CHAIRMAN: I call the meeting to order. We continue our discussions on Chapters 1 and 2. After that the Assistant Director-General, Mr. West, will answer questions put to him during this round, and then we will go on to discuss the rest of the chapters from Chapter 3 onwards.
H. ÖGUT (Turkey): First of all, I would like to congratulate you, Sir, on your election as the Chairman of this Commission.
I shall begin my contribution with some remarks on the resolution submitted by the delegate of Spain. I paid special attention when reading this resolution, since the idea mentioned in it has also been noticed by our delegation.
When comparing the agricultural problems region by region in the world, the European region as a total may appear one of the two less-problem areas. But, in fact, in the European region there are some developing countries, such as my own country, which need FAO's works and coordinationg roles.
In Turkey, 65 percent of the population is engaged in agriculture. Technology used in the agricultural activities is not well organized. Some problems exist, and in their solution we need FAO's help with-in the programmes of the European region.
Therefore, my delegation will fully support the resolution submitted by the delegate of Spain.
I will not go into detail of our ideas on the Programme of Work and Budget for the next biennium. But I cannot conclude my contribution without making some remarks on the research activities set out in the Programme of Work and Budget.
When we examined the document C 77/3, we felt that FAO is still not placing great emphasis on research. without appropriate research, we cannot expect to find any significant solution to our current problems. Other delegations have already mentioned the importance of research, and therefore I will not take up the Commission's time by explaining it again. But I would like to point out some ideas for implementation of research activities.
When we are talking about research activities of international organizations such as FAO, we must not lose sight of the need to bring in expertise, capable of submitting reports. If we want to live in this life-boat that we call Earth, and survive without rocking it, we shall have to bear in mind the subject of research in an integrated fashion.
Therefore, my delegation would like to bring to the attention of the Director-General the need for a broad philosophical approach to research, parallel to applied research, in order that a healthy research growth within countries - especially developing countries - can be achieved in the future.
M. DESSOUKI (Egypt) (interpretation from Arabic): I wish to refer in particular to three subjects of considerable importance with respect to agricultural development in our region, without however belittling the remaining subjects comprehensively covered by the much appreciated document.
I urge FAO to intensify its activities in these three fields through their Programmes through the next biennium:
First, development of water resources, particularly with respect to subterranean water resources, the importance of which is not unknown to dry and semi-dry regions. The other point is agricultural industrialization with respect to increasing the income of agriculture and the income of farmers.
I also join my voice to that of the delegate of Cameroon, for development of fisheries in order to increase the per capita intake of animal protein. Here I wish to emphasize the inland water fisheries and fishing farms, as well as the introduction of modern technology in the area of the marketing of fish.
We attach considerable importance to post-harvest losses, and our delegation has raised this subject in detail in Commission I.
K. ALADEJANA (Nigeria): My delegation agrees in broad terms with the Programme of Work as set out in this document, and we also agree with the level of budget provisions made. We however have a few comments on the agricultural sector.
There are limiting factors to agricultural production in most developing countries. A high percentage of the production is still in the hands of peasant farmers who cultivate small acreages with traditional tools. What they can produce is therefore highly limited, and each farmer is able to feed himself, and possibly one or two others as well. He is greatly handicapped because of his lack of capital to invest on the land to increase production. The introduction of medium-scale technology will go a long way to improve production. The introduction of simple tools will certainly help, but there are other problems which have to be tackled.
These include the training of farmers in the handling of equipment, provision of suitable after-sale service, availability of spare parts, and so forth. We therefore appeal to the developed countries who supply the various machines and equipment to make spare parts readily available.
Another factor limiting production is the land tenure system. In most developing countries, the fragmentation of land does not lend itself to large-scale agricultural production. If farmers could come together and pool their resources it would facilitate mechanization of land preparation and thus improve production.
Most crops are produced under rain-fed conditions. With the uncertainty of weather, as is being experienced in the Sahel Region, there is need to harvest the water resources in the region to enhance agricultural production.
Farmers do not receive adequate remuneration for the produce. Because of poor storage and marketing facilities, a lot of produce is wasted, there being plenty of produce at low prices at harvest time, whereas very high prices must be paid during the off-season.
My delegation, therefore, fully supports the Programme aimed at minimizing after-harvest losses and recognizes food technology and processing as one of the essential ways of producing after-harvest losses.
In all fields of agriculture, fisheries and forestry, a lot of valuable research results are available in the laboratories and never reach the farmers in the field. A better method of disseminating this wealth of knowledge needs to be evolved. This of course calls for improved extension services and training of farmers in order to enhance their ability to use the resources to boost agricultural production.
My delegation agrees with the delegate of Sierra Leone, that a lot of work still has to be done in animal production in Africa - particularly West Africa. Quite a lot of factors are still limiting production. Much as livestock products are required to improve the nutrition of the people, the production of livestock is becoming increasingly difficult due to scarcity of feed. Livestock feed is very expensive and in limited supply because of the competition between humansland livestock for grains. Diseases such as contagious bovine pleuro-pneumonia, trypanosomiasis, foot-and-mouth disease, seriously limit livestock production in a large area. Greater efforts should be made to keep these diseases under control. We look forward to concerted efforts on the eradication of African animal trypanosomiasis. We must emphasize the need to liaise with the national institutions in the African region in implementing various programmes.
In the field of fisheries we agree with the Programme of Work, but we would like to stress the need for the training of personnel at all levels.
In the field of forestry the forestry programme is very clearly set out and is quite comprehensive. My delegation fully supports it. The emphasis on tropical forestry and on the establishment of forest plantations of selected valuable and fast-growing tree species in preference to management of natural forests is very welcome. So also is the emphasis on the development of large-scale, medium-scale as well as small-scale forest industries. All these are essential ingredients to rural development.
My delegation would, however, like to further stress the need for increased training at technical and worker level for plantation establishment and management and also for wildlife. My delegation stresses not only the aesthetic and recreational values of wildlife, but recognizes wildlife as a major source of animal protein to several rural populations.
There is need for the establishment of a strong and intensive extension service in forestry, especially in the tropics, in order to educate the rural community and encourage them to establish their own woodlots to supplement the government efforts. This is very necessary as government resources are limited.
For large-scale clearing in converting natural tropical forests to plantations, my delegation sees mechanization of land clearing as inevitable. Therefore research and training in this direction is very necessary and FAO is implored to pursue this vigorously.
The trend is towards integrated land use and my delegation sees forestry in the fulcrum of that trend. Therefore the proposed Research Centre in Agri-Silviculture is very much welcome in tapping and in diversifying the productivity of a site. It is now known that for successful agri-silviculture it is not only limited to those areas where there is land hunger. I am convinced of the potentials of this system in alleviating hunger as it has proved to be in the past. The forest manager can now grow food crops in addition, and at the same time this will produce two crops.
My delegation would like to touch briefly on desertification as a major cause adversely affecting production and the quality of life in general. Several regional conferences have been held in preparation for a world conference recently in pursuit of a solution to the causes and a remedy to desertification. There is no doubt that bad land management and utilization is one of the main causes for desertification, and my delegation wishes to stress the need for full cooperation with UNEP in arresting desertification and reclaiming these areas already lying in waste.
R. PASQUIER (Suisse): Prenant la parole pour la première fois, je voudrais joindre mes félicitations à celles qui vous ont déjà été adressées, et je vais brièvement vous présenter deux commentaires.
Concernant les chapitres 1 et 2, nous pouvons donner notre approbation, sous la réserve que la rubrique concernant les représentants permanents dans les pays soit encore discutée, comme cela sera le cas ultérieurement, au cours de notre réunion. Pour cette discussion, je voudrais demander au secrétariat qu'il nous présente la liste des avantages pratiques qu'ont à ses yeux les représentants indépendants dans les pays, par rapport aux représentants intégrés dans les bureaux du PNUD. Les documents qui nous ont été présentés jusqu'ici signalent dans les grandes lignes les différences, mais nous n'avons pas vu d'avantages pratiques concernant la différence entre les services qu'on peut obtenir de représentants intégrés par rapport aux services qu'on attend de représentants plus indépendants.
Quant à la résolution présentée par l'Espagne, la Belgique et la France, nous voudrions ajouter qu'à nos yeux une telle résolution a pour point de départ l'universalité de la FAO, et c'est dans ce sens que nous pouvons l'appuyer.
S. S. MAHDI (India): My delegation has already made a statement on general issues in the Programme of Work and Budget, giving support to the new budget level proposed by the Director-General. The purpose of these additional comments that I am going to make is to identify our interests in certain areas chapterwise. It will not be possible for us to make a comprehensive comment on all the items of interest owing to the limitation of time, and I will confine my remarks to only a few points.
First of all, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make some comments on the Fertilizer Programme which is included at page 61, paragraph 26 of the document. In this connexion I can be brief because we have very recently last week discussed the work of the Fertilizer Commission in the Council. Certain conclusions which have been arrived at in the Council we would underline.
In this context we would like to emphasize our interest in the work which is being done for collecting data on fertilizer. However, as we said in the Council, we would like to emphasize in this connexion also that this work cannot be as useful as it could be if the data is made available to member countries only once a year on the eve of the meeting of the Fertilizer Commission. Therefore we •would like to see if some system could be devised through which the data is made available at more frequent intervals. This data relates to production, availability, prices, exports and imports, and if the national ministries could plug in with FAO on this matter the work will be much more useful than what it is now for practical purposes.
In this connexion I would also like to say in preparing the outlook on supply and demand the Secretariat will have to exercise particular care, because giving a wrong assessment may lead to wrong and costly decisions on the part of governments.
The second thing I would like to emphasize in this connexion is the speedy development and implementation of the options proposal scheme which has also been discussed in the Fertilizer Commission and in the FAO Council. In this regard I will endorse the comments made by the representative of Brazil. Coming to another item, Mr. Chairman, in this Commission our delegation has already very generally described our interest in the disposal of wastes and in developing further the bio-grass as another source of energy, and our interest in the non-organic fertilizers, and we would like to see more emphasis being put on this aspect.
Now, I would like to draw your attention to the chapter dealing with crops. Here our delegation would like that work on cereals, other than wheat and rice also in which certain progress has been made, and especially on pulses, should be strengthened and accelerated. As you know, Mr. Chairman, pulses provide a very important source of protein, and unfortunately in this field so far we have not had any breakthrough. If FAO could be of assistance through the regular programme, and through its field programme in this area, this will be very helpful for many developing countries and particularly our own country which is suffering from shortage of this important source of protein. The work in this area would take the shape of collecting information, experiences and also making a detailed study of successful experiments, both in terms of genetic research and in terms of farm practices.
Mr. Chairman, on the sub-chapter dealing with nutrition, I could be very brief. With regard to the Codex work we are on the same wavelength as the delegation of Brazil. We feel that the work of the Codex Alimentarius Commission should be organized in such a manner that it facilitates the access of products of the developing countries, rather than hindering the trade in these products. Also we would like that Codex should identify those products which are of particular interest to developing countries. In other words the work of the Codex Commission would have to assume new orientation, which will be slightly different from what it has been so far. In making these observations I am aware that in the June Council this matter was discussed at length and we are expecting a report from the Secretariat at the autumn Council next year.
Without raking up controversies which were raised in the June Council, I submit that this time interval should be used to have another look at some of the fundamental aspects of the work in this area.
On the chapter dealing with food policy, we are happy to note that a substantial allocation has been made for working in collaboration with UNCTAD in furtherance of the Integrated Commodities Programme. But here also, we would like to caution against too many studies which postpone or delay the decisions either in our intergovernmental groups or under the auspices of UNCTAD.
One delegate has touched on the Industry Cooperative Programme. I do not want to make any detailed observations in this regard. We reserve our position on this and understand that a report will be submitted, but in case the issue is discussed at length, we reserve the right to come back on this.
We do not underestimate the importance of cooperation between industries or multinationals and the developing countries. Here, our concern is mainly with regard to the specific institutional aspects of the FAO/ICP programme.
Since we have already made some general comments in the field of forestry and fisheries, I would like to confine my comments to only one aspect of the fisheries programme, which deals with aquaculture. As you will know by this time, in the policy statement made by our Minister we gave adequate emphasis to this aspect and we hope that the needs of the developing countries like India and others in the field of aquaculture will be taken fully into account in FAO's own work.
One comment on research: I would like to underline sub-paragraphs 18 (b) and (c) on page 77 which indicate the intention of FAO to further and promote cooperation and research among the developing countries and to stimulate research through the national institutions.
In conclusion, I would like to touch on the question of the food industries, which is included in the chapter on crops. It will perhaps be recalled that the last Conference passed a rather elaborate resolution on this subject, and we should like to know how Resolution 12/75 of the last Conference has been implemented during the last biennium and whether the mandate given in this resolution has resulted in any added emphasis on the work relating to food and agricultural products processing. We would be very happy to have this information.
