Around 110 people attended the seventh edition of Investment Days (IDs 2015), held on 14 and 15 December 2015 at FAO in Rome. The event was a chance for FAO Investment Centre staff from headquarters and the decentralized offices to meet as one team, share knowledge, discuss and learn together. Staff from across FAO’s technical divisions, including strategic programme teams, also participated in key discussions.

IDs 2015 took a break from its usual format involving international speakers and external partners to focus more on peer-to-peer exchange of knowledge and experience designed to kick-start discussions around the many changes and reforms FAO is currently undergoing.

Day One of IDs 2015 was dedicated to the new FAO Strategy for Investment Support in Food and Agriculture. FAO Investment support staff are the ‘front-line’ ambassadors for the strategy, so understanding and engaging with it is vital. The session looked in depth at four areas for enhancing FAO’s support to investment in the years ahead: (i) country level effectiveness; (ii) partnerships; (iii) knowledge and innovation; and (iv) how to operationalize the strategy to realize FAO’s new Strategic Programmes.

Day Two featured two highly interactive sessions. One entitled Experiences from the field brought together investment support officers to discuss the challenges and opportunities of working at the regional and country levels. The second session was geared to learning more from the Global Environment Facility (GEF) coordination team about GEF achievements and upcoming opportunities for funding from GEF. The session involved group work and role-play, giving participants a chance to test their ability to develop an FAO-GEF project concept. 

The event closed with the launch of the TCI-50th Anniversary publication, and an evening reception attended by staff and retirees. Annual staff awards were presented and the winners of the staff photo contest announced.

Participants’ feedback, assessed through a survey, was positive with roughly two-thirds being satisfied or strongly satisfied with the event’s content, format and organization.

Photos from the event [https://www.flickr.com/photos/faonews/sets/72157663237084304/ ]

Go to event page.