse the interpretative statement quoted in paragraph 3 of document CL 72/16 Sup.1.
G. SATARI (Indonesia): I wish to put on record also my delegation's full support for the pledging target of $950 million for the period 1979/80. We understand this target has been realistically appraised by the Committee on Food Aid Policies and Programmes which met here last week. We feel it necessary to urge all donors, small and large, to put all their efforts together so that the target can be obtained, if not surpassed in view of the current supply situation in many food exporting countries and of the need of many developing countries for food aid and development.
My delegation expresses its appreciation for the work done by the World Food Programme and with the new Executive Director in office we have full confidence that the Programme will go from strength to strength and more food aid be channelled through this body.
J. OLIVEIRA (Guinée-Bissau): La délégation de Guinée-Bissau se joint aux délégations précédentes pour donner son total accord et son appui aux projets de résolution sur les objectifs des contributions au PAM pour la période 1979-80.
Rappelant la thèse que l'aide alimentaire du PAM est destinée aux pays en voie de développement jusqu'au moment où ils ont les moyens d'être auto-suffisants, notre délégation saisit cette occasion pour attirer l'attention du Conseil sur la situation des pays de la zone sahélienne et des pays voisins qui, par suite de la sécheresse de cette année qui a laissé des marques assez profondes (la pluviométrie est de 50 pour cent par rapport aux dernières années), voient leurs denrées alimentaires déjà presque perdues. Pour cette raison, notre pays et certainement les pays voisins, espèrent profiter de l'aide alimentaire du PAM et souhaitent que ce projet de résolution soit approuvé par tous les membres du Conseil.
S. SHAMMOOT (Jordan) (interpretation from Arabic): Because of the importance of the role that the World Food Programme plays in the giving of aid to developing countries so as to increase the food production in these countries and given the aid that my country has also received from that Programme my delegation would like to support the proposals made in document CL 72/10 to the effect that the target for the 1979/80 period be $950 million.
Turning to the report of the last World Food Programme meeting we support the amendments made to the General Regulations, in particular paragraph 14.
H. CUEVA (Ecuador): No debo dejar pasar esta oportunidad para, en primer término, expresar en nombre del Gobierno de mi país su profundo agradecimiento por la magnífica labor que viene desarrollando el PMA en el Ecuador.
Igualmente, mi delegación quiere apoyar el objetivo de 950 millones de dólares para la contribución al Programa Mundial de Alimentos correspondiente al "bienio 1979/80.
Asimismo mi delegación pide al Consejo que apruebe las dos decisiones recomendadas por el CPA con respecto al reglamento del Programa.
SEÑORA G, RIVERA MARIN DE ITURBE (México): Mi delegación desea en primer término felicitar al Sr. Vogel por su nueva designación, y considera que está realizando una labor eficiente y positiva al frente del Programa Mundial de Alimentos para nuestros países. Este grupo de personas se está dedicando con todo empeño a ayudarnos a mejorar las condiciones de vida en nuestros países y deseamos continúen con el éxito con que hasta ahora han venido realizando su labor.
Por otro lado, la delegación de México desea manifestar su apoyo al proyecto de resolución sobre los objetivos de promesas de contribución al PMA para el período 1979/80 y, asimismo, apoya el aumento del presupuesto que se ha planteado, esperando que este aumento no sirva para que se descuiden los compromisos básicos que ya están concertados, o sea la cantidad que ha venido a incrementar este presupuesto se pueda utilizar en nuevos proyectos en países que ya tienen una infraestructura debidamente establecida.
•M. VARGAS JORDAN (Observador de Bolivia): Gracias, Sr. Presidente, por haberme concedido el uso de la palabra. Los múltiples favores y la gran capacidad puesta al servicio de mi país por el Programa Mundial de Alimentos merecen el reconocimiento de mi Gobierno y del pueblo boliviano. Bolivia ha sido uno de los países que, sin duda alguna, está completamente convencido de que la capacidad puesta y la ayuda recibida por el Programa Mundial de Alimentos ha servido de incentivo y orientación permanente en lo que se refiere a nuestra capacidad productiva. En tal sentido, mi país, a través de su representación, hace suyas todas las manifestaciones de valor expresadas en este Consejo al Programa Mundial de Alimentos; se suma a ellas y presta su amplio apoyo al proyecto de resolución y a la meta de in-centivación del presupuesto de 95° millones de dólares para el período 1979/80.
P.M. USTUN (World Food Programme): Firstly, I am most grateful indeed for the delegates who have intervened this afternoon and lent their support to the resolution submitted by the Committee on Food Aid. I wish also to extend the appreciation of the Programme for the complimentary remarks which have been made by those delegates. If the World Food Programme is a success this is not attributed only to the small and devoted staff alone but it is also attributed to the guidance which the World Food Programme receives from its Governing Body and it should also be mentioned the donors and the recipient countries which cooperate during the implementation of the projects.
The Secretariat will continue to do its best as long as it continues to receive the support from all the members in this Council and other bodies. Having said this, there have been two specific observations which have been made by Sudan and by Pakistan which I will briefly touch on.
I fully share the views expressed by the delegate of the Sudan that the chance of the success of the World Food Programme assisted projects can be seriously enhanced if the United Nations System can come into the picture and give the technical assistance required. The World Food Programme is doing its best to coordinate such activities at the planning level, at the country level, whenever a project is received but this should be done together with the recipient government, together with the World Food Council and involving the developing country at this stage and besides that the World Food Programme is giving from its cash resources substantial amounts of funds to the less developed countries to improve the transport facilities and to meet the transport needs.
As far as the remark that has been made by the delegate of Pakistan regarding the need of the Sahel countries I wish to inform this Council, the Director-General of FAO and the Executive Director, of the Programme close watch on the situation in the Sahel countries. The World Food Programme has already-initiated action as late as a month ago to put nucleus stocks in two ports in the Sahel area, that is Dakar and Abidjan, so until the potential donors make their contributions any need that might come up immediately can be met from those stocks. The Executive Director, as directed by the Director-General of FAO, convened last week informal meetings with the potential donors during which the need of the Sahel has been reviewed and the coordination possibilities have been examined. I wish to inform the Council the Programme is very closely involved in this matter and we hope that the lessons we have learnt in the past will be applied this time in good time.
EL PRESIDENTE: Creo que el Consejo ha reiterado su pleno apoyo al Programa Mundial de Alimentos que decide asimismo acoger favorablemente los objetivos de promesas de contribución para el período 1979-80, y también aprobar las Normas Generales revisadas del PMA, a la luz de las aclaraciones que hizo el señor Ustün, Director Ejecutivo Alterno, Asistente Adjunto, a quien agradezco su cooperación para la discusión de este tema, rogándole también que transmita al señor Vogel el nuevo Director Ejecutivo del PMA, nuestro agradecimiento por el mensaje que nos presentó por conducto del señor Ustün, con todos nuestros mejores deseos porque él obtenga todos los buenos éxitos en esa importante posición.
B. de AZEVEDO BRITO (Brazil): If I understand correctly you are summing up, just to "be precise "because here we need to be precise, not only have we on the one hand adopted the resolution concerning the targets for the biennium 1979/80, on the other hand we have adopted at the same time the revised general regulations and we have adopted also the interpretative statement. There are two decisions there. My understanding hopefully is the correct one.
M. BEL HADJ AMOR (Président a. i. du Comité financier): Monsieur le Président, je pense que notre Conseil a d constater avec surprise, mais également avec satisfaction, qu'il n'y a pas de document qui concerne ce point. La raison est très simple et je crois qu'il faudrait un peu expliquer ce fait.
Il y a quatre ans, le Conseil a délégué au Comité des finances le pouvoir d'approuver le budget des commissions régionales et des organes semi-autonomes. Le Comité a pensé qu'après quatre ans, ne serait-ce qu'à titre d'exemple, le Conseil voudrait revoir un de ces budgets, et c'est la raison pour laquelle je présente oralement le résultat de l'examen du budget de la Commission régionale de la production et de la santé animales pour l'Asie, l'Extrême-Orient, et le Pacifique Sud Ouest, en abrégé APHCA.
Cette Commission, qui est composée de 11 membres, a adopté à sa deuxième session, en août 1977, son barème de contribution pour 1978, son budget pour l'année 1978, ainsi qu'un budget indicatif pour 1979.