We find that the intentions of the Conference have not been adequately implemented and our delegation would very much like to know whether, in the coming biennium, there is any intention of giving more emphasis to this extremely important aspect of our work.
M. K. ÀL-SIKOOTI (Iraq) (interpretation from Arabic): Our delegation has considered the various programmes proposed by FAO and we find they have covered all aspects of agricultural development and have been enriched by valuable information and by the various remarks made on the development of the programmes.
Yet, in spite of the importance of the proposed programmes, we believe it would be more effective if they dealt with production direct. For example, we all know that the problem of developing rural women in agricultural production mainly depends on tradition and custom in the rural areas. Therefore, the problem is directly linked with the social and economic development of the rural areas.
The same could be said of the use of fertilizers, improved seeds and plant protection. Although farmers feel the difference these make, the low standard of living in most developing countries, particularly the poor countries, does not help those farmers to use the new technological methods for developing agriculture. Hence, our main problem, as mentioned by the Director-General, is to raise the social and economic standard of the rural population in order to emphasise later on agricultural investment in rural areas.
Likewise, it is the responsibility of the interested countries and of their policy in the agricultural sector. Yet, FAO could play a leading and major role in this direction in order to increase the actual size of agricultural production.
By way of example, we would mention active participation in developing the methodology of agricultural planning along sound modern methods. Similarly, the size of investments and participation of farmers have a direct relation to the development of marketing means, agricultural credit and agricultural investment.
Therefore, our delegation wishes to emphasise such programmes as deal with the marketing of agricultural products, agricultural projects, and price policies,
We have gained somewhat through developments in this field, we have achieved some progress and yet I hope FAO will give this point, in future years, additional attention in order to develop marketing methods and agricultural credits in the rural areas, in order to raise the standard of farmers in the developing countries.
We find it necessary to concentrate on the Animal Health Development Programme and also on the raising of poultry. Likewise, we find that not enough attention has been given to the programmes dealing with oil products, and sugar production.
In the area of fisheries, we see that all the emphasis has been on deep sea fishing. However, inland waters could be given some emphasis and attention, as a few delegations have said, because they can contribute towards the increase of animal protein to a considerable degree and thus cover the shortage of animal protein in most developing countries.
The role of agricultural resources is very important in agricultural development and in increasing the sources of agricultural production in developing countries. Therefore, this project should be given full attention so that it may be developed by the various countries.
In conclusion, we wish to emphasise the necessity to give priority to development for the developing countries and, on technical assistance, to emphasise particularly the opportunities available in those countries which have not yet been exploited in an ideal manner. The development of these countries can well contribute to increasing agricultural production throughout the world.
R. W. M. JOHNSON (New Zealand): I wish to speak on two matters covered by Chapter 2, one is a general matter, the other is in particular.
I referred yesterday to our concern over an evaluation of the results of the programmes and an assessment of what actually happens. With other delegates, I find it difficult to focus on so many pages of material. We are not able to visit these projects, but we must accept responsibility for
them. The contribution of the receiving countries to this debate is therefore very important. These countries must show us how well the money is spent, and they must also indicate where the priorities lie. A great deal depends on them.
This compels me to ask if the system of communication could be improved upon. Are there other ways of assessing the priorities for these programmes?
On the other hand, the donor countries must be satisfied that the money is well spent. I should like to ask what processes of evaluation of programmes are employed. The passages in Chapter 2 of document C 77/3 on the progress made are indicative, but not enough. We have raised this matter in COAG and in Commission I, and we have heard that there is an Evaluation Unit in existence. Can its activities be stepped up? Can some of its analyses and results be presented to the Conference? It seems to me that this would be a valuable service to us all.
Secondly, let me refer to our interest in Programme 2. 1. 8, Food and Agricultural Policy. We support the work in commodities, both at the national and international level, and we are happy to find ourselves associated with Brazil in this. We would like to ask when the fourth series of World Commodity Projections will be published.
We also like and support the proposals for assistance at the national level on national policy and planning. This appears to us to be a very satisfactory development in FAO's activities.
O. LUCO ECHEVERRIA (Chile): En primer lugar, permítame felicitarlo por la tan acertada elección que se ha hecho con usted para Presidente de esta reunión. También deseo hacer extensiva esta felicitación a los señores Vicepresidentes por los mismos motivos anteriores.
En relación al presupuesto y al Programa, mi delegación ve con cierta preocupación los fondos que en forma global se han destinado para América Latina. América Latina es una región que tiene un amplio potencial que está en vías de desplegue, pero es por ello mismo que creo que FAO debe mirar con interés las posibilidades de ayuda, especialmente aquellos países que dentro de la región más lo precisen. Con respecto a las materias que realiza con fertilizantes y pesticidas, mi delegación lo ve con especial simpatía, pues estima que el uso de fertilizantes como pesticidas, especialmente en los países en vías de desarrollo, necesita ser estimulado en forma importante y esto tiene más estrecha relación con otra materia que nos interesa, que es el programa que se refiere a las pérdidas postcosecha.
Creemos que guarda una íntima relación una actividad con la otra. En la medida que los hombres que trabajan la tierra vean que pueden obtener mayores beneficios económicos de ella, porque se disminuyen las pérdidas durante y después de las cosechas, es evidente que también se sentirán impulsados a usar mejores tecnologías e insumos que, a pesar de que cuesten un valor de dinero alto, tendrán el retorno adecuado, y es por eso que sobre la pérdida de postcosecha mi delegación ya se extiende en forma adecuada en la Comisión I, y por lo tanto no lo haré en ésta.
Además, mi delegación ve con especial interés y desea manifestar con cuánto agrado vería que FAO ayudase para que se produjera una mayor transferencia tecnológica en sentido horizontal entre las naciones en vías de desarrollo. Creemos que esta actividad es de especial importancia para todas las regiones del Tercer Mundo.
En relación a la Conferencia Mundial sobre Reforma Agraria y Desarrollo Rural, mi delegación siente algunas preocupaciones sobre esta materia. Preocupación que resulta principalmente por lo difícil de tratar este tema. Es un tema que tiene estrecha relación con cada país, con su ecología, con la idíosin-cracia de su pueblo y con el gobierno que en ese momento está rigiendo los destinos de cada una de las naciones. Confiamos que al preparar esa importante Conferencia, se guarde todo el equilibrio y la pon- deración necesaria como para que de ella se obtengan frutos positivos de un tema que por sí es un tanto abstracto. Confiamos que así sea para que no tengamos que decir después, al examinar los resultados, que quizás el dinero invertido en ella, como el tiempo, no produjo todos los frutos que se esperaban. A este respecto, si las circunstancias lo aconsejaran, probablemente mi delegación volverá sobre esta materia en una fecha oportuna.
En relación a la pesca, estamos conformes con lo que se nos propone, y en forma muy especial debemos incentivar las actividades de la FAO especialmente en lo que se relaciona para el aprovechamiento de las 200 millas marítimas y sobre todo con la acuicultura, materia que creemos de especial importancia y para la cual nos permitimos señalar que quizás la nación china podría ser un país que podría proporcionar grandes y valiosas experiencias sobre esta materia. He tenido la suerte de conocer alguna información sobre este rubro que China realiza y creo que es un ejemplo para el resto del mundo de lo eficiente y avanzada que tiene esta tecnología en este gran país.
En relación a montes, veríamos con interés que se destinara mayor preocupación por parte de la FAO para aquellas zonas templadas y frías. Creemos que hay también ahí un potencial grande y muchas veces no lo suficientemente expío tado.
Y por ultimo, deseamos expresar nuestro acuerdo con la resolución presentada por la delegación de España.
A. Z. M. SHAMSUL ALAM (Bangladesh): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for allowing us this opportunity to express our views on Chapters 1 and 2 of document C 77/3 on the Programme of Work and Budget. It is indeed a splendid document of high quality reflecting the provisional scheme and imagination of very high order. The Office of the Director-General rightly deserves our congratulations and appreciation.
I would like to draw your attention to Appendix E of the document at page 307 which indicates the breakdown of the budget by object of expenditure. If I understood correctly, it appears that this budget is more or less an establishment budget of the Food and Agriculture Organization, and obviously the Director-General's Office will know better how best to spend the money.
The budgeted amount will be spent, as the table on page 307 indicates, as follows: around $111 million on salaries, $31 million on common staff costs, $800 million on travel, $7 million on contractual services, $15 million on general expenses and $28 million on other expenses, et cetera, and thereby making a total of $206 million which was revised upward to $211 million. Of the entire amount, except the allocation of $25 million for the Technical Assistance Programme, most of the rest of the amount would be utilized directly by FAO to benefit the Member States to be made available in the form of studies, surveys, technical assistance, advisory services, etc.
If we look at the salary structure of FAO staff on the tables given at the end of the document at page 298 and so on, we observe the salary scales are and should naturally be higher, in this case many times more, than paid in many developing and also even developed countries. Compared to us, it is 30 to 50 times higher for the equivalent services; though quality of these surveys and studies are higher, the cost obviously will be very high.
My delegation suggests that more and more surveys be conducted by the Organization's institutes, universities of the developing countries, and expenses be borne from the FAO budget. This deals with the problems of hunger and malnutrition. In view of the hunger and the malnourished conditions of the clientele, it is perhaps more appropriate to spend the fund of FAO more economically and make best use of the scarce resources. Though the extra-budgetary fund is estimated at around $500 million, it is apprehended that the actual release by the donors may not be as high as that or may even be as low as $100 million. Whatever may be the release by the developed countries, the nature of the expenditure might not be different than in this budget. The proposal on expenditure of the establishment of FAO may be as high as 60 percent of the total budgeted amount.
Back at home, our figures contrast awfully differently. To take the example of the Ministry of Food of Bangladesh, where I am working, our establishment budget which we call non-development budget is in our currency 60 million whereas our food budget is in our currency 89 hundred million. The establishment budget comes to around taka. 79 of the food budget. The comparison I know is not very appropriate but it is an indication.
We suggest that this budget of FAO should be divided into two parts: non-development and development budget, giving an indication of how much fund goes in what direction. A few other points, Mr. Chairman, I want to draw your attention to. The question of post-harvest losses had been discussed in various fora, including the United Nations General Assembly. From the discussion in the Plenary, my delegation gets the impression that this is the most important problem engaging the minds of all experts, and perhaps most important, of course, the question of our increase of food production is obviously much more important. Is this concern of all experts, including our Director-General, President of the Conference, Chairman of the World Food Council, distinguished ministers and plenipotentiaries, reflected in the present budget under consideration? $1. 8 million has been allocated for crop protection and reduction of post-harvest losses. We may also look to the allotment of $7 million at page 174 of the document to advise the Director-General on personnel management, staff development, training, staff labour relations, staff benefit policies.
We are wondering, Mr. Chairman, whether surveys, studies, planning evaluation on post-harvest losses, for which only $1. 8 million are allotted are more or less important than advising the Director-General on personnel management, staff development, staff benefits and policies for which the allotment is around $7 million. If you compare the figures of Forestry and Fisheries, these also will look very
incongruous. We propose that allocations under the head Reduction of Post-Harvest Losses be substantially raised to around $30 million by readjustment of funds now under our examination. Though we consider that our resources could be put to better use than surveys and studies, but we are to spend the amount more on the studies and surveys, etc. , even if that be on issues which we consider more important.
Mr. Chairman, we appreciate the allotment of $95. 5 million for technical and economic programmes, we believe that there is some scope for improvement and suggest the expenditure may be reappropriated from other heads. We suggest that $50 million from here be reappropriated to head Technical Cooperation Programme under sub-head Agriculture, Fisheries, Forestry, under the major head Technical Cooperation Programme. We think that by such readjustment we can readily realize the scarce resources at the disposal of FAO.
