FAO program 1957

ONE of the final acts of Dr. P. V. Cardon before his retirement as Director-General of FAO was to prepare a program of work for 1957. In compiling this program he was influenced by the feeling that it was particularly in the field of forward planning and advisory services that member countries were looking more and more to FAO for assistance; the Organization's regular program over the past ten years had created the resources from which this policy advice could be provided, while its Technical Assistance Program represented the effective utilization of these background resources to particular and individual cases.

The provision to underdeveloped countries of direct advice and assistance and training facilities for personnel has always been recognized as part of FAO's responsibilities, but its effective deployment was not possible until additional resources were available through the establishment of the United Nations Technical Assistance Program. Even now, notwithstanding the generosity of the countries contributing to this program, the resources available are far from sufficient to meet the needs of the underdeveloped countries or the cost of the services which FAO is anxious to furnish.

Nevertheless, these additional resources have enabled FAO more efficaciously to develop these direct services to member countries and have modified in some degree the structure and character of the Organization and the orientation of its efforts. Instead of being a body concerning itself largely with broad technical and economic questions, developed through the media of meetings, consultations and publications, its main preoccupation now is providing direct help.

FAO's strength in providing such direct assistance to member countries lies in the fact that it is itself a co-operative body. Its members comprise almost all the nations of the world - those providing technical and financial help and those receiving it. By virtue of its international character, FAO can draw upon the greater part of the world to obtain the most disinterested and skilled advice available.

FIGURE 1. The arboretum of Wadi Cherrate, created in 1947 within a reforestation area where planting was begun in 1933, consists of a collection of 727 species of eucalypts which seemed to be the most interesting for reforestation in Morocco. This arboretum is supplemented by a number of field trial plantings throughout the country.

Photograph by Forest Service, Morocco

FIGURE 2. Natural regeneration of E. camaldulensis in Australia on a burnt-over area: in the background can be seen the new young growth.

Photograph by A. de Philippis