Le montant proposé pour le budget 1978 est constitué du montant des contributions de l'année 1978, des économies réalisées en 1976/77, ainsi que des crédits que fournit la FAO a titre de soutien pour la Commission. Le cumul de ces trois volets de financement nous donne, pour 1978, un montant total de 121 640 dollars à répartir comme suit: APHCA 51 535 dollars, soutien de la FAO 70 105 dollars. Ce budget a été adopté par la Commission. Il a été également approuvé par le Comité financier.
Cependant, il y a lieu de noter que la Commission a demandé à la FAO de lui fournir à temps complet le concours d'un spécialiste de l'élevage au grade de P3, ainsi que d'autres services de secrétariat. Ces nouvelles demandes ne sont pas prévues dans notre programme de travail de budget pour 1978/79. Aussi le Comité a-t-il estimé que ce renforcement de soutien demandé ne devrait pas figurer dans le budget de la Commission sans consultation et accord préalables du Directeur général. Actuellement, ces ouvertures de crédit supplémentaires sont à l'étude, et le Comité a estimé que si elles sont accordées elles devraient être couvertes par des économies.
Par ailleurs, la Commission a également adopté un budget indicatif pour 1979. Ce budget indicatif a eu l'approbation du Comité financier. Il est sensiblement le même que celui de 1978 et l'augmentation est très légère puisqu'elle ne s'élève qu'à 562 dollars. Le budget indicatif de 1979 s'inscrit ainsi 122 202 dollars qui se répartissent comme suit: fonds APHCA 52 097 dollars, soutien FAO 70 105 dollars.
EL PRESIDENTE: Han oído ustedes la presentación que ha hecho el señor Presidente en Ejercicio del Comité de Finanzas sobre el tema 14. Se abre el debate.
G. SATARI (Indonesia): My delegation would like to thank the Acting Chairman of the Finance Committee for the information he has given concerning the Regional Animal Production and Health Commission tor Asia, the Far East and the South West Pacific. This Commission came into force in December 1975 and is open to FAO members situated wholly or partly in the region, and at present the members are: Australia, Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand. These members contribute annually to the budget of the Commission, and for the year 1978 the total would be US $33, 000. Under the terms of the agreement FAO provides the Secretariat of the Commission. We are grateful to the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Far East which within its capabilities tries to help the functioning of the Secretariat for this Commission. However, we feel it necessary that we have a continuous and solid assistance for the Secretariat for the Commission, and in this connexion my delegation feels it necessary to have the full-time services of a livestock officer at P-3 level and the Secretariat services provided to the Commission Secretary.
We therefore support the request made that the costs be met from savings.
J. LEIDO, Jr. (Philippines): We have participated in the work of the Commission and would say that we are very much pleased with what the Commission has been doing during the short period of its existence. We are all very happy with the work performed by the programme.
However, under the terms of the agreement, due to the increased volume of work in response to requests of member countries, the Secretariat is now overburdened. We therefore join Indonesia in proposing that a livestock officer of P-3 level be added and that secretarial services be bolstered. This would be in line with the programme envisaged and would be support for regional and national institutions.
M.P. MASUD (Pakistan): I will not take up too much of your time, Mr. Chairman, as I know that you are running behind schedule already so I will be very brief and simply say that my delegation fully agrees with what has been said by Indonesia and the Philippines.
EL PRESIDENTE: Si no hay ningún otro comentario, entiendo que el Consejo está de acuerdo en aprobar el presupuesto para esta Comisión Regional, e igualmente, el Consejo reconoce y destaca la cooperación que la Oficina Regional de la FAO para Asia y Lejano Oriente viene ofreciendo a esa Comisión, e igualmente, entiendo que se tome nota de la propuesta concreta de Indonesia sobre la posibilidad de que se materialice una ayuda continua por parte de la Oficina Regional al funcionamiento de la Comisión.
EL PRESIDENTE: Como ustedes observarán este es un documento para la Conferencia que va a empezar dentro de tres días. Corresponde a la costumbre de presentar documentos como éste, y salvo que algu' nos miembros del Consejo deseen plantear puntos específicos, podríamos tomar nota del contenido de este documento. Sin embargo, - ahora desea intervenir el doctor Phillips, Presidente del Comité de Programa.
R.W. PHILLIPS (Chairman, Programme Committee): At this stage of the afternoon I do not really wish to take the floor, but perhaps I ought to say just a few things about the material in the Programme Committee report which relates to this item. This material begins on page 26 of the English version, paragraph 2.175, where in relation to UNDP you will find some more detailed updating of the situation to which I referred in an earlier connexion, namely, the falling off of the project delivery from $120 million in 1975 to $100 million in 1976, perhaps not in excess of $85 million in the present year and with some indication that it may drop even lower in the following year.
The Programme Committee also concerned itself with the long-standing problem of the question of reimbursement of agency costs and reiterated its long-felt need of the necessity of arriving at a solution to this problem that would contribute to stability in planning and budgeting. This relates to the question of whether the 14 percent of reimbursement of delivery would be continued over the long term, to cover so-called overheads.
On the question of the relative roles of UNDP and other bodies in the system in channelling funds for development assistance, note was taken particularly in our discussion of the Council's view that although UNDP must be considered a main funding source, flexibility must exist for the use of other funding channels.
The Committee also took note of the generally satisfactory cooperative arrangements which have been developed involving the representatives of UNDP and FAO in countries. It expressed the hope, however, that in country programming, UNDP could be prevailed upon more than it had so far to ensure an effective utilization of the potentials of the partner organizations, and that, of course, included FAO.
I think I need say nothing about the brief section on relations with the World Food Council since that in fact relates more to the work of the CCLM to which you will come under item 16, and it also cites the Manila Communique which I am sure is available to all the delegations in other connexions.
Just briefly in regard to relations with IFAD, which begins with paragraph 2.182, here you vill see that the Committee made a very few comments on points of detail in relation to the agreement between FAO and IFAD. This is a matter, of course, which you will also come to under Item 16.
I would only flag the point in paragraph 2.185 that, since the timing of the coming into existence of IFAD and the reaction of its Executive Board to the agreement will come after the 19th Session of the Conference, it would only be in the 20th Session of the Conference that formal confirmation of this agreement could take place.
However, the Committee noted with considerable satisfaction that it was not necessary to wait for the formal entry of the agreement into effect in order to have effective working relationships. In fact, these are already being developed.
Finally, I would only point to the last three or four paragraphs of that section, 2.188 - 2.191, which give a summary of that situation as it existed about five weeks ago regarding the bringing of IFAD into existence. That has changed in the meantime as other governments have taken further action.
EL PRESIDENTE: Acaban ustedes de oír la presentación que ha hecho el Presidente del Comité del Programa sobre las observaciones que ese Comité hizo en relación con este asunto, las cuales están contenidas en los párrafos 2.175 a 2.179.
M. BEL HADJ AMOR (President a.i. du Comité financier) - Concernant cette question, je voudrais me référer en particulier aux remarques du Comité qui concernent les relations avec le PNUD et qui figurent dans les paragraphes 3.116 à 3.121. En général, le Comité n'a pas pu s'empêcher d'exprimer ses préoccupations quant à la baisse enregistrée par le taux d'exécution au cours des deux dernières années et qui risque de se prolonger. A cet égard, le Comité demande instamment au Directeur général de prendre toutes dispositions nécessaires pour des négociations avec le PNUD.
Concernant le problème du remboursement des frais généraux, le Comité confirme la nécessité d'une solution qui aide à planifier de façon stable les travaux de la FAO sur un nombre substantiel d'années. En attendant, la base de remboursement de 14 pour cent reste un compromis acceptable. A cet égard, je voudrais rappeler que le Comité a déjà eu dans ses sessions précédentes à exprimer ses préocupations, pour ce qui est des conséquences financières, pour notre Organisation, de toute
reduction eventuelle de remboursement des frais généraux de l'agent d'exécution, A sa 38ème session, le Comité a précisé que cela influerait également sur le taux du remboursement des coûts de soutien des programmes extérieurs financés par les sources autres que le PNUD, et surtout que les répercussions seraient assez importantes sur le contenu du programme ordinaire de l'organisation.
Enfin, le Comité a relevé avec satisfaction l'esprit de collaboration qui existe sur le terrain entre le PNUD et la FAO et reconnaît que le PNUD doit rester une des principales sources de financement sans préjudice de la souplesse nécessaire pour les autres sources de financement.