Mr. Chairman, we draw your attention to paragraph 16, page 56 of the document C 77/3 which reads as follows: “The objective of self-reliance in developing countries demands that they develop their trained manpower to a level where development programmes can carry on unaided. For this reason FAO places high priority on training activities, especially training for action at the grassroots level of farmers and their leaders, as well as training of technicians, managers and administrators. “
Mr. Chairman, how important is training of extension workers, agricultural, livestock and fishery officers and workers, and particularly farmers? How important is class technology from experts, agronomists and advisors to those who actually work in the field is a need I emphasize. This budget document though in words it reiterates its importance does not follow up by allocation of funds for the purpose of training. We suggest that a separate sub-head with title Training and Transfer of Technology be opened and a special allocation should be made for the purpose. If we understood the state of the speech of our Director-General correctly he wants to reduce the overhead costs and try his best to keep it down. Mr. Chairman, you know much better how difficult it is to keep the establishment costs down, particularly because of so many built-in pressures from inside. Should we not help him by providing our assessment of the size of the overhead cake. There have been many valuable points made by the delegates in the last two days, and all the points have been recorded but did that change the budget by a cent, in the sense of re-appropriation from one head to another or on a new head? I am afraid that, Mr, Chairman, this Commission under your wise guidance does not turn into a commission ultimately appropriating what has been presented to us by the Director. Examination of the budget minutely by the delegates of the Member Nations is, Mr. Chairman, an unwieldy affair. It would be more convenient to form a committee of five to seven members to incorporate and reflect the valuable suggestions given by the delegates in quantitative figures in the budget document. This is one way to avoid indulging in ritualistic exercise expressing noble sentiments, biassed wishes, sweet-sounding talk and platitudinous views.
I conclude, Mr. Chairman, by expressing my thanks to you and to the staff of the Assistant Director-General for preparing a very good budget document, near perfect in technical aspects. Thank you very much.
F. d'ALMEIDA (Benin): Je serai assez bref compte tenu de l'heure tardive. Je voudrais faire quelques commentaires sur un certain nombre de petits points.
D'abord, en ce qui concerne le programme de coopération technique, ma délégation appuie ce programme que nous considérons comme une sorte de programme d'urgence de la FAO. Comme vous le savez, autrefois, il était difficile que la FAO intervienne dans les cas d'urgence. Mais nous souhaitons que ce programme soit un peu élargi car, vous le savez, nous appartenons au tiers monde et aussi, comme on dit actuellement, au quart monde, c'est-à-dire aux pays les plus pauvres, et vous savez que les pays africains sont les plus nombreux dans ce groupe de pays.
Nous souhaitons que ce programme soit un peu élargi afin qu'il comprenne un programme spécial pour ces pays du quart monde et qu'eux aussi arrivent à rétrouver une place un peu plus normale. Nous parlerons plus tard de la décentralisation puisque la question est prévue.
Je voudrais joindre ma voix à celle des délégations des pays nordiques et du Nigéria, de l'Inde et autres pays qui ont demandé que l'accent soit mis sur le programme de nutrition dans le cadre du budget. Autrefois, la FAO s'est beaucoup intéressée aux problèmes de nutrition et on pouvait dire qu'à l'époque elle gérait la sous-nutrition puisqu'il y avait pénurie d'aliments, et que maintenant
elle fait une politique d'alimentation car les produits vivriers sont les plus nombreux. Il serait intéressant qu'en même temps on fasse un programme de nutrition appliquée qui doit d'ailleurs être un programme intégré en même temps qu'on parle de l'aide au développement, de la femme rurale, afin que la femme rurale soit complètement intégrée dans l'économie du développement.
Nous souhaitons que le programme de nutrition soit revu et qu'une place adéquate lui soit réservée puisque nous sommes bien dans l'Organisation des Nations Unies pour l'alimentation et l'agriculture, donc l'alimentation doit y avoir une place aussi importante que l'agriculture.
En ce qui concerne les pêches, nous avons dit que nous serions intéressés à ce que la FAO entreprenne une étude sur les possibilités d'améliorer la pêche continentale. Comme vous le savez, notre pays a à peu près 120 km de cotes, et aussi pas mal de surfaces continentales pour la pêche. Il y a beaucoup de lagunes et beaucoup de fleuves et nous nous rendons compte que la lagune produit de moins en moins de poissons du fait qu'il existe des brèches entre la lagune et la mer, et l'entrée de la mer dans la lagune a permis le développement de parasites qui empêchent le foisonnement des poissons dans la lagune. Nous voudrions que la FAO nous aide à trouver le moyen de revitaliser et réalimenter ces lagunes et ces voies d'eau continentales.
En ce qui concerne la recherche agronomique, nous voudrions appuyer l'intervention du délégué de la France en ce qui touche les paliers et nous pensons qu'il serait bon que la FAO participe au développement de la ressource agronomique dans les pays en voie de développement, notamment en ce qui concerne l'amélioration de la production de plantes et légumes locaux.
Nous apportons aussi notre appui au FIDA et voudrions demander à la FAO d'aider les pays à mettre en place des crédits agricoles pour donner satisfaction aux petits agriculteurs, et que le crédit agricole ne profite pas seulement aux groupements. Il y a suffisament d'individualités dans le cadre rural, et nous aimerions que la FAO nous permette d'aider ces paysans.
Je voudrais parler du problème des forêts en le ramenant au problème du combustible. Vous savez que pour les pays en voie de développement, le combustible ce n'est ni le gaz ni l'électricité comme dans les pays développés, mais c'est souvent le bois et le charbon, avec la déforestation qui a consisté à abattre un certain nombre d'arbres pour faire du combustible, on a beaucoup de mal à reconstituer les forêts, et nous voudrions demander à la FAO de nous aider à trouver des bois qui poussent plus vite afin d'avoir toujours du combustible disponible pour la majorité des paysans, car vous le savez, notre pays est à 90 pour cent rural, et je crois qu'il serait intéressant que la FAO nous apporte son concours dans ce domaine.
Y. LIKE (Ethiopia): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There are two major areas which are very close to the heart of all Ethiopians. These are in the areas of livestock and fisheries. It will be recalled that my country suffered from one of the worst droughts in the peak of 1973/1974, although drought had its effect for the last nine years. While we are grateful to all who have assisted us in these bad moments as it relates to food and related items at the height of and ever since the drought, I would like to let it be known of the apparent neglect of the world community of the development needs in East Africa, although the impact of drought in this region is by any standard unsurpassed.
The second item is in Fishery. In the area of coastal and inland fishery we believe that programmes to study potentials and harvesting of existing stocks within the short run, within the long run development policies have a lot to contribute to raise the protein consumption of the world's undernourished communities. In this respect I would not pass without making note of the effort by some countries bordering the Red Sea, sort of forming a cartel development programme at the exclusion of Ethiopia who has over 1 000 miles of border with the Red Sea.
M. J. RUIVO (Portugal): First of all, I wish to thank you, Sir, for giving us the floor again, as we had in fact already had an opportunity to express my Government's reaction to the proposals presented by the Director-General for the Programme of Work and Budget - which, as we have stated, are supported by Portugal.
We asked to intervene again on a very specific point, because in our view it merits particular reference. We would like to make some remarks on the problems related to fisheries and on the new responsibilities of the Department of Fisheries of FAO at this moment.
In our view, the field of fisheries on a world basis is at a cross-roads. As you know the Third Conference on the Law of the Sea, and the fact that an increasing number of coastal countries had established an economic zone, is creating a new situation in the world of fisheries.
Some traditional fisheries are suffering from the new régime, but what is more important, by establishing an economic zone, for the first time certain aspects of the new international economic order have been translated-into-facts, because the new ocean régime in fact represents a return to a much more just and equitable régime under which the coastal countries acquire the sovereignty of resources within 12 miles, and, for the first time in history, for the exploitation of this sovereignty of the coastal countries.
This situation is just at the beginning, and in a way is creating enormous responsibility for the coastal countries, not only to fulfil the obligation of management, but fundamentally to rapidly use these resources for the benefit of the people to earn foreign currency. At the same time it is very important to facilitate the enrichment of countries which have traditional outside fisheries. In that regard, my Government considers that the programme of the Department of Fisheries is a very approriate programme. We are very pleased to see, particularly in the definition of the medium-term strategy and the establishment of priorities, that these aspects have been taken into account; but in our opinion the magnitude of the problem is such that it would be extremely difficult for the Department of Fisheries and the Regular Programme to fulfil the new responsibilities and to respond to the demands of Member Countries.
In that regard, we would like to make two suggestions for action by the Department.
First of all, we think that more and more the role of the Department should be that of a promoter, and there is a need to mobilize bilateral and international funds in order to assist Member Governments in the establishment of proper national structure, and particularly the training of the local people, on which the development of fisheres will depend.
We also believe that the demand on the role of regional fishery bodies for cooperation and for the transfer of technology is going to increase at a considerable rate. They are also important, in order to present - their views and facilitate through dialogue, in cooperation through the different components of the fishing community.
Recognizing the funds available for the traditiontal role are insufficient to cope with this new demand, we would like to advise the Department and the Director-General to make a particular effort in order to employ other sources of funds to assist in this new situation.
On the other hand, we recognize that FAO should devote more and more attention to production studies and to the management of resources in order to avoid depletion under these new conditions, and there is a need for a rationalization of cooperation with other Agencies.
We expect that FAO would maintain the leadership in the protection of the fisheries' interest, particularly those from developing countries in this new context, and also to ensure that other aspects of protection, particularly pollution - which is created by the developed countries, but affects all countries, and particularly developing countries - are properly taken into account.
Finally, we are convinced that, besides the efforts in the development of traditional resources of the ocean, FAO needs to play a more active role in agriculture. We echo the views expressed by previous speakers on this subject, because agriculture, in the long-term process, is certainly one of the most important sources of production.
Those are the remarks which we would like to make at this stage, and which we intend to develop in other context.
E. M. WEST (Assistant Director-General, Office of Programme and Budget): I am very conscious of the fact that time is short, and that you have the rest of the Programme of Work and Budget to discuss before coming on to certain specific topics which are of considerable importance and interest. I must, therefore, be selective and inevitably “scrappy“ in what I say. The debate, however, has been such that it would merit fairly extensive comments from my colleagues who have a wealth of expert knowledge and experience, which I am sure they would be very anxious to impart in reply to the very constructive debate which has taken place. If I may say so, it has been the kind of debate for which the Conference has been looking for a long time: namely, a dialogue with a number of important things discussed, rather than a formless series of bits, and pieces. Since the Commission may be reluctant to congratulate itself,
may I do so? However, as I said, there is not time for the Secretariat, and in particular my colleagues, to reply in the way in which this dialogue merits. So please excuse me if I reply somewhat scrappilly on their behalf and in the main deal not with the constructive remarks which have been made, nor with the different points of emphasis which many delegates have made, but rather with those points which have raised questions or called for some comment on behalf of the Secretariat. The constructive remarks, and in particular those indicating the interest of delegations in slight changes of programme -or important changes of programme - have been carefully noted by my colleagues and will certainly be taken into account, particularly in the preparation for the next meetings of the Committees on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, where these matters can be gone into in much greater depth.
I would deal first with some general points. One delegate remarked that it seemed that Chapter 2 had gone down in total resources provided, but I think this calculation omitted cognizance or recognition of the fact that the Technical Cooperation Programme accounts for some of the expenditures which otherwise would have appeared last biennium in Chapter 2. The Technical Cooperation Programme is, par excellence, an action programme in technical and economic fields, and it should be counted together with Chapter 2.
On the comments made towards the end by the delegate of Bangladesh about salaries and establishments, I cannot quite agree with his concern, and I think that this Director-General has shown more than any other in the United Nations system, a practical concern with this, which has produced concrete results. As he showed in his opening remarks to the Commission, he has brought down the proportion of salaries to total expenditures by no less than 15 percent of what it was in 1974/75 - and this is no mean achievement, considering the constraints which exist in the United Nations system.
On the other hand, I do not think that the Director-General, would be too happy to respond in the same way to the comments made about expenditures on staff relations, or taking care of the staff. All organizations - bureaucracies, as Ambassador Young would have them called - I think President Truman said that a bureaucrat was a man who had a job that somebody else wanted - cost money: they all require attention, and the head of the organization must be careful of their welfare, not merely for the sake of humanity, but in order to increase their efficiency and to get the best out of it. Therefore, I don't think I need defend further that particular head of expenditure to which the delegate was referring, although I agree with him that it is something that has to be watched.
The delegate of New Zealand spoke about evaluation. That is a separate topic which we can discuss later, but he spoke in terms which I may have misunderstood, but which suggested to me that he had not taken full cognizance of the fact that it had already been decided. Provision is made in the budget for the introduction of Regular Programme evaluation throughout the next biennium. So, if he will bear with us, he will begin to see the results of this and he will be provided with what he wants.
Another delegate referred to the need to perceive in the Programme of Work and Budget an overall effort in terms of training. But training is something that occurs under all substantive chapters, and it would mean totally altering the logic of the structure; and the structure itself, in order to distinguish training. Next biennium, we may be able to provide some indication in the Explanatory Notes of the overall view of this subject. The Conference attaches importance to it, so we will see what we can do.
Turning now to some of the technical issues raised:
One of the points very much stressed was rain-fed agriculture. We share the view that this is of considerable priority, and we are now dealing with it as indicated on page 201 of the Programme of Work and Budget. We are planning in 1978 to organize no less than five national training workshops for field-level workers on rain-fed crop production development and farm management for small farmers in Southeast Asia. We are also planning a regional workshop for the humid tropics. We have taken an initiative in the improvement of productivity in low rainfall areas on the basis, for example, of certain activities in India, Kenya and Tanzania.
