16 December 2014, Rome - FAO is celebrating the 50th Anniversary of its work devoted to improving public and private investment in developing and transition countries. The mission of FAO's Investment Centre: to work with countries to determine how to best invest in agriculture and rural development to reduce poverty. It also engages with governments to directly design, implement, supervise and evaluate agriculture and rural development projects in the field. Over the last five decades, FAO staff has helped leverage $110 billion in investment in member countries and supported around 2 000 projects in 170 countries.