Je n'ai pas d'autres commentaires spécifiques concernant le Conseil mondial de l'alimentation ou le FIDA. J'attire uniquement l'attention du Conseil sur les observations du Comité au paragraphe 3.122 jusqu'au paragraphe 3.124.
I. HAKIM (Indonesia): My delegation would like to thank the Chairmen of the Programme Committee and Finance Committee on the report concerning the development of the relationships between the UNDP, the FAO Council, and IFAD. As you are aware, during the last Conference the Indonesian delegation expressed its view concerning this question. We are glad to know the Committee pressed the need for support and planning after the Programme support, especially from the UNDP and WFP for the full programme of FAO. We also noted that the Programme Committee had received with satisfaction the information that there was a common executive stand on the question of the 14 percent reimbursement to the effect that it should be continued.
We also notice that the delivery from the UNDP fund which had been projected is decreasing, and we join the Finance Committee to express our concern on this matter. We are also glad to note that the receipts from outside sources are also increasing, as we have seen from the report of the Secretary, especially when we read the review of the Field Programme.
At this stage again we would like to stress our support that this matter of the 14 percent reimbursement be continued at least for the next few years ahead so that we can have good planning and budgeting for FAO.
On the second point, the relationship with the World Food Council, we also agree with the report of the Programme and Finance Committees and hope after ECOSOC has endorsed the recommendations of the Manila Assembly and after it has been considered by the Council it will be possible to consider the the implementation for FAO and that action may be taken accordingly.
On IFAD we are glad to note that it is planning to have its first Governing Council in December. It means the criteria for the fulfilling of the coming into force of the Agreement are being followed and also that the $750 million has been reached in Categories I, II and III as is stated in the Agreement. So this has also been fulfilled.
With this intervention we would like to thank again the Programme and Finance Committees.
E. LIPPONEN (Finland): My comments are very short. When studying document CL 72/4 and C 77/25, especially on the relations of FAO with the UNDP, my delegation notes with satisfaction that considerable efforts have been made by both the sides to improve the clarity of the United Nations Development System, to which my Government attaches great importance..
Especially I should like to welcome a mutually satisfactory agreement that was reached between the heads of UNDP and FAO on coordination and collaboration in relation to the implementation of FAO's corps of representatives in the Member Countries. I feel every form of cooperation which can be attained in the country level is very important to the overall coherence,
My delegation also welcomes the good working relations which have grown between UNIDO and FAO. Now that UNIDO is getting prepared for a third conference this cooperation between, if I may say so, the elder brother of the United Nations family and a new organization will be very fruitful for the development.
We also are glad to note the interest which FAO has shown in the Conference on Science and Technology which will be held in two years' time. All the help which can be given by an experienced organization such as FAO will be most conducive to the success of this very important United Nations Conference on Science and Technology.
EL PRESIDENTE: Si no hay ningún comentario por parte de los miembros del Consejo, entiendo que se tome nota de las informaciones contenidas en el documento 77/25 y que el Consejo, en general, manifiesta su aprobación a las recomendaciones y comentarios de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas y, particularmente, en relación con el PNUD el Consejo se adhiere a la preocupación que sobre el estado de cosas manifiestan esos Comités y, asimismo, considera que debe mantenerse la cifra del 14 por ciento para el reembolso de los gastos de ejecución.
La delegación de Finlandia hizo alguna observación pertinente que pasará al Comité y se tratará de reflejar los aspectos esenciales en el proyecto de informe.
R.W. PHILLIPS (Chairman, Programme Committee): In its review of this basic Conference document, the Committee while examining many sections of it limited its report to a very brief set of comments which it felt might be helpful to delegations, and particularly to the Chairman of Commission II in dealing with it in the Conference, where of course the major discussion will take place.
The Committee did wish to report its feeling that this review had reached a better standard of presentation than in the previous two biennia while at the same time providing a basis for frank and constructive discussion in the Conference.
It welcomed the reduction in volume of the document and the selectivity and treatment of the subject matter. It did wish to suggest that in view of the wide audience reached at Conference by the review, and even after the Conference, consideration might be given to adding some charts and diagrams to increase the ability of the reader to comprehend the validity of the material and the statistical information contained in the report. It also felt that some statistical material might be shifted from annexes to the text so that the reader would not have constantly to shift from text to annex to get the full impact.
In paragraph 2.130 you will find the Committee felt the Conference, in reviewing the report, might place particular emphasis on the reassessment of field programmes in Chapter 2 since this treated issues which deserve serious attention by recipient governments as well as FAO, UNDP and other multilateral and bilateral agencies.
Also, in paragraph 2.132 you will see that the Committee felt that the issues raised in the conclusions of Chapter Three on Training deserved special consideration by the Conference; and finally, in paragraph 2.134, that the issues treated in Chapter Four, rural development and aid to agriculture, might be discussed in Commission I as well as in Commission II and therefore there would need to be cooperation between those Commissions to avoid any undue overlapping in the Conference discussions.
I think that is all I need to say on this, since basic discussion will of course take place in Commission II of the Conference.
M. BEL HADJ AMOR (Vice-Président du Comité financier): Je serai d'autant plus bref que cette question relève beaucoup plus de la compétence du Comité du Programme que de celle du Comité financier. Cependant, je voudrais attirer l'attention du Conseil sur le paragraphe 3.115 où figure le commentaire succinct du Comité financier qui relève en particulier le fait qu'il faudrait attirer l'attention de la Conférence sur l'orientation positive que prennent les activités de formation de l'Organisation et sur les progrès de l'effort de promotion de la coopération technique entre pays en développement qui sont décrits au chapitre 4 du document que nous avons examiné.
EL PRESIDENTE: Sobre el tema 11 han oído ustedes la presentación de los Presidentes de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas. Se trata de un documento para la Conferencia. ¿Quién desea intervenir?
SEÑORA G. RIVERA MARIN DE ITURBE (México): Sr. Presidente, permítame por su conducto felicitar a la Secretaría por el valioso documento presentado para actualizarnos en la información de los programas de campo y, asimismo, agradecerle al Sr. Director General por la sincera introducción que ha hecho a este tema, donde afirma que solo reconociendo las deficiencias y las virtudes de los programas de cooperación técnica se podrán mejorar las actividades de FAO en nuestros países en vías de desarrollo.
Debemos recordar cómo la crisis por la que atravesó el PNUD, Programa de las Naciones Unidas para el Desarrollo, durante el inicio de la gestion del Dr. Saouma como Director General complico en forma considerable la reestructuración propuesta por él de los programas de campo a fin de que se hiciera más efectiva la labor de FAO cuando ésta trabaja a nivel del pequeño agricultor en los campos de los países en desarrollo.
Esta crisis del PNUD condujo al propio Director General a la creación de su programa de cooperación técnica, y en aquella ocasión la delegación mexicana le dio su franco apoyo. Ahora, tiempo después de su creación, vemos cómo este programa empieza a ser un éxito, pues el contar con recursos propios destinados a objetivos muy concretos permitió al Director General resolver problemas cuya solución hubiera sido sumamente difícil de encontrar si no se hubiera contado con la posibilidad de tener un fondo monetario a su disposición y, sobre todo, cuando se presentan crisis que por desgracia en la agricultura sabemos todos que son muy frecuentes.
El programa de cooperación técnica como un nuevo refuerzo a los programas de campo de la Organización ha demostrado ya su eficiencia y sus resultados prácticos en mi país; gracias a la acción inmediata de la FAO, a través del Director General, ha sido uno de los beneficiados con esta nueva iniciativa y actualmente se están implementando proyectos que, aunque en modesta escala por la limitación de los recursos ordinarios de que dispone el Programa, consideramos que en el futuro tendrán muchos mayores alcances. Ahora bien, resulta indudable que para que el programa de cooperación técnica refuerce su aportación a los esfuerzos que hacemos los países en desarrollo para alcanzar los objetivos de una mayor producción de alimentos y de desarrollo agrícola y rural, se requieren elementos financieros adecuados, los cuales solamente se pueden obtener a través de un presupuestos también adecuado de esta Organización.