I can assure the delegate of the United Kingdom that in considering the production and utilization of quality seed and planting material, we do indeed pay attention to the problems of distribution, marketing and promotion, before we launch forth on seed projects.
A number of delegates expressed concern about pesticides, particularly on the question of better information on the situation on pesticides. We are doing our best to strengthen our efforts in this field; we in fact have one P-4 officer working entirely on pesticides supply and demand. Other officers deal with other aspects of this problem, including registration procedures, safe and effective use, and environmental questions.
In the Plants Division, there are in fact one D-1 and 12 professional officers, excluding the locust group for each country; in addition, there is the information officer I just mentioned, pesticide officers for chemistry and environment and for pesticide use, official control, and training. If we have not added more to our efforts in this coming biennium, it is because we see this as part of our hope for a special campaign against food losses. We have a joint programme with UNEP on a global basis for the development and integration of pest control. We are paying a great deal of attention to these, although at the same time we cannot forget the need, if we are going to increase food production and preserve the crops, for the continued use of pesticides.
Turning now to milk and meat schemes to which reference was made, we consider this to be very important because of the extra-budgetary resources going into them. Specific questions were asked about support for this. We have three professional officers, including support from other divisions working in this field plus consultants, and we also have trust fund posts, three of them, working on meat, so I think we are providing adequate supports, although if the schemes were to receive further donor support we would no doubt be ready to consider providing additional back-up.
We were glad to note the emphasis placed by the delegate from the United Kingdom on the coordination in the trypanosomiasis programme. (I did not trip over trypanosomiasis in the way he did!). We are, in fact, envisaging a meeting early next year of bilateral and multilateral agencies at which detailed action plans will be presented based on the intensive work which has been carried out in consultation with governments and agencies during the last year or so.
The distinguished delegate of Canada expressed some doubts, in this matter, some caution about our projections of the number of cattle that we could increase if we cleared the areas on the fly. I see that we have a fisheries expert of some renown rather than a trypanosomiasis expert sitting in the Canadian seat, but I am sure he will put this information to his colleagues. I would agree with him that no-one can make a precise estimate - especially in this area. I would not care to be one of those who venture into the area to make this estimate, not without a considerable degree of pesticide and chemo-therapeutic protection - but the experts feel that the figures given are not unrealistic. They may even be an underestimate, subject of course to other factors affecting the numbers of cattle that can be produced and maintained healthily in this part of Africa.
We certainly agree that there is need for breeding increased resistance to disease, and this is receiving much concern in the Animal Health Division. One of the priority areas to which they are giving intensive thought is the exploitation of the potential of the trypano-tolerant cattle in Africa, particularly in West Africa. This was also referred to by the distinguished delegate of Sierra Leone. In fact the special needs of West Africa are being studied at the present time by a team of FAO and UNEF experts in consultation with the specialists of the Livestock Development Centre for Africa. West Africa is also included in our programme for the control of ticks and tick-borne diseases.
Before turning to the economic and social area, I would like to deal with the question raised by the distinguished delegate in India. He wanted information on the implementation of resolution 12/75. That is a very hard one to deal with, especially at this stage in the proceedings. The resolution in question occupies one and a half pages of the last report and covers inter alia eight major programme activities, so in effect his question is what have we done to implement the resolution concerning food losses, reducing imports, increasing self-reliance, providing employment and reducing income gaps, ensuring better market opportunities, increasing foreign exchange earnings, reducing population migration, inproving standards of nutrition, increasing opportunities for investment in rural areas and so on. I am afraid I could not possibly answer that today in the time available. I can, however, refer him to the fact that some of the progress made in the implementation of the resolution was in fact given to the Committee on Agriculture in document COAG 77/3 and in the discussion in COAG at the time, so I can assure him we have not been idle. In fact we have achieved a great deal.
The distinguished delegate of the United States was concerned about programme management under programme 2159. He wanted to know why there were so many man-years under that programme. I think this is the first question raised about the programmes which are called programme management. This particular •programme covers the direction of two divisions: ESH, the Human Resources, Institutionsand Agrarian Reform Division and AGS the Agricultural Services Division, so it is not just the one division with a heavy overhead; it is two. Furthermore, in this we have no less than 32 man-years for general services, of which 12 alone are for a typing pool. Now, if they have a typing pool instead of individual secretaries they will be shown under programme management and this makes it look large, but in fact it is only a
convenient way of avoiding spreading support staff artificially over a number of substantive programmes. I can assure the distinguished delegate of the United States that there is no mystery, no misuse of resources, and I hope we need not come back to the management programmes for further dlscussion.
Nutrition figures largely in the debates, and rightly so. I have dealt with this subject to some extent in answer to the debate at the general level. I think it was the distinguished delegate of Denmark who expressed specifically concern about nutrition being reduced. It is not the division in headquarters that is being reduced but a certain reduction in some of the regional offices because of a shift in priorities, and we think it is a correct shift in priorities. Instead of concerning themselves, as they were obliged to do, with planning activities and studies, they have shifed their emphasis, as has headquarters, to activities. As regards the Food Policy and Nutrition Division, in case someone says we ought to have increased Staff at Headquarters, there are a number of arguments which could be given in reply to this, but the main one I would like to give at this point is one which will satisfy some other delegates who spoke of the need for efficiency. We are in fact increasing the efficiency of this Division whilst not increasing its resources. One of the main ways in which we have been able to achieve this is, as I have indicated, that we have cut down very large increases that had been planned for nutrition master-plans which received so much criticism at the last Conference.
Turning back again to the distinguished delegate of the United States, he also asked why the extra-budgetary resources for nutrition were so high in relation to the Regular Programme. I do not know whether he was implying this was a good thing or a bad thing. While I think it would be a good thing, the fact is that a large part of this extra-budgetary programme is due to OSRO activities in the Sahel which I think many delegations very strongly support including the United States.
Now there was a more important point raised about the need for a quick and reliable methodology to assess the impact of FAO's policy and programmes on the nutrition status of low-income consumers in the developing countries. The fact is we do try to build into every nutritional activity in the field, as indeed into all field activities, a form of evaluation by carrying out the exercise which provides a feedback for improving project efficiency and seeing what effect we are actually achieving. This is particularly the case, as you know, for World Food Programme projects and for those programmes concerned with feeding vulnerable groups. At the moment, however, we are also testing a specific nutritional evaluation mechanism in some countries to see what effect agriculture development plans are having on the nutrition of the rural poor. This is being done through the establishment of nutrition surveillance/assessment. This is not just a monitoring system but also it is an effort to foresee impending food shortages which will lead to a deterioration in the nutritional status of these groups.
We are doing this work in conjunction with the World Health Organization and UNICEF in a number of countries; in Bangladesh, Peru, Philippines and Upper Volta. We will be submitting a progress report on this to the ACC Sub-committee on Cooperation and also to the next Ad Hoc Committee of the FAO Council on Food and Nutrition Policies next year.
I am glad to say I have also been given a reassuring note on the subject of Codex to which the distinguished delegate of India referred. It says that it has already been decided to establish regional coordinating committees devoted to the particular needs of the developing regions and productions of particular interest to developing regions that are being, and will continue to be, the subject of special attention by these regional committees. The recent discussions, not to say controversies, about the work of Codex are being considered by the Commission and the Codex Alimentarius Executive Committee. They will be reporting in due course. This will be considered in April next. The Director-General will be reporting to your Council at its autumn session next year on that subject.
Cooperatives: I mentioned this yesterday although I did not specifically say that part of the problem was that cooperatives are now dealt with not separately but under the Rural Institutions and Employment Programme, although the group is still clearly identifiable in the Organization Chart for the Human Resources Division a P-3 post has been abolished at Headquarters, but it has been replaced by an additional allocation for national institutions and we think this is in line with what is generally desired.
Similarly, local marketing infrastructure is covered both in the activities under semi-subsistence producers' participation in marketing systems, and the improvement of marketing methods as a means of reducing post-aarvest losses.
A very important question was asked about population. This, again, is not, has not and I think will not, be a separately identified substantive programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization. It will, however, be a component of our own ongoing activities under a number of fields such as education, training, extension, agricultural and rural institutions, food and nutrition activities and so forth. I would not swear to this particular figure, but I would say that overall we are spending quite a considerable sum in fields which could be regarded as conducive towards population activities - and I would stress population activities supported and requested by Member Governments - of about $ ½million per year. The remaining effort of FAO comes from the United Nations Fund for Population Activities; we are receiving allocations to execute projects in the region of about $ 2 million. The spread of these activities, in response to requests from governments, and not dictation from FAO, is rather wide; it covers all regions.
Now I come to an even more sensitive subject perhaps. That is research - another activity where it is virtually impossible to convey, in a logical, identifiable, separate form, the manifold aspects of our involment in and impact upon research.
It was suggested by a number of delegates, including Brazil, that more emphasis was needed on this. We certainly appreciate this, and will endeavour to provide this emphasis, not necessarily with an increase in Regular Programme resources, but not excluding that, either if the circumstances should justify it, and if we can fit it into the Programme of Work and Budget. I think we are much more concerned to preserve our particular interest in this field, which is to assist developing countries in their national efforts, while at the same time bringing our influence to bear on global research activities.
I do not want to go too deeply into this, because my colleagues - more expert in this and more directly involved in certain consultations which are going on at the present time - would be able to answer this much better than I. I would only note, at this point, that the Secretariat fully appreciates the concern expressed by the Programme Committee about certain projected recent developments. We would welcome further expressions on this matter by the Conference.
I mentioned the delegate of Brazil, and since he is here - despite his many responsibilities in various Commissions and groups - I would like to take up another point he made about the table on page 187 of Regular Programme of Work and Budget. I am not sure I followed this point too well, but if we look at the Regular Programme, I find it hard to accept that we are not giving sufficient priority to Latin America on the basis of the figures shown there. I do not suggest there is any particular merit in comparisons here, but the fact is that Latin America has more or less the same as Asia and the Far East. I hope that does not lead to repercussions from Asia and the Far East, saying they ought to have more.
On the other hand, I would admit that the extra-budgetary figures for Latin America are disappointing. We stand fully ready to respond to Member Nations of the region who desire us to help them raise that figure for extra-budgetary resources, but it is not one that we can raise ourselves. We can certainly help, and perhaps we ought to do more to help.
I have not yet dealt with Fisheries and Forestry which could take a very long time in themselves. However, I heard nothing controversial on this, there were various emphases on aquaculture, inland fisheries, Ìthe need to respond to Member Nations, needs in the light of changes in the régime of the seas, about which the delegate of Portugal spoke specifically. We are glad to find that we are working on the right lines and we have tried, in the Programme of Work and Budget, to make the necessary shifts in resources towards these ends. I know that the Fisheries Department will not be lacking in diligence for one second in order to digest what has been said and bring it home to you in the next budget exercise. The same applies to Forestry.
Finally, two small points. One I must say is a slightly acerbic one. I think one delegate wanted a list of the practical advantages of having FAO Representatives over Senior Agricultural Adviser/ Country Representatives. Not only did this come up in Chapter 2 - which is a minor point - but the policy of having FAO Representatives has already been decided, on the basis of a fairly full exposition of what the advantages are. There are positive advantages, not necessarily advantages compared to something else.
The UNDP has decided on and is implementing even more rapidly than perhaps we would wish the abolition of Senior Agricultural Adviser/Country Representatives, so I do not know why we should spend any time at all in this Conference discussing the question.
Finally, a purely factual answer: the Fourth World Food Survey went into print one week ago. The first series of agricultural and commodity projections to 1985 will be out at the beginning of 1978. The second series on tropical products and raw materials will be out in mid-1978.
Thank you very much, I apologize that this answer has been rather disjointed.
CHAIRMAN: I thank the Assistant Director-General for his detailed answers to the very many questions, I am sure we are all grateful to him. Before going on to the next topic, are there any delegates who would like to respond to Mr. West's very detailed explanations?
B. de AZEVEDO BRITO (Brazil): I would thank Mr. West for his detailed and very informative answers. I omitted to mention one important point on forestry which I should have brought up at the time of the Council.
There is a comment in the Programme of Work and Budget on the shift of emphasis to smaller mills. We would agree with that, but we have been repeating this without going into detail - that is our feeling - on perhaps the crucial question involved in a shift of emphasis in trying to define workable operations in terms of smaller mills, in forestry.
We feel that in this case there is probably quite a possibility and scope for research to define what to produce under which conditions and how to market products. That is probably a basic point which has somehow not been made explicit. We feel it might be useful for FAO to cooperate with interested countries in trying to find solutions to these problems basically of planning generally and planning in research.