Es por ello que reitero la posición del Grupo de los 77 y del Grupo Latinoamericano, de quien ahora soy portavoz, cuando deseamos manifestar como un consenso que consideramos que el nuevo nivel de presupuesto recomendado al Consejo por el Director General refleja las necesidades de la expansión de la propia FAO.
Deseo también hacer algunos comentarios respecto a los diferentes capítulos tratados al examinar los programas de campo.
Considero que respecto al examen de los programas en concreto podemos leer cómo en el Capítulo I el análisis que se presenta a nuestra consideración hace una exposición muy clara y acertada de los problemas del subdesarrollo, y entre ellos del problema de la aplicación de la tecnología adquirida por los jóvenes becarios o por los estudiantes postgraduados que acuden a los países desarrollados para prepararse y adiestrarse, y cómo estos jóvenes becarios al regresar a nuestros países se encuentran con que la técnica que han aprendido no puede ser aplicada concretamente en programs que nosotros necesitamos en el campo de la producción de alimentos y de mejora de la agricultura.
Esta presentación que se hace del problema se complementa con la presentación hecha en el Capítulo III de este documento acerca de las medidas para resolver el problema de los becarios, de la desigualdad entre la capacidad y la aplicación de los conocimientos de la técnica y de la tecnificación y además, de la solución propuesta a otros problemas, como es la mejor forma de utilizar las becas, la capacitación en las granjas y en los centros de capacitación para la agricultura.
Por ultimo, deseo mencionar de manera muy especial el esfuerzo que se está realizando para ajustar los programas de capacitación agrícola a las necesidades de las mujeres campesinas, pues la mujer campesina de todos es sabido es un elemento de primera importancia en el renglón de la producción en el sector agrícola y, como dice el informe, si bien se ha tropezado con varios problemas, el proyecto para haber movilizado a las mujeres de una región en estudio presentó varios problemas, pero dio como resultado la movilización de estas mujeres y su participación en nuevas actividades. Sin embargo, mi delegación considera que el logro de movilizar a las mujeres de una región para que participen en las actividades regionales no debe quedar ahí, sino que antes bien los programas de capacitación técnica para la mujer
campesina deberán ser enfocados en un futuro hacia la integración de la mujer en todas las actividades del desarrollo rural, si bien recordamos que éstas constituyen el 25 por ciento de la población rural en la mayor parte de los países en vías de desarrollo y que hasta ahora han quedado como un factor relegado en el proceso de la producción.
Esta es una anotación, Sr. Presidente, que yo desearía pudiera ser tomada en cuenta para futuros programas de capacitación de la mujer en el campo.
R.TANABE (Japan): My delegation appreciates the fact that the Secretariat has prepared a document which contains very valuable and comprehensive information, not only on the FAO activities but on the bilateral and multilateral assistance for agricultural development.
The view of my delegation on this matter is that in the field programme the emphasis should be put on technical cooperation which aims at the increase of food production in developing countries. In the Asian regions in particular the core of the food product is rice, which is mainly produced by the small-scale farmers. Therefore the technical cooperation to the small-scale farmers should be fully considered.
AMIDJONO (Indonesia): With regard to the review of the field programmes 1976/77, my delegation would like to make a brief comment, particularly on the human investment, technical cooperation among developing countries and the technical cooperation programme. In this respect my delegation concurs with the views stated in the Programme Committee regarding the three issues. The success of agricultural develomment and increasing food production will depend on the effectiveness of the training of field workers and farmers. Training of agricultural workers and farmers will of course improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the field operations - that is, the implementation of agricultural development projects. Therefore, training should be at grass root level and it might take the form of training of agricultural extension personnel and/or group training of contract farmers. My delegation recognizes that the potential of technical cooperation among developing countries is indeed unlimited and in this context FAO could become a very effective party which will stimulate the operation in agricultural development and food crop production. My delegation is of the opinion that the Technical Cooperation Programme is the right arrangement for decentralization and wider means to assist developing countries to cope with their urgent problems.
In conclusion, my delegation would like to support the effort to improve and accelerate the implementation of the three issues mentioned above.
S.S. MAHDI (India): The hour is late, Mr. Chairman, and I take your hint when you mentioned that this item is before the forthcoming FAO Conference, by which perhaps you meant that a detailed discussion on the substance of the document and the related issues will more suitably and appropriately take place on that occasion. Therefore, I shall be very brief, reserving the tributes and the fires of my delegation for the Conference Session. Nevertheless, I cannot help but agree with the assessment of the Programme Committee that the Review of Field Programmes of this year has reached a much better standard of presentation than in previous biennia. This observation of the Programme Committee should be seen against the background of the positive assessments made about the Area II Field Programme reviews, which only shows that the document is getting better and better.
With these few observations about this document I should like to draw the attention of the Director-General to one particular aspect of this document, and that deals with technical cooperation among developing countries. It will be remembered that at the last Council we adopted a resolution requesting that this could be a separate topic for the Conference. Along with that request we had also made a request to the Secretariat that a separate document on the subject should be provided and we also, in a very broad way, outlined what issues we would like to see discussed in the document. We do have a section on TCDC in this document. It is an excellent draft, so far as it goes, but I regret to say that this does not foot the bill. We had expected much more on this and I am afraid that unless between now and the Conference we get something more, the discussions on TCDC in the Conference will not be as useful, or we shall not be able to go as much into depth as we had desired when we inscribed this item on the Agenda of the Conference.
We would particularly recall, Mr. Chairman - and that is the advantage of having a continuity in the chairmanship of the Council, that I can refresh your memory on this - that we had revised FAO's
reaction to certain studies that had been conducted under the auspices of UNDP. Your will recall that more than a year ago a consultant was appointed by UNDP. He submitted a very detailed report analysing the present procedures of the Agencies of the United Nations system and making certain recommendations as to how these procedures, these rules and regulations, could be modified or interpreted for facilitating TCDC, for facilitating the use of national institutions, for giving a share to the developing countries in the supply of various inputs, both in terms of human resources and others in the implementation of developing programmes under multilateral auspices. All these problems have been discussed and we in the Council, I think, made a specific request that this aspect be examined.
We do find some mention of this in paragraph 4.55 of the report at page 69, which deals with a positive discrimination in favour of new and relatively weaker national institutions in developing countries. What has been given here has whetted our appetite for more information in this regard, so that this matter could be examined with the seriousness it deserves.
I promised that I would not be very long. Perhaps I have already exceeded the limit I had set for myself. With these brief remarks I would make the request that we have something more to discuss in the Conference which is coming next week, and especially on the aspects which we had underlined in the last Council. At that time we hoped to go in depth in analysing this excellent document. And finally, I should say that it has kept the tradition of its previous two documents which were presented in earlier biennia.
A.R. MIHURA (Argentina): El examen de los programas de campo es un aspecto que debe atraer de manera preferente nuestra atención, dada la renovada vocación de la FAO hacia el terreno, hacia la labor concreta y de impacto inmediato en el desarrollo de la producción agrícola y en el mejoramiento de la nutrición.
El documento C 77/4 contiene importantes aspectos que deben ser objeto de amplio análisis a fin de extraer de él las conclusiones relevantes y útiles para la instrumentación de los próximos programas.
La delegación argentina tiene el propósito de contribuir a este análisis detallado durante el transcurso de la Conferencia. No obstante, deseamos destacar algunos párrafos del documento cuyos conceptos compartimos, como los criterios y procedimientos para la selección de participantes establecidos en el Capítulo 3 y otros, que, por el contrario, son para nosotros motivo de preocupación. Nos referimos a la baja participación de América Latina como destinataria de proyectos de asistencia técnica en relación a otras regiones, tanto en cuanto al número de proyectos como a la cifra de recursos totales asignados.
Sobre este tema, nuestra delegación ampliará sus consideraciones durante el transcurso de la Conferencia.
Ahora deseo referirme a un tema al cual mi país asigna particular trascendencia: la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo. Argentina trajo al 71 período de sesiones del Consejo una iniciativa que los países miembros tuvieron a bien respaldar, tendiente a enfatizar el apoyo de la FAO a la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo en general y en particular a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas que sobre el tema se realizará en Buenos Aires en 1978.
La Resolución C 71/1 es justamente la expresión de esa idea que esperamos se expandirá en dos niveles; en las tareas preparatorias de la Conferencia a fin de que en ella se tomen debidamente en cuenta los aspectos agrícolas y alimentarios; y en las medidas adoptadas y a adoptarse para hacer los reajustes adecuados en la política, procedimiento y programas de la Organización, con el propósito de acelerar la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo en el ámbito de la FAO.
En el primer aspecto señalado, tareas preparatorias a la Conferencia, mi Gobierno ha pensado en la realización de reuniones previas y paralelas que consideren en profundidad las cuestiones que en ciertas áreas pueden dar lugar a un provechoso intercambio de experiencias entre países en desarrollo. Para esto, la FAO ha proyectado una asignación presupuestaria que mi país confía, se aplicará a la adecuada preparación de la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo para que los aspectos agrícolas y alimentarios, en los cuales muchos países en desarrollo han hecho progresos considerables y han elaborado técnicas adaptadas a sus caractarísticas y modalidades, tengan debida difusión y repercusión y se identifiquen áreas inexploradas para la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo.
W.A.F. GRABISCH (Germany, Federal Republic of): I shall not hold up our proceedings; I shall be very brief. First of all, my delegation is in agreement with the observation of the Programme Committee, namely that the Review of Field Programmes 1976-77 has reached a better standard of presentation than in the previous two biennia. We are pleased to note, and we are grateful to the Secretariat for the document before us. We are also very grateful to the Programme Committee - and this is my second observation - which has drawn our attention, in the paragraphs already indicated by the Chairman of the Programme, to one of the very important issues within the document. We agree in general with these observations.
My third point is that I wish to draw attention to the third but last paragraph of the Director-General's introduction on page v of the English version of the document where he says:
"Finally, I commend to the attention of Member Nations the Review's general assessment of the Organization's field programmes, with the firm conviction that only by acknowledging our shortcomings as well as our successes can we continue to improve the quality of our technical cooperation activities. There are bound to be shortcomings and even, from time to time, failures." Then he ends that paragraph, "The important thing is to identify, correct and learn from difficulties, and to apply the lessons elsewhere." It is in this spirit that my delegation looks forward to a free exchange of views, a real dialogue between Member Nations on the activities in the field which will lead us hopefully to achieve even more in future results in our common struggle against hunger and malnutrition.
J, E. YRIART (Subdirector General del Departamento de Desarrollo): Sere muy breve, limitándome solo a asegurar al Consejo que habrá un documento para la Conferencia sobre los programas de la FAO, el plan de acción de la FAO y la colaboración de la FAO para la preparación de la Conferencia de Buenos Aires en materia de Cooperación Tecnica entre países en desarrollo.
Este documento llevará el numero C 77/LIM/17. Si el documento está demorado es porque hemos debido esperar la reunión de la reciente Comisión Preparatoria de la Conferencia de Buenos Aires y del Grupo interagencial preparatorio de la Conferencia que tuvo lugar a fines de septiembre, en Nueva York.
Justamente, es allí donde se ajustó el tipo de contribución que harían las diferentes agencias del sistema a la Conferencia. Estamos satisfechos, y creemos que podemos hacer una contribución sustancial a la Conferencia conforme a los lineamientos que expresó el Consejo debía de actuar la FAO. El documento que presentaremos a la Conferencia, con la esperanza de provocar una discusión que podamos tener en cuenta en la preparación de la contribución a la Conferencia de Buenos Aires, en grandes líneas, presentará la experiencia de la FAO que es una vieja experiencia, en cuanto a promoción de cooperación tecnica entre países en desarrollo. Presentará nuestros planes y acciones actuales; presentará un capítulo sobre los problemas de las barreras tanto financieras como actitudinarias y desarrollará también modelos o ejemplos de posibles proyectos de cooperación tecnica entre países en desarrollo en el campo de la agricultura, la pesca y los montes.
Esto en general será el formato de la contribución a la Conferencia de Buenos Aires. Lo pensamos presentar como plan de trabajo en el documento que ustedes considerarán en la Conferencia y miramos hacia las discusiones que haya en la Conferencia en las próximas tres semanas, como fundamentales para permitirnos terminar de orientar la contribución de la Organización a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas.
EL PRESIDENTE: Yo creo que el Consejo estuvo en general de acuerdo con las observaciones de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas sobre este importante documento para la Conferencia, y destacando en particular la mejor presentación que ahora tiene ese documento, el apoyo reiterado del Consejo al Programa de cooperación técnica, y los importantes asuntos que se plantearon, particularmente en relación con la cooperación técnica entre países en desarrollo, sobre lo cual tendrá lugar la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas, en el año entrante, en Buenos Aires.
Se tratarán de recoger en la mejor forma posible así como otras observaciones que plantearon delegaciones de Mexico, India, Argentina, etc.
A.R. MIHURA (Argentina): Le agradezco que me permita esta segunda intervención que tiene solamente el motivo de agradecer al señor Director General del Departamento de Desarrollo, el apoyo que brinda y la colaboración que compromete para la Conferencia a desarrollarse en Buenos Aires, en la que está sumamente interesada la Argentina, y que brinda grandes esperanzas sobre los resultados con que puede contribuir al incremento de la producción y de la existencia de alimentos en el mundo.
Solamente mi intervención era para agradecer la expresión del señor Subdirector General.
EL PRESIDENTE: Terminamos así el tema 11. Tal como les dije hace poco, será necesario que estudiemos esta noche los temas 12 y 9 que aparecían en el Programa para el día de hoy. De lo contrario nos retrasaríamos demasiado en nuestros trabajos.
R.W. PHILLIPS (Chairman, Programme Committee): Before I comment on the brief section devoted to Medium-Term Objectives in the Report of the Programme Committee I should perhaps recall that the Conference has had a medium-term document before it. I think over the last four Conferences beginning in 1969. I think it is also fair to recall that on each occasion the Conference has been quite unhappy with the document before it and on each occasion for different reasons. Consequently, the language of the document has shifted back and forth biennium to biennium and I give that background just to recall for those who were not through all those Conferences that there has been a rather chequered history of this medium-term objectives exercise.
Following the discussion in the last Conference, the Conference did in fact indicate to the Secretariat the kind of document it wanted for this up-coming Conference and the first point made in the Programme Committee Report in paragraph 2.135 is that in the Committee's view the document now before the Conference, or which will be before the Conference, is in accord with the suggestions and recommendations made by the Council and Conference two years ago and is an improvement over previous documents in this area.
Now the Committee did note a number of specific points that it wished to call to the attention of the Council and the Conference and those are contained in 2.136 to 2.143. I will not attempt to go over those points.
There are two specific comments, however, that I think should be called to the attention of the Council. First, in paragraph 2.144 you will see the reference made by the Committee to the fact that a number of United Nations bodies and committees are making efforts to harmonize medium-term planning work throughout the united Nations System. The Committee had made this point earlier but wished to make it again, while harmonization to the extent practicable and feasible was a desirable objective it should not be pursued for its own sake. Each of the organizations, and particularly FAO, has its own unique characteristics which could not be uniformly adapted to those of the United Nations and other organizations in the System.
Then turning to the final paragraph of this Section, paragraph 2.146 you will notice that the Committee felt that the document provided a useful basis for Conference discussion on the future activities of the Organization but considered that it should now be incorporated into the Programme of Work and Budget where it would be more obviously and conveniently related to the Programme proposals for the ensuing biennium. You will recall that in the Programme of Work and Budget for the next biennium there is a section on Medium-Term Objectives at the beginning of each of the major programmes, for example, Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. This is a proposal that these be expanded so that the whole of the Medium-Term Objective discussion could then be based on the same document as the Programme of Work and Budget and in this connexion, and here I am thinking back to some of the earlier exercises, the Committee wished to restate its opinion that in view of the evaluations of previous experiments in trying to quantify resources over the medium-term and the essential unreality of predicting programme growth for a period of six years in advance, there should be no attempt at quantification in the further efforts at improving the presentation of these Medium-Term-Objectives to the Council and the Conference. The validity, of course, of this recommendation contained in this paragraph can perhaps best be judged after the Conference has been through one more of these exercises but I call it to your attention since it is something that the Conference will want to consider at the end of its next round of discussion on medium-term objectives.
A. CRUIT (United States of America): I will be very brief but my delegation feels compelled to make a few comments on this item. We attach a great deal of importance to this subject and we will have extensive comments to make during the Conference. There are several paragraphs in this section of the Report that we will make some comments on during the Commissions at the appropriate time where we may not be fully in accord with the presentation here. In particular I refer to paragraphs 2.139, 2.144 and 2.146. I do not think we need to go into a discussion on this now and we will go into discussion during the course of the Conference.