That comment is for the attention of our friends in the competent department and I am sure they will not completely forget it.
E.M. WEST (Assistant Director-General, Office of Programme and Budget): We are grateful for this clarification which has been noted, and if it is possible the Forestry Department will get in touch with the delegate of Brazil even before this Session is over.
CHAIRMAN: Are there any other comments?
We now move on to the next section of the Programme of Work and Budget. Since we are lagging behind our time schedule, we had better deal with Chapters 3 and 4 and the other chapters together.
J. BERTELING (Netherlands): A few delegations have already commented on the chapters now under discussion, but I would like to deal with a few programmes in Chapters 3 and 4.
First, on Chapter 3, Programme 3.1, Field Programme Planning and Liaison, in his Medium-Term Outlook the Director-General gives some information on the relationship between FAO's technical assistance, financed through his Regular Budget and through extra-budgetary resources. In fact, it is only a small amount of the agricultural assistance activities in the developing countries, since the World Bank, IFAD, the Consultative Group on Food Production and Investments and other similar organizations and bilateral donors have activities in this field.
It is hoped that FAO and the UNDP will work together to coordinate all these activities at the country level in order to increase efficiency and effectiveness. In those circumstances, country intelligence and the backstopping of the FAO Country Representatives is of the utmost importance.
Concerning Programme 3.2, Investments, much has already been said and especially the importance of investments has been stressed. My delegation can agree with the proposed programme, and we hope that a very close relationship with IFAD will come into being.
My delegation is grateful to Mr. West for his clear reaction to our question put earlier to the effect that FAO can and will pay its share to the CGFPI budget if it is continued.
On Programme 3.3.3, Industry Cooperative Programme, an analysis of a programme is always useful, but unlike the Programme Committee, we are not assured of the necessity to change the status of the Industry Cooperative Programme as long as the Conference has not reviewed such an analysis. My delegation is of the opinion that the ICP activities can be quite important and fruitful, and since there are no regular budgetary resources involved, FAO can gain by the present structure.
My delegation already made its point of view clear on the FAO representatives, Programme 3. 4. We think the proposed increase in the number of FAO representatives is too high. Mr. West's reaction just now and yesterday was that the UNDP is phasing out the old-fashioned special agricultural advisors and that therefore his hope to speed up the increase is logical. UNDP's action, however, is a consequence of FAO's policy. The agreement reached between UNDP and FAO is only the consequence of that policy again.
Finally, the Technical Cooperation Programme: my delegation has no problems with the Technical Cooperation Programme for the time being, especially as we were reassured that the activities under the Programme are complementary to other programmes and are well-coordinated. Indeed, we hope that the Secretariat will be able to make the category of”miscellaneous” clear. We shall await the results of the evaluation that will be taken care of in 1978, and on these two chapters, Chapters 3 and 4, I think my delegation will use some time in discussion on the review of field programmes.
O. LUCO ECHEVERRIA (Chile): Quisiera solamente formular algunas breves observaciones relacionadas con el Capítulo 4, Programa de Cooperación Técnica.
Nosotros creemos que el Programa de Cooperación Técnica es una importante y dinámica actividad de la Organización y nos complace comprobar la relevancia que se le atribuye en el Programa de Labores y Presupuesto.
Es ampliamente satisfactorio observar que en 1977 el Programa ha puesto un énfasis especial en sectores técnicos que tienen un efecto más importante sobre los aumentos de la producción de alimentos, tales como la producción de semillas, el fomento de tierras y agua, la producción de vegetales, la sanidad animal y la capacitación de gentes de extensión agraria. En cuanto a las orientaciones futuras del Programa apoyamos firmemente el propósito de dar una mayor importancia a la preparación de inversiones en colaboración con los organismos financieros competentes y en forma muy especial con el Fondo Internacional de Desarrollo Agrícola. El aumento de las inversiones agrícolas es de una enorme importancia para los países en desarrollo; es, en realidad, un requisito para que tales países utilicen tecnologías más avanzadas y para que modernicen sus actividades en el sector. Por otra parte, nosotros, en Chile, tenemos experiencia directa con respecto a este Programa, lo que nos permite emitir un juicio fundado sobre él.
Efectivamente, Chile ha participado en este Programa y se cuenta entre sus beneficiarios. El Programa es una buena demostración de la capacidad de la FAO para dar una respuesta rápida y eficaz frente a situaciones urgentes que suelen presentarse en los países en desarrollo y que obstaculizan los esfuerzos de todo orden que éstos hacen para incrementar la producción de alimentos. En el caso de Chile fue un problema serio que tuvimos de ácidos en relación con la producción de trigo y además eso estuvo interre-lacionado con otras enfermedades como el enanismo amarillo; la suma de ambos llevó a mi país a una situación extraordinariamente difícil y se recurrió al Programa de Cooperación Técnica. En esa oportunidad la FAO demostró su agilidad y capacidad para ayudarnos a solucionar el problema. Este es uno de los ejemplos que deseo señalar por lo significativo e importante que fue para nosotros poder contar con esta colaboración.
Volviendo al tema que nos preocupa, continúo diciendo que como se trata de un Programa iniciado hace muy poco y fuera de algunos casos concretos como el que señale en este instante, no se puede medir en forma exacta sus resultados, pero nuestra experiencia hasta la fecha nos permite confiar en forma amplia que su actuación en el futuro hará que el resto de los países que forman parte de esta Organización tomen plena conciencia de su gran importancia y su necesidad de ampliarlo si es posible.
Observamos que los recursos financieros que se destinan a este importante Programa son más bien modestos, pero, no obstante, apoyamos las propuestas contenidas en el Programa de Labores y Presupuesto para complementar un presupuesto de 25 600 000 dolares para el bienio 1978–79, tomando en consideración que el Programa utiliza en cierta medida los servicios generales de la Organización, incurriendo por lo tanto en gastos administrativos de mínima cuantía.
Esperamos, no obstante, que la inclusión del Programa de Cooperación Técnica en el Programa de la FAO para el próximo bienio, con la asignación de la suma indicada, sea sólo el comienzo de una acción mucho más profunda y amplia en el futuro. Estamos ciertos de que los países en desarrollo podrán así obtener de la FAO una asistencia cada vez mayor y que tal asistencia les ayudará a superar sus problemas más apremiantes y críticos y a acrecentar, por lo tanto, el aporte que hacen al esfuerzo común dirigido a alcanzar niveles de producción en el mundo compatibles con los requerimientos de una población en continuo crecimiento.
C. THOMSEN (Denmark): My remarks will be limited to Chapter 3 and within this chapter, in fact, to the Programme on Investment. In making these remarks, I am speaking on behalf of the Nordic Countries, that is, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark.
I would like to say first that both as far as the medium term and the coming biennium are concerned, we fully agree that it should be a major objective for the FAO to assist countries in obtaining more funds for investment, because the role of the Organization will be mainly with regard to the provision of assistance for the preparation of viable projects and for their implementation. We have noted with interest a description of the development under the FAO Bankers' Programme in addition to the other cooperative programmes, and we recommend particularly continuous expansion of the assistance given to national development banks.
Also, as part of the attempt to assist the developing countries to become increasing self-reliant, we would like to emphasize the importance of training of national staff in project formulation in order to build up local skills in this field.
With regard to the proposed Investment Support Service which it is stated will assist countries in cooperation with financing institutions and independently, we feel it is proper to express a note of warning as far as the latter is concerned, that is, independently. Although there is a growing demand for the preparation and formulation of projects, it is important to avoid abortive attempts. It is therefore preferable, we feel, to involve the financing institutions at an early stage, not only in order to ensure the possibility of financing but also to avoid overlap in the work of preparation.
Finally, we fully support the need for the Investment Centre to collaborate closely with other units of the Organization. This constitutes still another problem of management, and we hope that continued and increased attention will be devoted to this problem, as we have already referred to it in regard to other sectors of the Organization.
C.R. BENJAMIN (United States): On Chapter 3, Development Support Programmes, with regard to Investment Programme 3.2, the United States believes an examination of FAO's overall activities in this area, including the Investment Centre, should be reviewed by the Programme Committee at the earliest possible time, taking into account the views expressed by Ministers in their Plenary statements. With the creation of IFAD, we believe such a review would be most timely. In examining the effectiveness of FAO's Investment Programme, one measure would be the success rate of FAO investment proposals funded in comparison with the number of man-years expended. In approaching its future activities, like the delegate from Denmark, we would also recommend that FAO avoid expending its resources devising proposals for capital investment when there is doubt that financial institutions will fund them.
We support the Netherlands comments on the Industry Cooperative Programme. Like them we understand the Programme will be subject to reexamination and that a proposal will be placed before the spring 1978 session of the Programme Committee. We have been impressed with the work of the ICP over the past decade and regarded it as an important channel for providing technology and other industrial resources to help meet the priority needs of developing countries. We think the programme is a vital arm of the UN system and, therefore, look forward to the review and the report concerning its future course.
Regarding Chapter 4, Technical Cooperation Programme, at the 71st session of the Council the United States indicated it would accept the TCP for 1978/79 if an objective evaluation of the TCP would be carried out in time for review by the autumn 1978 session of the Council. The objective is to assist
Member Nations in reaching a decision on the future of the programme after 1978/79. It is our understanding that arrangements have already been made for an independent highly regarded person to undertake the review with support from FAO's evaluation service. Under these circumstances we will support the continuation of TCP in 1978/79 but believe it should focus more on emergencies, and meeting short-term gaps. Uses to date to the extent identified indicate that these areas have not received the greatest attention.
I have a few other brief comments, Mr. Chairman, regarding publications. We regret the annual Per Caput Fibre Consumption Report has been discontinued and we hope that ways may be found to reinstate it. The United States has valued many of FAO's publications, supports the publication plans for 1978/79 and generally supports the publication programme. We do question if publications such as the following are of high priority. Regarding AGS 20 Non-Mulberry Silks we wonder if this is of sufficiently wide interest in applicability to justify the preparation of an FAO main document. Regarding AGS 24, Cashew Nut Processing, although we recognize it is important to some countries such as Jordan, in view of the limited areas where cashew nuts are produced, we wonder if the preparation of a main document on this subject is justified.
Regarding ESS 17 and ESS 18, both of which relate to food consumption surveys, we wonder if it would be feasible to consolidate these into a single publication, or whether this would interfere with the effective use of the programme and manual sectors.
The proposed actions for purchasing and control and contracts are commendable. This is Programme 5.2.1. A progress report would be useful and it might be submitted through the Finance Committee to the Council at an appropriate time during the coming biennium. Also the United States is interested in knowing why all of the costs for 5.2.1.7. with regional offices, why all of the costs are attributed to the regular budget. Fourthly, the meeting of the Committee on Food Aid may have clarified this next item, but we would be interested in knowing why in the table on page 173, this is programme 5.2.3. $398 000 is expected from the World Food Programme for management services when WFP is apparently budgeting only $364 000 for this purpose.
Similarly in the table on page 175, programme 5.2.4. also on World Food Programme, we wonder why $464 000 is expected from the World Food Programme for personnel services, whilst WFP apparently has $526 000 budgeted for personnel work.
On page 174, paragraph 4, there is a reference to special efforts to recruit women and we wonder what results have been achieved to date. Likewise an explanation would be appreciated of why $2 002 000 for programme management, under programme 5.9 are expected from trust funds and only 698 000 from the regular programme and UNDP combined.
Finally, Mr, Chairman, we would like to know why extra-budgetary funds pay about 35 percent of total premises costs, but only 25 percent of cleaning, utilities, and so forth. Should not extra-budgetary funds pay roughly the same share for both. These items are fairly small here at the last, Mr. Chairman, and it may be that the Secretariat would rather give us answers to these individually, which would be acceptable to us.
D.M. ULNES (Norway): Mr. Chairman, I shall limit myself to Chapter 4. I am making this statement on behalf of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Sweden and Norway, and I would like to make the following brief remarks.
In the Director-General's proposal for Programme of Work and Budget for 1978/79 it is proposed to increase the budget for the Technical Cooperation Programme from 18.5 million in 1976/1977 to $25.5 million in 1978/79. According to the budget explanations the increase in real terms is only 1.5 million while cost inflation is calculated at 5.5 million. In absolute terms this still represents a considerable expansion during a very short time, as the TCP has been operative for only one year.
When the FAO Council at its 69th Session discussed the Director-General's proposal for a TCP, several delegations, the Nordic countries among them, had serious doubts about the advisability of such a programme and it was decided ¡as a compromise to authorize the Director-General to establish TCP for a trial period until the end of the budget period in 1976/77.
The basis for this doubt was the general feeling that funds for technical assistance should primarily be channelled through UNDP which is the central body within the UN system for financing technical cooperation. We have, however, in view of the overwhelming support that the TCP has enjoyed from the developing countries, including others, have stood ready to accept the Director-General's budget proposal for the TCP for the coming biennium. We would like, however, to point out that in the execution of the TCP programme the Director-General should take the following four points into account. Number 1, we assume that the small-scale nature of the programme, the gap filling and complementarity in its appearance will be pursued.
Number two, TCP-funded projects should be carried out in closest possible cooperation with UNDP resident representatives, and to the extent possible as far as the nature of the project is concerned the TCP should be integrated in the UNDP country programming process.
Number three, preference should be increasingly given to TCP allocations to the least developed, or MSA countries. We have noted from the Programme of Work and Budget that nearly 56 percent of the funds were allocated for these categories of countries. We would like to stress, we would prefer to see this share increased substantially and in line with what was stated in the Programme of Work and Budget Introduction, that the basic purpose of the TCP was to permit FAO to respond to urgent requests, with the emphasis to raise food production in MSA countries.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, coming to Point number 4, the evaluation report should, as foreseen, be presented to the autumn 1978 session of the Council. This evaluation report should assist the performance as suggested and adherence to the criteria laid down in order to make complete analyses of its activities on the basis of its performance.
G. WEILL (France): Je ne reviendrai pas à propos du chapitre 3 sur ce que ma délégation a eu l'occasion d'exposer hier en ce qui concerne les représentants dans les pays. Nous avons demandé, étant donné l'importance de la charge financière et de l'accroissement budgétaire que représente la mise en place de 47 représentants dans les pays et de leurs 170 collaborateurs, étant donné également la difficulté du choix et de la mise en place de ce personnel hautement qualifié, que cette mise en place soit étalée dans le temps. Mais je voudrais aborder deux questions d'ordre général se rapportant à l'ensemble du Programme de travail et budget, d'une part les réunions, d'autre part les publications. Les réunions sont mentionnées dans les notes explicatives que l'on trouve au début du Programme de travail au paragraphe 6.8 page 34 du texte français. Quant aux publications, elles apparaissent au chapitre 5 sous la rubrique 5.1.4, à la page 182 du texte français.
En outre, nous disposons de deux excellents documents de travail, suppléments au Programme, le supplément numéro 1, qui a trait aux publications, et le supplément numéro 2 ayant trait aux réunions. C'est sur ces deux excellents documents, dont je tiens à féliciter le Secrétariat, que nous avons particulièrement travaillé.
Commençant par la liste des réunions, le document C 77/3 Sup.2, nous notons, et nous voulons en exprimer toute notre satisfaction, que le nombre des réunions pour 1978/1979, tel qu'il est programmé, est en diminution, en règle générale, sur le nombre de réunions approuvé pour 1976/1977. Nous voyons en effet que seules ont augmenté les réunions ayant un objet de formation. Le nombre de ces réunions passe de 8 en 1976/77 à 45 pour 1978/79. C'est là une évolution qu'il convient de noter et de saluer.
Nous voyons simultanément que le nombre des réunions des conférences régionales, du Conseil et des organes subsidiaires a diminué puisqu'il passe de 28 à 23. C'est là une évolution certainement favorable dont nous tenons à féliciter le Directeur général. Ce document tel qu'il est établi expose avec beaucoup de clarté le régime des différentes réunions de cette Organisation.
Je voudrais retenir l'attention de la Commission plus particulièrement sur les réunions de la Catégorie III. Celles-ci, d'après ce que l'on peut lire dans le document dont je parle, sont des réunions de membres de listes d'experts, de comités et des groupes de travail d'experts, composés de personnes choisies par la FAO à titre individuel, dont la participation est normalement défrayée par la FAO. Ce sont donc des réunions prises en charge par le Programme ordinaire; je dois dire à cet effet que le tableau très complet qui nous est présenté n'est pas satisfaisant pour ma délégation et je m'explique. Le document du Secrétariat distingue, avec des numéros de code précisés en tête, les sessions de; formation portant un numéro de code particulier, 900 à 999, les autres réunions d'experts et réunions d'organes subsidiaires.
Commençons par les sessions de formation qui, dans le tableau que nous avons sous les yeux, portent le numéro de code 900 à 999. Celles prises en charge par la FAO sont au nombre de 45, et nous en avons le détail dans ce document. Je dois attirer l'attention de la Commission et du Directeur général - dont je sais qu'il est très sensible à ces problèmes - sur le fait que, sur 45 questions de formation 25 d'entre elles se tiennent uniquement en anglais, deux sessions en anglais et en français, deux sessions en anglais et en espagnol, une session en anglais et en arabe et trois seulement sont des sessions trilingues, trois ont lieu en français exclusivement et deux exclusivement en langue espagnole.
On trouve un déséquilibre analogue en ce qui concerne des réunions d'experts et assimilés choisis par la FAO, convoquées par elles, payées par l'Organisation sur les crédits du Programme ordinaire; ces réunions portent dans ce tableau le numéro de code 800 à 899. Sur 21 réunions, 11 sont en anglais, et j'ai le décompte des réunions dans les autres langues.
Je ne veux pas abuser du temps de la Commission mais je dirai simplement que cette même situation se retrouve en ce qui concerne les organes subsidiaires N° de code 700 à 799, où, sur un total de 38 réunions prises en charge par la FAO, j' insiste car cela est important, 25 se déroulent en anglais et je vous fais grâce des détails sur les réunions en anglais/français, en anglais/espagnol, etc.
Cette situation ne paraît pas satisfaisante à la délégation française. Elle tend, je regrette d'avoir à le dire, à rendre plus difficile l'accès de participants qui ne sont pas de langue anglaise à des réunions tenues par notre Organisation et financées par le Programme ordinaire. A notre avis, un remède doit être recherché et apporté à une telle situation.
En ce qui concerne les publications, au programme que j'ai mentionné 5.1.4 et dans le supplément 1 au Programme de travail et de budget, nous voyons - du point de vue auquel je me suis placé s'agissant de l'équilibre linguistique - une situation qui, contrairement à celle que je viens de signaler, est satisfaisante quant à l'équilibre des différentes langues de travail. Je dois cependant ajouter que si les publications, dont la Division des publications est responsable, sont effectivement produites en respectant les différentes langues de travail, la situation n'est malheureusement pas aussi satisfaisante, tant s'en faut, en ce qui concerne de nombreux documents émanant du Secrétariat portant les titres divers de circulaires, rapports techniques ou documents de toute nature qui ne sont même pas disponibles dans plus d'une langue de travail.
En conclusion, je répète que nous savons que le Directeur général est très attentif à ces problèmes, lui qui a le privilège de pouvoir user des 4 langues de travail de notre Organisation. Nous souhaitons que, conformément à son Acte constitutif, la FAO fasse appel de façon équilibrée aux différentes langues de travail; nous suggérons concrètement que le Directeur général étudie ces problèmes, et que ses conclusions fassent l'objet d'un examen par le Comité du Programme, et éventuellement par le Comité des questions constitutionnelles et juridiques, de manière à être portées à l'attention de la session du Conseil à l'automne prochain.
Dans ces conditions, nous ne pouvons pas approuver telle qu'elle nous est soumise la liste des réunions annexée au Programme de travail et budget.
B. de AZEVEDO BRITO (Brazil): My delegation would like to offer a few comments, briefly, on Chapters 3 and 4 together. We feel that those two chapters must be approached in the analysis of the FAO in relation to two groups of activities, and with a background of, first, renewed priority on agricultural development, and second, in the light of the actual flow of resources for agriculture which is a consequence of that priority - both external and internal flow.
As far as external flow is concerned, we hope to be able to comment later on. We well know that the levels of external flows in 1976 have been rather disappointing in terms of quantity and rather disappointing in terms of financing: but that is something that we will be able, hopefully, to discuss later on. But it is against this background that we have to - in our way of seeing - analyse the programmes in this area in Chapters 3 and 4.
We feel that in the light of that background there is a call for renewed attention to technical assistance programmes within FAO. Of course we fully agree with the comments made at a certain point that technical assistance must be carefully integrated with the government plans and priorities. I would also say that that is important, as we often say, when speaking of priorities for programmes of technical assistance, that the priorities must be given by the country itself - the recipient country. After all, what developing countries receive in terms of technical assistance is usually a very small component of a much larger effort, and therefore it would be futile to talk about priority a, b, c, for a programme of technical assistance. We must look within the individual countries' own planning to see what priorities a, b, c, are, according to the problems of the country and its own orientation. That is just a cautionary word, because we so often speak about areas of priority in technical assistance.
The background which I referred to before also, in our opinion, calls for a renewed effort by FAO in the field of project identification and project preparation. Of course, that is a consequence, in our view, of the reinforcement of activities of FAO with the World Bank Cooperation Programme, and the reinforcement of the Investment Centre; and since I have mentioned that, perhaps again I must - and I am sorry to repeat the same point again and again - lodge our complaint that levels of resources on the investment item of the budget are low for Latin America. We feel Mr. Chairman that we are making much more effort at home in our countries, and that is only reasonable, including as a back-stop product preparation and support in our product preparation it is reasonable that we have greater support from FAO in product preparation, so that there is a kind of compatibility with our internal efforts and FAO's support.
Mr. Chairman, on ICP, the Group of Seventy-Seven has already stated its position at the time of the Council. With your permission I would just like to read the relevant portion of our joint statement at the time of the Seventy-Second Session of the Council. We stated at the time, still in relation to the Programme of Work for the next biennium that we would not like to leave without notice the recommendation of the Programme Committee that the Director-General presented at the spring session of that day; a proposal for changing the status of inter-cooperation programme. We endorsed that proposal without prejudice, we said, to an effective and fruitful cooperation with industry. My delegation feels that that statement reflects the correct situation and a correct approach to the Programme. The statement is short and it is appropriate in our view.
Coming now to TCP Mr. Chairman, we are very happy to see the very positive start of preparations of TCP. We appreciate the flexibility, the speed of projects appraisal and approval. We appreciate the lack of bureaucratization, and we very much hope that is a virtue of TCP which will continue like that so that there is a fast and quick response to requests and needs, requirements, of recipient countries. Of course here again my same observation on percentage terms, Latin America in this case, if my figures are correct, does not go much more than 16.7 percent of the total. Again we feel this is not quite appropriate; it should be higher, this percentage.
In Brazil we are very happy with the cooperation of TCP who have a number of projects to which we attribute importance. We have concentrated within our own priorities, to which I referred before, in marketing, in fisheries and rural information just to give three sides of approaches that we have tried to give in our TCP projects.
The final point, technical cooperation within developing countries, we very much feel that FAO has a role to stimulate and not only passively registering reports with TCP technical cooperation on developing countries is a good thing, a positive thing, but to do something about it in all spheres. We feel for instance that FAO representatives are in a very unique position to identify opportunities for technical cooperation between developing countries. They are the first to take appraisal of a need in a country, and they can perhaps immediately try to see to what extent a non-developed country perhaps could bring not only in equal conditions but even in better conditions the kind of assistance, the kind of technology, which is best adjusted and best suitable to the particular receiving countries.
We feel also Mr. Chairman in this respect that it is not only the scene of the FAO but the scene of the whole United Nations system. We pass resolutions, and we pass decisions and recommendations, but the implementation is slow. For instance in FAO most of the technical cooperation between developing countries and use of the developing countries resources has been in experts. There is still very little on equipment, very little in terms of use of institutions, and we very much hope that we can make more and more progress in that direction so that consultant expertise from developing countries can be used - services, technical services, equipment, etc. Of course we understand that it is a gradual approach, and we very much hope in the light of the information that we have before us that efforts will continue to be made in that direction so that FAO can fully participate and stimulate this kind of cooperation. I have just this morning referred to cooperation in terms of research programmes in the developing countries. This is just one area. There are so many other areas. FAO should not be only passive and should have active response to these needs very much in the light of resolution 31 of 179 of the General Assembly last year. We very much hope that there will be a positive response at FAO to that particular resolution which sums up that quite an effort has been developed since 72/73 in FAO and other units of the UN system.
Just to conclude Mr. Chairman I would like to say my delegation was very much appreciative of the trend to field action which the programme at this stage reflects. At the Group of Seventy-Seven also we have commented very favourably on this approach and we feel this is the best kind of approach, very favourable at this time when we need to improve food production and field conditions in developing countries. So much has to be done and there is so much FAO can contribute to it.