W.A.F.GRABISCH(Germany, Federal Republic of): I do not like to comment now in detail on document C 77/23 but only wish to outline the basic attitude of my Government towards the future presentation of Medium-Term Objectives. In this respect the Director-General has made some suggestions in his introduction to the document and the Programme Committee was likewise dealing with that question. We support the recommendation to link in the future medium-term planning with the Programme of Work and Budget. This new presentation will allow us to discuss the future objectives of the Programme on the basis of the respective Programme of Work and Budget. However, we agree with the Programme Committee that no attempt should be made at quantifying the Medium-Term-Objectives. An estimate of the necessary funds as such as an indication, not binding, for a period of more than two years would be based upon substantial factors of uncertainty so that it could not provide a funded basis for a proper assessment. A discussion of such estimates would be of little help and would jeopardize the necessary flexibility of medium-term planning. Therefore, we feel we should also maintain the form of presentation of Medium-Term-Objectives which has proved useful so far when linking medium-term planning with the Programme of Work and Budget.
EL PRESIDENTE: Si no hay más oradores, creo que se toma nota de las observaciones planteadas y concluimos así la discusión de este tema. Naturalmente aquellos miembros del Consejo que quieran referirse a este importante documento podrán hacerlo en la Conferencia próxima.
R.W. PHILLIPS (Chairman, Programme Committee): Mr. Chairman, I take it that it would be your desire to have all of these introduced at one time rather than to try to take each of them separately. However, I would point out that the Programme Committee dealt with only the first four of these, the fifth one being entirely in the province of the Finance Committee. Taking these in turn so far as we dealt with them, I would first point out that the ninth report on the activities of the Joint Inspection Unit for the past year is before the Council primarily for information. At the same time I think you should be aware that it does contain reference to the new statute which had been developed for the Unit and which of course would be before the Conference for concurrence or otherwise, depending on the Conference's judgment. In this connexion, however, you will see that the Director-General expects to recommend acceptance of the statute from FAO's standpoint but with a clarification or an interpretative declaration to the effect that for constitutional reasons the JIU could not be considered as a subsidiary organ of FAO's legislative bodies. Also it is worth recalling by the Council that the annual report of the JIU reflects a significant increase in the number of reports and notes being issued by the Unit. Also, I think if you had had a chance to examine" these, you will see that they are for the most part fairly long documents and with the increased size of the JIU, it seems certain that there will be more activity in the future and that the staff and the governing bodies of this Organization will necessarily have to devote more time to them.
Also, as you will see in paragraph 2.163, there are quite evidently to be increased costs to FAO for the maintenance of the Unit. I would stress in particular the point made in paragraph 2.164 that the Committee expressed the hope that the Unit would in future use a degree of restraint in the preparation of its work programme and would direct its attention to subjects for inspection and evaluation which were of priority interest to the participating organizations.
Turning now to the report on evaluation in the United Nations system, the Committee was generally in agreement with the conclusions of this report. It endorsed the emphasis in the report on the gradual introduction of evaluation systems which were flexible, based on pragmatic considerations, and also it agreed on the need for internal and external evaluation, and of course with the conclusion that internal evaluation should be a part of the management of supervisory functions of each executive head.
The Committee did share the Director-General's reservation about the advisory and overseeing task which the JIU felt it might undertake. It also felt that there was some advantage in the participating organizations agreeing on some commonly used terms but that it would be unwise for the JIU to engage the entire UN system in endless discussions with the hope of arriving at a single and complete set of commonly agreed terms. The Committee endorsed the Director-General's comments on this report and welcomed the Director-General's intention to place primary responsibility for monitoring and evaluation of the regular programmers well as for the activities directly on the heads of departments, division directors and their staff.
Regarding the note on the recruitment of staff in the professional category in the UN system, which is the fourth one but it is third in the report of the Committee so I will take it next, the Committee noted that the recommendations were focused on junior professionals in certain general occupational categories and that for their recruitment there was recommended the establishment of a rather complex interchange system involving the creation of rosters, organization of examining panels and so on. In this connexion the Committee fully endorsed the position taken by the Director-General that since FAO would be making relatively little use of such a system because of the nature of its establishment that this was not something which FAO should become involved in on a fully participating basis. It might prove, however, useful to participate on a fee basis, on a limited basis, if the system appears to provide services that could be effectively utilized to some extent by FAO.
Finally, so far as the Programme Committee is concerned, I would mention the report on technical cooperation provided to integration and cooperation movements in Africa and Western Asia. Here I am afraid the Committee considered that this document, which is the third and last report in the series of documents on this general subject, had major shortcomings and was of limited use to FAO. The report of course did contain some useful information about cooperation provided by the UN system in some of these schemes. But the information was judged to be incomplete, not presented in a systematic manner and did not give due recommendation to FAO's increasing involvement in support of these
integration movements. This of course reflects one of the problems which the Committee has referred to in the past, the tendency of the JIU to tackle global problems instead of the more specific kinds of things where their judgment would be of greater use to the Organization, and so with these general observations the Committee did wish to express its agreement with the Director-General's comments on this report. As I mentioned at the beginning, the Programme Committee did not deal with the fifth of these reports, which is the one on first-class travel.
M. BEL HADJ AMOR (President a.i. du Comité financier): Je voudrais également, à part la question des voyages, présenter les points de vue du Comité financier concernant les autres rapports. Je vais les prendre dans l'ordre où ils sont mentionnés sur l'ordre du jour.
Concernant le rapport des activités du Corps commun d'inspection, le Comité a jugé particulièrement utiles les résumés des rapports qui sont publiés et note que l'inclusion de tels résumés dans les rapports futurs faciliterait énormément l'étude. Le Comité attire l'attention sur le fait que le renforcement de l'effectif des inspecteurs qui est prévu pour le début de l'année prochaine va entraîner un accroissement du programme de travail du Corps commun et par répercussion un surcroît de travail pour notre Secrétariat.
A propos du choix des sujets, le Comité estime que la FAO doit donner son avis sur les questions auxquelles elle porte un intérêt prioritaire, et ce d'autant plus que nous sommes parmi les plus importants contributeurs.
Pour ce qui est des recommandations contenues dans les rapports, le Comité estime qu'elles ne sont pas toutes valables, pratiques et applicables à notre Organisation, et il appartient au Directeur général de déterminer l'utilité et l'opportunité de leur mise en oeuvre. C'est pourquoi le Comité, en conclusion de ses observations concernant ce rapport, estime que le Corps commun d'inspection Hevrait exécuter des enquêtes sur des sujets présentant une utilité et une importance actuelles pour le système des Nations Unies. Le CCI devrait consulter les secrétariats sur le choix de sujets et produire des rapports brefs et contenant des recommandations qui soient précises, techniquement valables et surtout financièrement applicables.
Concernant le rapport sur l'évaluation dans le système des Nations Unies, le Comité, tout en souscrivant aux grands principes énoncés dans ce rapport, rappelle notamment le rôle de pionnier de la FAO en la matière. Certes, il juge qu'une certaine évaluation externe pourrait s'avérer utile, surtout si elle complète le travail fondamental d'évaluation interne. Cependant, le Corps commun d'inspection ne devrait pas se mêler de ce type d'évaluation et le Comité partage à cet égard les réserves du Directeur général, étant souligné que ces nouvelles fonctions du CCI entraîneraient pour la FAO un surcroît de dépenses que le Comité ne juge ni nécessaires ni souhaitables.
A propos du rapport concernant la coopération technique, le Comité financier relève que ce rapport présente de graves lacunes, aussi bien dans l'approche conceptuelle que dans la couverture du sujet. Il éclipse, entre autres, la participation croissante de la FAO au soutien des mesures d'intégration et de coopération dans ces régions. Quant aux recommandations présentées, le Comité juge qu'elles restent trop générales et n'offrent aucune aide à la FAO dans ses initiatives en faveur de cette coopération technique.
Néanmoins, le Comité, tout en souscrivant aux observations du Directeur général, retient que ce rapport pourrait servir de base à une étude ultérieure approfondie des mouvements d'intégration.
Le quatrième rapport concerne le recrutement des administrateurs dans le système des Nations Unies. Le Comité estime que ce système de recrutement de certaines catégories de jeunes cadres est complexe et son application à notre institution s'avérerait difficile vu le nombre limité des postes en cause et en particulier le coût de sa mise en oeuvre qui ne pourrait se justifier sur le plan de la rentabilité.
Enfin, j'arrive au cinquième rapport qui concerne les voyages en première classe dans le système des Nations Unies. Examinant ce rapport, le Comité a estimé qu'il convient de conserver une certaine souplesse touchant le droit aux voyages en première classe et ne recommande aucun changement des pratiques actuelles de l'Organisation, dont les principales lignes sont rappelées au paragraphe 3.108.
Le Comité financier estime que le véritable problème ne porte pas sur la classe du voyage, mais sur le nombre et les buts de l'ensemble des voyages des membres du Secrétariat.
EL PRESIDENTE: Como ha sido costumbre, si los miembros del Consejo lo estiman conveniente, sus observaciones sobre este punto podrían referirse a los comentarios del Director General que normalmente aparecen en el comienzo de estos informes, así como también a las observaciones de los dos Comités del Programa y de Finanzas, Si no Kay ningún comentario, entiendo que el Consejo manifiesta su acuerdo con las observaciones del Director General y las de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas.
S.S. MAHDI (India): In view of the fact that the timetable of the Council does not allow any discussion of many of the important issues which have been commented upon by the Programme and Finance Committees, we would assume that a summary of this non-discussion will be reflected in the report by saying that the Council just took note of these two committees' comments, without any comments, because it would not be proper to say that the Council agreed with these comments.
There are a number of important issues which have been raised and commented upon, and without a discussion there should be no question of agreement.
EL PRESIDENTE: Este tema como aparece en el orden del día era para debate.
S. JUMA'A (Jordan) (interpretation from Arabic): I believe that it is not right that the Programme and Finance Committees should present a report on this matter and that we say the Council has simply taken note of this report. The Council has to express an opinion, and the fact that they do not have a great deal of time does not justify the fact we are only taking note of the report. We should say the Council adopted the recommendations in the report of the Programme and Finance Committees, or the Council could say it does not agree with these recommendations, "but to leave things vague is going to lead simply to endless debates in the Conference.
So it would be good if we were to say that the Council adopts the points of view expressed by the Programme and Finance Committees, and adopts what is contained in this report.
EL PRESIDENTE: Si no hay otro comentario por parte de los miembros del Consejo yo creo que el distinguido Ministro de Agricultura de Jordania confirmó lo que yo estaba empezando a decir; de manera que corresponde, como lo había dicho anteriormente, decir en nuestro informe que el Consejo está de acuerdo con las observaciones del Director General y de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas. En caso contrario, naturalmente, el miembro del Consejo que no esté de acuerdo podrá decirlo. Procederemos así.
S.S. MAHDI (India): I would again like to express the reservation of this delegation on this procedure. Without any discussions it is very difficult for the Council to agree in toto, word by word, what has been presented to us by the Programme and Finance Committees. It is not fair to the Council and not fair to a number of important issues which have been commented on by these two very important Committees.
S. JUMA.A (Jordan) (interpretation from Arabic): I am very sorry to disagree with my colleague from India. We have the possibility of speaking now. If the delegate for India has any comments to make on this he can make them now. But to say that we have not the right to discuss the question, or the question is not before us for discussion is not in line with reality.
You are the Chairman of the Council and have told the Council what they have to say. If they have not said anything it means they agree. Silence spells consent. If members of the Council have anything to say they can say it now otherwise we will assume they all agree. There is no reservation. If any member of the Council has any reservation he should tell us what he does not like or agree with, what question, what page. But to say the question is not before us for discussion is not true.
EL PRESIDENTE: Yo trato de entender la posición del distinguido colega y amigo de India. Asimismo soy consciente de que todos estamos un poco fatigados al final de un día de intenso trabajo, pero igualmente me permito recordar a todos los miembros del Consejo que en determinado momento yo dije que hoy trabajaríamos hasta las 7 ó 7 y media de la noche y agotaríamos el programa previsto para hoy; de manera que los miembros del Consejo tuvieran así ocasión de prepararse. Si no intervienen no es culpa ni de la Secretaría ni del Presidente. Naturalmente, si el distinguido colega de India insiste en la reserva que él expresó constará en las actas.
S.S. MAHDI (India): I never implied that this Council does not have a right to discuss. I am implying just the contrary. In that case, in spite of the lateness of the hour and the fact that in the next few minutes we cannot do justice to these reports and about 10 pages of comments on them, I would like to submit a few remarks.
First of all, I would like to thank the members of the Programme and Finance Committees who had the patience and application to go through the reports of JIU which by their very nature are rather dry and take time to be comprehended. We are very grateful to them, and while we agree with many of the comments on the individual reports, we are a bit concerned about the general approach towards JIU.
In paragraph 2.164 the Committee has expressed the hope that the Unit will in future use a degree of restraint in the preparation of its work programme, etc. I am also joining the hopes: of the Committee, and at the same time I hope that there will also be a certain degree of restraint exercised in our comments on some of these reports.
It has been mentioned in the Committee reports that the work of the Joint Inspection Unit has increased. The work of all the secretariats of international organizations has increased. Once we create an institution it has a tendency to grow. This necessarily does not cause any concern to our delegation. At the same time, we agree that the presentation of JIU reports should be concise, the topics relevant and of current importance.
The basic question that arises is as follows: FAO is a participating organization in the Joint Inspection Unit. It is up to the Secretariat as well as this august body, the Council, to decide whether we remain a passive observer to what the Joint Inspection Unit does or whether we take some more active interest and suggest specific steps or topics which are of concern to us on which we need some kind of external evaluation. Unless we have discharged that part of the function we perhaps cannot complain too much that some of the reports of the Joint Inspection Unit have not been of much relevance to us.
Secondly, a unit which is dealing with matters of system-wide concern obviously will not always deal with subjects which are of valid concern to each and every one of us. This is in the nature of things. So the remedy is that we take a more active and constructive part in the work of JIU and we suggest things which should be examined or reported upon by the Joint Inspection Unit. It is altogether essential because no one in this Council or the Programme and Finance Committees denies the usefulness of external examination on a selective basis. This point has been conceded. We have an institution, the Joint Inspection Unit, it costs a lot to this organization, and it is up to us to make good use of it.
There are two courses open to us: either we make greater use of it or we opt out, but the situation of critizing it and at the same time continuing to remain in it and continuing to bear the costs of the institution, is not acceptable.
In view of the lateness of the hour, I will confine myself to these general observations, and I hope that now that a discussion has taken place our observations as well as the observations that these comments might provoke will find reflection in the report of the Council.
A. STOFFELS (Pays-Bas): Comme vous Pavez demandé, je serai très bref.
Je voulais seulement dire que les observations de ma délégation vont dans la même direction que celles de notre ami de l'Inde.
R. TANABE (Japan): First I have to apologize for taking the floor at this late stage, I would like to express the view of my delegation on JIU matters. My delegation appreciates the role which JIU has played and considers that its activity should be improved in order to make the activities of the United Nations agencies more efficient.
Turning to the report of the JIU my first comment is on the report as operated within the United Nations sytem. I thing this report is very timely and very valuable and the implementations of the proposals which are contained within the document is essentially required, FAO and other agencies . should tackle the establishment of the evaluation system bearing in mind the proposals in the document.
My second comment is on the coordination with country representatives. This matter is very important in view of the effective use of the limited resources. In FAO the increase of country representatives is proposed. My delegation is of the view that in dealing with this country representative matter the proposals which are contained in the report should be fully reflected.
E.M. WEST (Assistant Director-General, Office of Programme and Budget): I am in a little difficulty in replying because I think the majority has been silent except for the voices of the Programme and Finance Committee and those who have spoken have been those who wished to register a slightly different point of view. So if I reply just to those three it is because they have spoken; there is nothing I can say to the majority that have not spoken, except that I welcome their support for the Director-General's comments. Of those who have spoken, although they have expressed different points, I think there is no difference in principle between the majority and minority: it is only a question of to what extent the actual recommendations of the Joint Inspection Unit in these reports, as distinct from the feeling on the Joint Inspection Unit, is important, feeling that it ought to be able to produce effective recommendations which hitherto have been found rather disappointing. There is no difference on that. The question is whether the actual recommendations in regard to this organization are or are not effective.