J.L. SAULT (Australia): I will comment briefly on three programmes in Chapters 3 and 4. Firstly as regards investment we support the increase in expenditure under this major project. The concept of investment lending is consistent with the fundamental self-help principle which underlies our approach to development assistance, and we find it encouraging in the regional sense, that the Asia and Far East region takes the largest share of all regions from the total funds, that is both regular and extra-budgetary which have been budgeted.
As regards FAO country representatives, we support the concept of strong country offices in contrast to enlarging the regional offices. We find this consistent with the decentralization of FAO's activities and with the encouragement of the closest possible relationships with individual national governments who alone have the power to make the ultimate decisions which will give effect to recommendations or suggestions of FAO.
We do however advocate caution concerning the speed of implementation of the appointment of country representatives. There seems to be a distinct danger of over-extension at the risk of lowering the quality of appointees. In this context the programme with its very high increase factor offers an opportunity to create savings to prevent the Director-General's recently proposed increase in the total budget.
Turning to the Technical Cooperation Programme, Australia supports the FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme and will continue to do so so long as it remains modest in overall scope, is restricted to small-scale, short-term projects and complements, but does not duplicate activities carried out by other international bodies. Australia considers there is a range of projects meeting these criteria which FAO is technically equipped and competent to carry out. The level of the budget of the TCP proposed by the Director-General is acceptable to Australia. However there has been so far no opportunity to adequately evaluate the activities under the Programme, and we await with interest the results of the proposed evaluation of the scheme.
S.S. MAHDI (India): I wish to comment on certain programmes in Chapter 3 and 4 and make very brief comments on a few points raised this evening in chapter 5. Concerning the Field Programmes and Planning and Liaison Chapter 3.1, we are very pleased to see that now in a very explicit manner, technical cooperation among developing countries has become the responsibility of a particular unit in the house. We very much hope that this aspect of work will receive the attention due to it. At the same time we would like to caution that the technical cooperation among developing countries cannot be the responsibility of one particular unit only. This is a concept and a work which should infuse the activities and the thinking and approach of all the technical divisions in FAO.
In the same chapter we find that DDF will be helping in monitoring the field projects. In this connexion we would like to see an additional activity if possible, and that relates to providing information to the countries on different types of projects which have been undertaken in the past. I understand that in the previous biennium some modest effort was made in this direction, and I would like to express the appreciation of my delegation to those who undertook the task. Extracts of information on the projects undertaken earlier during the past eight to ten years were prepared for certain countries and they provided good reference material to the countries themselves at the national level. This is material which could be drawn upon; it is some kind of reference material and it is something which makes them more discriminating in their choice of new requests without going over the same ground again which has been covered in the past.
These were my two observations on Chapter 3.1.
With regard to Chapter 3, 2 on Investment, my task is much simpler because here I would just underline what Denmark has said on behalf of the Nordic countries in relation to assistance in developing investment project formulation capacities in developing countries. I find in the text of the Programme of Work and Budget, that the DDC will continue to do this work during the • various missions it undertakes. Perhaps I have not understood it correctly but if this kind of training of people in the developing countries is confined to the period of a particular mission, this is not sufficient. It will have to be undertaken on a more systematic basis, of course, at the request of the countries.
This is an aspect of the DDC's work which I would like to emphasize and which we hope will be taken into account in the coming biennium. It will require cooperation and working together closely with other divisions in FAO.
I am happy to note that the Investment Centre will be able to operate in a more flexible manner and here I have a question to which I would like to have a reply or clarification if possible. Will this flexibility permit the Investment Centre to assist in the formulation or appraisal of projects which
are to be funded by national credit institutions themselves? Because in many developing countries we have reached a stage where foreign assistance, foreign aid component of a particular project may not be very substantial and most of the resources may be found from within by the credit institutions. But such institutions, or their consortia in the developing countries need, from time to time, assistance from the United Nations system in preparing or appraising their projects. The question is whether the flexibility referred to just now will permit the provision of assistance in such cases.
Turning to Chapter 4, our position could almost be taken for granted, therefore I do not wish to make a long statement. We are all for the TCP, we feel that the augmentation by $1 million or $2 million over last year's programme is very modest, it should have been be much more.
With regard to the types of projects that should be funded from TCP, we feel this is the prerogative of the countries. It is not correct to say that top priority in TCP should be given to emergency projects. We have formulated certain objectives, certain types of projects which should be funded from this, and after that we should leave it to the countries to ask for the kinds of things they need most. This could be assistance for emergency or training, or it could be some kind of investment study support. We should not create additional rigidities in the use of the fund for different types of projets.
I find myself in a position to agree with most of the points made by my colleague from Norway on behalf of the Nordic countries. However, I have one reservation about a point raised with regard to the integration of the TCP projects in the UNDP country programme cycle. While we feel that very close collaboration should be established with the resident representatives and they should be kept au courant on whatever is being done under the TCP, we shall be losing much of the advantage of the approach of the TCP if we insist on integrating it in the UNDP country programme cycle, which is a long affair and more suitable for projects with bigger financial assistance and a longer gestation period.
So I would strongly plead that they should not insist on integrating it with the UNDP country programme process although I repeat that consultations with resident representatives should be very close.
With regard to public information, we would like FAO to explore the possibilities of projecting its image in a more tangible manner at the national level, in collaboration with the national government. I can give you an example: from time to time, in many developing countries, we find that agricultural fairs and similar activities take place. But in most cases we find FAO conspicuous by its absence.
We would like to see some flexibility on the part of the Information Division so that it can collaborate on request with the national authorities in this regard.
Related to this problem is the language of the publication of various pamphlets and brochures issued by the Information Division. Most of these are in the official languages of the Organization, quite correctly, and we do not take exception to that. However, we feel that if the message of FAO is to reach the developing countries, something will have to be done to speak to them in their own language. This is not revolutionary, it has been happening in other United Nations agencies like Unesco, where we find that the Unesco magazine,”The Courier”, is published not only in the five official languages of the United Nations, but in some of the national languages including that of my own country, Hindi.
This means an extra effort, although not necessarily extra cost; because if FAO makes a positive gesture and tries to explore the possibilities of collaboration with the national governments, I am sure the latter will be able to put up some funds to get the job done economically. This is essential if we want FAO's message to reach the non-élite of the developing countries. If it remains an organization attempting to reach through its publications and brochures only the élite of the developing countries, that is fine. But if we want to reach further down,”grass roots” has become a very fashionable expression here and it is a very valuable concept, we shall have to do something to use the language of the people.
A comment has been made from the floor about certain FAO publications. While I can say nothing about toe non-mulberry silk sources and the production of a manual on this subject, I am rather interested in and like cashew nuts. Cashew nut is an important crop for a number of developing countries of Africa and my own. It involves small farmers, and is a very labour-intensive industry, so one can understand how important it: is for us, as well as for a number of other developing countries.
I can take no responsibility for the contents of the manual which FAO will issue, but it is an important item and I would appeal that it should not be censored by us.
One more remark about publications: we all know how conscientious Mr. Mandefield is in this regard, and how hard he has been sometimes on his colleagues over submitting material, for it to be issued and published in time. I feel we should strengthen his hand from the governing bodies side also and be a little more particular about the timely receipt of publications. I would make a very mundane suggestion - and we are discussing very mundane things - that each FAO publication, especially for the Governing Council, should carry the date of despatch and not the date on which it was sent to press.
In many cases we find that even the date is lacking, it is only the month, so we discover to our dismay that a publication bearing a June date line reaches governments in October, allowing very little time for its examination, because in many countries we have red tape and problems with coordination. We need more time to look into these things and formulate our positions. This is a very simple and I hope not mischievous suggestion and if it could be implemented to it would be an effective instrument for monitoring the timely issue of publications.
A last point is on the use of national institutions. My colleague from Brazil has made certain observations with which I agree. I would draw attention to paragraphs 239 to 244 of the last Conference report. That Conference had a long discussion on it and its conclusions are inscribed in that report.
We know that FAO is making progress in this regard but we do not know how much. I would therefore suggest that there should be some system for monitoring FAO's actions regarding in the use of national institutions. We shall return to this theme again and again, but I thought that in the context of the Programme of Work and Budget it is essential to emphasize this aspect and redeem the pledge that we made in the last Conference.
S. JUMA'A (Jordan): I apologize for taking the floor so late but I have to chair the morning Plenary Session tomorrow, which is why it will not be possible for me to make my presentation tomorrow.
My first observation has to do with the Investment Centre. As some of my colleagues have said, FAO should not send out investment missions for preparation in the developing countries unless they are guaranteed or have assurances to the effect that these projects will actually be financed.
I think this is a very difficult condition to satisfy, since the financial institutions cannot approve the project until such time as the necessary studies are carried out. Then the financial institutions can consider the possibility of funding these projects. This is why the comment made by my colleague from the United States on this subject is not very relevant, because this would deprive a number of developing countries from having these various projects carried out, to a considerable extent. I would like to say that the financial institutions insist that a feasibility study be carried out before the project is actually presented, and that is why it would be impossible for us to support this proposal.
The second comment is that FAO by dispatching the study missions in order to prepare these projects in developing countries should consider the possibility of enlisting the participation of the staff of these various countries in the preparation of the projects themselves, because this could give them practical training, on one hand, and also by assuming responsibility for preparation of these projects, this staff that would be thus involved could in the future be enlisted in the implementation of these projects. These projects should receive the necessary financial backing, and that is why FAO should see to it that the missions responsibility for the preparation of these projects must involve local staff in the preparation of such projects.
The third observation is with respect to the Technical Cooperation Programme. In this connexion I would like to open a parenthesis to say that the Programme Committee at the autumn session had requested the Director-General for some clarification with respect to this Programme. The Director-General made a number of very relevant comments which were approved by the Programme Committee, which submitted its report to the FAO Council, and in turn the FAO Council adopted the report of the Programme Committee and asked the Director-General to prepare a comprehensive evaluation which would be submitted to the next session of the Programme Committee in the fall. That is why I think it is somewhat premature for our colleagues to speak about details, and I should like to inform you here that we think this question should not be discussed during thé present session in view of the fact that the Director-General will present very useful details next year. In principle, of course, we support the Technical Cooperation Programme, but our concept of what this Technical Cooperation Programme should be is somewhat different from the prevailing view.
Our next comment would be the following: I believe that this Programme which has been in existence for only two years simply cannot be judged, in view of its very short lifetime. As a developing country, we should like to say that this Programme is of special importance in view of the fact that it provides some developing countries with a possibility of obtaining limited financing for emergency studies when such a situation arises. Jordan has been able to benefit from this Programme when the UNDP had to face its financial crisis, and at that time we asked the Director-General of FAO tó send out a mission to examine the project, provided, of course, that this would be financed out of the Technical Cooperation Programme. If this Technical Cooperation Programme did not exist, it simply would have been impossible for the FAO to render service to my country, and that is why I repeat that we cannot pass judgment in this Programme merely on the basis of my country's limited experience. I believe that the Conference should approve the additional funds which are required for this Programme.
My final comment has to do with publications. I think that my colleague from India when he spoke about publications issued by FAO in the five major working languages failed to bear in mind the fact that these publications are not in actual fact intended for the farmers themselves, and that is why FAO cannot prepare these publications in all of the world's languages; otherwise the FAO budget would simply be unable to handle such a vast undertaking. I believe that the countries themselves should translate these publications into their own national language and in a language which could readily be understood by the farmers themselves, it being understood that FAO publications frequently use rather technical jargon, so that a majority of the farmers could never understand the contents of these publications unless they are translated, of course, into the national language, but naturally, the countries themselves would have to finance this translation.
Q. HABIBUL HAQUE (Bangladesh): I would like to comment very briefly on paragraph 3 and paragraph 4 of the Programme of Work and Budget and mainly on the Technical Cooperation Programme and the country representatives. The Technical Cooperation Programme was approved by the Council in July 1976 with the total quantum of about US $8.5 million. At this stage we really were apprehensive as to how fast the Director-General could move to establish a missionary in like projects, appraise projects, approve the projects in agreement with the governments, and disburse funds. We are happy to note in the report that the Director-General when opening this Commission stated that so far 188 projects have been approved with a total quantum of US $14 million. We find this achievement quite remarkable, not for the quantum of the money that has been disbursed, but the area which it covers in numbers of projects, numbers of countries, with a small amount and also the nature of the projects that have been tackled.
With regard to some of the special features as we get them from the report, I would like to mention one in particular which attracted the attention of our delegation, that in these projects, proportionately disbursement for the poorest developing countries has been more than for other developing countries. I mention this special feature particularly because this is not true when you take a global account of the disbursement in the agricultural sector.
I saw in a report of the CGFPI on resource flows that per caput disbursement for the poorest developing countries in the agricultural sector in 1976 was less than half than other developing countries. While we agree that all developing countries need assistance, particularly in the agricultural sector, we believe the poorest developing countries, the food priority countries, need assistance at a fast rate.