For example, on evaluation Japan said that we ought to take into account the recommendations. I think the real factors are that they are going to take into account our experience and try to apply some of the lessons that we have discovered to other organizations which do not have evaluation systems. So I think it is rather unfair to FAO to suggest by implication that we are doing something that the Joint Inspection Unit has told us to do. On the contrary, they themselves admit that they have much benefit from what FAO has done in order to apply it to other organizations.
On the question of coordination at the country level, again assessing this in principle, there is a question of detailed machinery, are the details of what the JIU propose practical, do they meet with the realities of development, and in particular, do they meet with the fact of life that it is the country itself which is the sovereign, which is the master, of how it wants its development carried out and how it wants to consult the organizations of the United Nations system. We will do what the countries want us to do, not what the JIU orders us to do. This is the reality of life as we see it.
On the question of the work programme of the JIU, here there is no difference of principle. We will when we think it opportune and desirable and practical make proposals to the JIU, The problem so far has been that they have decided such an enormous work programme that they can scarcely cope with what they have already decided to do, let alone other jobs which we might have thought of asking them to do.
May I point out that over 50 percent of the pages of documentation placed before this Council are pages of the JIU reports. This is a burden which you obviously cannot cope with, let alone the Secretariat. The amount of labour going into this, most of it wasted, is enormous. Perhaps it would be better if they gave us a greater opportunity to think of what might be done instead of deciding to do things that the Council obviously does not find either very relevant or very helpful to FAO in its tasks on the ground.
In conclusion I want to make a more constructive comment, A few weeks ago we had a visit from one of the inspectors. We had very useful and constructive discussions with him and we sincerely hope that with the changes taking place in the unit at the beginning of the year we shall have a more fruitful relationship next biennium.
S. JUMA'A (Jordan) (interpretation from Arabic): I am sorry to ask for the floor after Mr. West has spoken. i believe that what Mr. West said confirms what we have already said as members of the Programme Committee.I did not have an opportunity to go to the Programme Committee but I had to read these reports which really are not worth the paper they are written on. Some of these reports are very bad and they are certainly not useful in the organization and certainly not useful for the members of the Programme Committee - it: is just a waste of time and money. Nevertheless we have to read these reports, to study them and present our conclusion and comments in detail.
It is regrettable to have to say that the majority of the opinions contained in these reports are academic and theoretical and not applicable. They may be applicable in one or other of the Organizations but certainly not in all. We therefore felt that these opinions were not getting any better. On the contrary, all these reports are very bad - worse, than bad. A great deal of the opinion contained in the reports did not express the views of the authors, knowing that an Organization such as ours has to submit to the wish and the opinion of the majority of member countries of the Organization and not to someone who sits in Geneva and emits theoretical pronouncements. After all, we are dealing here with a unit which is completely useless, which has been imposed on the United Nations and we suggest that we should no longer cooperate with this unit.
Mr. West has told us that perhaps this Joint Inspection Unit may change its point of view in future. Let us hope for that, but our experience in the past has been bad, the representatives have gone from bad to worse. They have never been useful to anybody. On the other hand they have always been a great burden on the finances and on the Secretariat of the organization, and this happens every year without any justification.
Furthermore, most of the questions which have been raised by the Joint Inspection Unit are matters which they were not asked to study. It is the author who raises these questions, who presents resolutions and recommendations, but these authors were never asked to do this work, it is just volunteering information, this kind of work is simply a burden on us. Simply reading these reports was excessively boring. They were drafted in a style that was meagre, which was of no value. They were sometimes difficult to understand because they were so badly written. I think my colleagues who spoke if they had studied the reports as fully as I did would never have given their support to these recommendations. I therefore recommend to them to try to read these reports and I am sure that their review of the reports would be worse than mine.
W.A.F. GRABISCH (Germany, Federal Republic of): I had no intention of intervening in this debate, but having listened to the delegate of Jordan I must say that I could not agree with him when he said that the reports of the JIU are of no value whatsoever. I think it has been proved within the United Nations system that it was necessary to have some sort of evaluation service which might have been necessary for other organizations rather than for FAO, but the need has been acknowledged by the majority of the Member Nations of the United Nations.
I am very much in agreement with the delegate of Jordan that the reports of the unit, which I had the honor to read when I was a member of the Programme Committee, are rather boring and are a burden, but on the other hand I think that they open up our minds to some crucial issues which can and could be improved amongst the United Nations system and also within the work of the organization as such.
For example, one recommendation which was given was as a common standard for travel use. There are others, of course. But I am in full agreement with Jordan that the reports as such need to be improved. Perhaps the work of the Joint Inspection Unit needs to be improved and particularly the coordination between those experts and the organizations to which they go and work with and evaluate, that should be very much improved.
I heard in the past that those visits were all rather a burden to the organization, and this should not be the case. But we learn from Mr. West that FAO by giving its own evaluation system as an example to authors contributed and gave a good feedback to the JIU which then was taken into consideration in other international organizations. So I do believe there is a good reason for having that Unit, for continuing the collaboration with that Unit, very close collaboration within the United Nations system and for improving its work, and in particular also its reports.
R.W. PHILLIPS (Chairman, Programme Committee): It is really not the place of the Chairman of the Programme Committee to try to participate in a discussion of the Council's evaluation of the Programme Committee's work on JIU reports. Neither is it the place of the Chairman to try to arbitrate between the somewhat differing views of two members of the Committee. But I did want to give just a few comments that may be helpful to the Council in explaining the problem with which we are currently dealing.
Certainly, to my recollection there has never been any question in the Programme Committee nor in the Finance Committee, as far as I know, about the importance of evaluation exercises, including the value of outside inspection, someone looking over the shoulder, as it were, to help ensure that things were being done efficiently and in proper order. That is not the point at issue here, I think. If the Committee's report seemed a bit testy, I would think this is perhaps the result of an accumulation of irritations, irritations with overly long reports. Someone referred to the Council's documentation being over fifty per cent JIU reports. If I recall correctly, some of the recent sets of Committee documentation have been about nine-tenths JIU reports and one-tenth other things, and yet we had to devote most of our attention to the other things. So there has been an irritation with the unduly long reports, some of them useful, some only moderately useful, some not useful at all; some well written, some poorly written, some very badly written. So that there has been quite a mixed bag of products from the JIU.
Also, the Committee has frequently encountered the complaint from the Secretariat that the JIU staff make demands on the staff without advance consultation. They just say: were are coming on a certain day, be ready to receive us and discuss certain issues, and this kind of thing. So it is an accumulation of these various irritations and unhappiness with the usefulness of the output in a number of cases that perhaps led the Committee to be a bit testy in its comments, and I give that only as background so that the Council will in particular appreciate the fact that the Committee never intended to question the value of evaluation and the value of outside inspection, but has always striven with the hope of getting it done in a more effective way in relation to FAO's needs and desires.
PARVEZ MASUD (Pakistan): Mr. Chairman, you warned us about a night session but now it is becoming a midnight session, so I wonder how long we are going to continue. I also have a point of procedure to bring to your notice: most of the members of the Drafting Group are not here, so I wonder what they will have to record about all this, but perhaps it could be something on the following lines: The Council thought the reports to be of great volume but of little value. I think this would be an adequate summing up of the discussion that has taken place so far.
A. CRUIT (United States of America): I do not want to prolong this at all but I think that what is really coming out here in this discussion is that the reports are of some value. There is a need to reduce the number of reports. There is a need to concentrate on priority items and I think this is really what this Council is saying; and that, I think, is what should be reflected in the report.
EL PRESIDENTE: Creo que el Consejo en general está de acuerdo con las observaciones del Director General de los Comités del Programa y de Finanzas.
Naturalmente, se plantearon algunas observaciones que ha tratado de resumir el distinguido colega de Estados Unidos (gracias por su ayuda) todo lo cual pasará al Comité de Redacción con la esperanza de que esto se refleje en el Proyecto de Informe en un lenguaje mejor que el que parece que se usa en la redacción de algunos de estos informes.
Gracias por su cooperación por haber cumplido el Programa durante este día de trabajo tan intenso.
The meeting rose at 19.20 hours
La séance est levée à 19 h 20
Se levanta la sesión a las 19.20 horas