Irrespective of the quantum that the Technical Cooperation Programme had disbursed to the poorest developing countries, this very emphasis on them more than proportionately is very much welcome.
from our experience we have noticed that the Technical Cooperation Programme has been able to meet the first criteria of quick response and also catering for projects which perhaps could not be funded otherwise. A point has been made about integration of such projects with UNDP country cycle processing. While we agree that all these projects, even projects financed by the Technical Cooperation Programme, should be integrated in the total development efforts of developing countries, but it has to go through the full cycle of the UNDP processing. I think that would be indicated.
Prom our experience again we have noticed that in our case, there has not been even one project which would have been otherwise financed by the UNDP. In fact, the project evaluation missions to Bangladesh had the first discussion with the UNDP country resident representative, making sure that those projects were not on the list of the UNDP.
As regards the level for the next biennium, the 20 million plus expected surplus of about 3 to 4, we feel that this is the minimum possible. We feel again from the experience of the one and a half years that even perhaps a little higher allocation would have been realistic. I feel that in the next biennium, the Director-General will have to be very cautious in approving projects under the Technical Cooperation Programme. You can see even in hand he has today 100 projects which still have to be approved.
Turning to the country representative aspect, during the general debate there was also a point made by some delegation about slowing down. Here again we feel from our experience it is quite difficult and quite time-consuming to really station a country representative from the time of negotiation. This was again approved in the 69th Session of the Council in July 1976, and we had applied for a country representative in August 1976· I recall that by July 1977 the negotiation could be completed. Then the Director-General had to look for a suitable person, and when he found a suitable person, it needed the approval of the Government of Bangladesh. So the whole process could be completed in exactly a year.
Here I would like to remind the Commission of the observation made by the Assistant Director-General, Mr. West, that the UNDP is withdrawing their representatives faster than the FAO can cope with. I feel that the FAO action in this regard should be the other way round to see if they can speed up. If you see the number of applicants and numbers of countries in which the FAO country representatives have been included, it is really a matter of concern. About 60 countries have applied and less than 20 - I think about 14 - have taken position. It is really a matter of concern. In this regard I would urge upon the Director-General to see how fast he can go on this. I would be happy if by next biennium he can dispose of all the petitions, namely about sixty.
Coming to meetings and documentation, Mr. Chairman, it is an irony when you see in some other meeting we feel that particular meeting should be more frequent than it used to be. I recall when we sat in the Fertilizer Commission, we thought that particular commission should meet at least once and if required more, and in the Council I was the Rapporteur, and the Drafting Committee came to the decision that if necessary it should meet at least once. In the Council this was changed and stated meet at least once and if required more” Similarly I was representing Bangladesh in an intergovernmental meeting on tea. There again the demand was that meetings should be more frequent than once a year and, in fact, FAO had to arrange a meeting of the working body composed of the exporters institute. So here again we feel, Mr. Chairman, that while it is true unnecessary meetings and documentation should be cut as far as possible, we as delegates, representatives of countries making requests to the Director-General for more meetings of any particular body should also be conscious of this particular factor. We are happy to note that about 7 percent of expenditure on this particular item, meetings and documentation, has been reduced. We feel that this process should continue. I do not say there is no scope for cutting down meetings and documentation, there is always scope for improvement. We should make efforts to do that, but in doing so we should not hamper the efficiency and also dire needs of meetings and documentation.
My last point is on technical cooperation amongst developing countries, I am very happy ray distinguished friends and colleagues from Brazil and India have mentioned it. We also feel that this particular area should receive priority attention.
X. CHOUERI (Liban) (interprétation de l'arabe): Je vais traiter très rapidement du chapitre 3. Je vouarals m'arrêter sur l'action proposée en ce qui concerne les engagements budgétaires nécessaires pour des représentants régionaux. Je suis tout à fait certain que les résultats seront très positifs et cela à l'avantage de toutes les régions. Les représentants auprès des pays devraient être complétés par la désignation d'autres représentants de même formation. Nous connaissons certains d'entre eux, nous connaissons leur expérience et leur compétence.
Un not maintenant sur le PCT. Nous avons un programme d'action et nous estimons que le PCT a joué un rôle important en mettant à la disposition des pays l'assistance technique pour la solution de problèmes urgents en matière de formation, en cas de situation d'urgence par exemple; l'aide déjà reçue par les différents pays, môme si elle est relativement modeste, a eu cependant un effet dynamique, et à mon avis, ce type d'action doit être poursuivi. En conséquence, nous sommes tout à fait d'accord avec les engagements financiers.
En ce qui concerne les investissements, nous appuyons le Directeur général mettant à la disposition des ressources supplémentaires en vue d'investissements, et en examinant des projects notamment ceux du secteur agricole. Nous apprécions également la priorité attribuée par le Directeur général de manière que la FAO tire le maximum d'avantages du Programme d'investissement dans l'industrie. Nous voulons pouvoir aider tous les pays à obtenir, en plus de toutes les aides que nous pouvons leur donner, le financement d'institutions des Nations Unies. En faisant sien l'objectif de la documentation, y compris l'infrastructure etc.., de manière à tendre vers une meilleure utilisation des ressources agricoles, notre délégation apporte tout son appui à cette action. En cette matière nous confortons les efforts de ce service ayant à sa téte M. Mande field.
Κ. ΙΤAΝΟ (Japan): Mr. Chairman, I shall be very brief. On Chapters 3 and 4, we would like to make comments on two points. The first point is concerning the country representatives. We have already expressed our opinion on this subject, so at this stage we do not wish to say so musch. One of our concerns is the speed of installing the country representatives. In this respect, we share the views expressed by the delegate of Netherlands and Australia. In relation to this problem we appreciate the Director-General's efforts to reduce Headquarters staff. However, we are of the opinion that further efforts should have been made corresponding to the increase of the number of country representatives.
The second point, Mr. Chairman, the TCP, on this item too we have already touched upon in our general remarks, so we do not have much to say, but just one point, since it is still on an experimental basis the programme increase of TCP for next biennium should be kept as low as possible. That is all, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
A.J. PECKHAM (United Kingdom): It is very late in the day, or evening, Mr. Chairman, so forgive my intervening but I just wanted to make one thing abundantly clear since, in fact, my statement yesterday was misinterpreted or misunderstood by the Assistant Director-General, Mr. West. On the United Kingdom's behalf we support the appointment of more country representatives. I explained, however, from a budgeting point of view we do doubt whether the total number could be appointed as quickly as the budget anticipated. The representative of Bangladesh - I repeat this statement because there has been some reference this evening to certain governments desiring a slowing down of these appointments. I do not want my comments earlier to be misinterpreted in any sense. If, in fact, one is appointing something like 50 people, no doubt there are 50 people anxious to have those jobs, and possibly 500 people, but in selecting suitable people they cannot be selected and appointed overnight, and my remarks were simply on the practicality of that and, to repeat myself, the United Kingdom doubted whether the provision in the budget was not a little excessive.
CHAIRMAN: I suggest that we adjourn the meeting now, and you will have the answers to questions tomorrow morning, together with my summing up of our discussions under this item on our agenda.
Are there any comments from the floor? If not, the meeting is adjourned.
R. TANOUCHEV (Bulgarie): Dans une intervention brève sur la question de la présentation du programme de travail et budget pour le biennium 1978–79, la délégation bulgare voudrait s'associer aux observations positives des délégations qui ont déjà pris la parole.
Nous nous félicitons de la manière concise dont sont traités les problèmes d'autant plus difficiles que différents du développement agricole, mondial.
Nous voudrions aussi féliciter le Directeur général de la FAO pour le dévouement et l'energie avec lesquels il s'est acquitté de la tâche difficile et compliquée consistant à faire de ce document de base le reflet des suggestions et recommandations de la XVIIIe session de la Conférence et de la 69e session du Conseil de la FAO.
Au cours de ces sessions, la délégation de la Bulgarie apporta un soutien sans réserve aux idées et propositions du Directeur général en vue de réduire le programme, d'orienter les activités de l'Organisation vers une action concrète et dynamique en faveur des pays en voie de développement le plus gravement touchés. Notre délégation se rallie à la proposition tendant à établir un programme d'assistance technique ainsi qu'à l'idée de décentraliser des activités de l'Organisation.
Dans le programme de travail proposé, nous sommes contents de constater la continuité de ces propositions et une illustration de l'approche réaliste tellement nécessaire à la FAO., face aux problèmes existant dans la plupart des pays en voie de développement.
Nous considérons que l'établissement d'un Fonds spécial pour la prévention des pertes alimentaires après récoltes jouera un róle important et apportera une aide essentielle aux pays en voie de développement les plus nécessiteux, dans la guerre au gaspillage, la lutte contre la faim et la malnutrition, sous sommes d'accord sur l'établissement de ce Fonds.
Considérant que l'Organisation doit étre dotée de moyens sûrs pour pallier les inconvénients de l'inflation, de l'accroissement des coûts et de l'instabilité du taux de change dollar-lire, nous sommes d'accord aussi sur l'établissement du fonds de réserve.
La délégation bulgare estime que, dans le cadre du programme de travail présenté et le niveau du budget qu'elle appuie, le Directeur général pourra prêter une assistance accrue aux pays membres dans la réalisation de l'objectif principal de la FAO, à savoir l'accroissement continu de la production agricole mondiale, et l'amélioration du niveau de vie des masses rurales.
En tant que pays membre de la région européenne, la Bulgarie s'intéresse aux activités à l'apport de l'Europe au développement agricole mondial, et surtout au développement de l'agriculture dans les pays en voie de développement.
Nous partageons l'opinion des délégations qui ont déjà pris la parole sur l'utilité de l'expérience européenne pour les pays en voie de développement. Nous estimons que la coopération européenne dans les recherches agricoles et le résultat de ces recherches peuvent être très utiles pour les pays hors de la région et que ces activités doivent être encouragées.
C'est pourquoi nous appuyons le projet de résolution figurant au document C 77 LIM 5 traitant des questions des activités de la FAO dans la région européenne.
Sra D.A.C. BERTA de ALBERTO (Argentina): Continuando con los comentarios y observaciones ya efectuados por mi Delegación esta mañana, deseo ahora referirme concretamente a los Capítulos 3, 4 y 5 del Documento C 77/3.
En primer lugar, entonces, y con relación al Capítulo 3, quisiera hacer una breve referencia al Programa Cooperativo de las Industrias (3.3.3.), destacando al respecto que llama la atención de nuestro país la ausencia de las actividades de Pesca dentro de las prioridades indicadas en el Plan de Acción, siendo ella una de las actividades industriales cuya expansion debería ser promovida de acuerdo con los objetivos mencionados en el párrafo 1 de la página 160.
En segundo lugar, y en lo que se refiere al Capítulo 4, mi Delegación desea renovar su apoyo al Programa de Cooperación Técnica de FAO como instrumento idoneo para reforzar e incrementar la capacidad de la Organización para responder rápida y efectivamente a las solicitudes urgentes y en pequeña escala que le formulan los Estados Miembros.
En este sentido, mi Delegación estima que quizás el incremento planeado para este Programa resulte, en la práctica, insuficiente, ya que representa solo el 1, 3 por ciento, previsión que probablemente sea inferior al aumento de los costos, lo que implicaría, en definitiva, que la asignación sería inferior al ejercicio anterior.
Finalmente, y siempre con relación al PCT, mí Delegación quisiera solicitar una mayor aclaración acerca de la distribución de fondos entre las regiones en desarrollo en el período 1976–77. Ello no está especificado en este capítulo, aunque surge del párrafo 7 que el énfasis fue puesto en los países menos desarrollados o más seriamente afectados, habiéndose asignado el 56 por ciento de los fondos a esos países en Africa, Asia y Lejano Oriente.
Por ultimo, y con referencia al Capítulo 5 (Programa 5.1.1.), mi Delegación quisiera señalar la necesidad de que en los esfuerzos realizados por la Organización para difundir sus programas y concientizar al publico sobre los problemas de su competencia, se dé mayor cabida y participación a los medios de difusión de los países en desarrollo.
Con respecto al Programa 5.1.4. (Publicaciones), mi Delegación desea expresar que si bien está absolutamente de acuerdo con el espíritu del párrafo 5 acerca de la necesidad de publicar con”mayor tempestividad los documentos preparatorios para las reuniones”, considera que su redacción no es del todo satisfactoria, ya que los terminus”se pondrá especial interés” no reflejan realmente la preocupación concreta y generalizada de los países miembros en esta materia tan importante. 1/
The meeting rose at 18.30 hours
La séance est levée à 18 h. 30
Se levanta la sesión a las 18.30 horas
1/ Texto incluido en las actas a petición expresa.
