Annex II:

QUESTIONNAIRE TO MEMBER NATIONS

Preliminary Analysis based on Responses received by 27 July 1998

Appendix 1 - List of Respondents

Appendix II - Text of Questionnaire to Member Nations

I. Introduction

1. A preliminary analysis of the responses to the Strategic Framework Questionnaire (copy attached), which was sent to the whole membership of FAO on 4 June 1998, with a requested deadline of 3 July, was carried out on the basis of returns received until 27 July 1998. At that date, 76 Member Nations had replied, plus the European Union, making for a total of 77 responses (see appendix 1, list of respondents, classified by region). This is over 40 percent of the FAO membership. Most major contributor countries have replied (17) and, on a regional level, there is a noticeable predominance of the Europe and North America region (27 responses, including the European Union), thus accounting for nearly all member countries in the region. Replies received from developing countries (in total, 49 responses) were fairly evenly distributed between the regions. The response rate to the questionnaire is expected to improve over time, and responses should continue to stream in through the summer. A reminder is being sent to those countries which have not responded as yet, so that a more complete picture can be presented in due course.

2. As can be seen from Appendix 1, most countries provided a single global response but some availed themselves of the possibility left open to them in the questionnaire to respond on a sectoral basis (agriculture, fisheries, forestry, environment and nutrition). In such cases, a process was used to consolidate the response at country level, based on selecting the codes (A, B, C or D) with highest frequency in the responses given. In those (rare) cases, where frequencies evened out, the response from the Ministry of Agriculture was given a higher weight and was selected. The same process was used in the case of one country whose Ministry for Environment sent five separate sets of responses for each of its five departments.

3. Also, it is to be noted that some of the developed countries provided two answers, one from their national point of view and another which they deemed should be the one appropriate for developing countries - in every case, giving a higher vote to the "others" than for itself. Since the questionnaire analysis is predicated on the principle that it is a survey of Members' own (national) opinions, the code answer corresponding to the national point of view was entered into the database in every case.

4. The analysis followed two lines of investigation. One was based on a simple frequency count of all the responses to each question, and then further disaggregating the responses by class of respondents: divided by region and by economic groupings. The other line of investigation consisted in putting together all the written comments in direct relation to each concerned part of the questionnaire and in addressing these to the extent possible in the first draft of the Strategic Framework.

5. Finally, a check on the patterns of "sectoral" responses was carried out as there were some differences noted at country level but once added up, no significant variations between them and the global, consolidated responses emerged, thus obviating the need to carry out a separate analysis on the sectoral responses as such.

II. Main Findings

Part A of the Questionnaire: Global Goals of Member Nations

6. As can be seen from table 1 below, there was massive support for the Member Nations' Goals.

TABLE 1: GLOBAL GOALS OF MEMBER NATIONS - Regional Distribution of Responses

 
7. For each goal, however, about a dozen countries disagreed not with the substance but with the wording. Disagreement came mostly from the OECD group and is summarized as follows:

· for the first goal the general tendency was for a strengthening of the wording (i.e. "by at least 2015", "by 2015 at the latest" or "to eliminate hunger by 2015");

· for the sustainable development goal, the divergence was generally minor in terms of substance but the range of wording proposed presented a potentially difficult negotiation on the words to be finally adopted (one country manifested disagreement with the substance of this goal); and

· for the conservation goal, the comments were related to the precise wording and not to substance.

8. There was a general concern as to whether the proposed formulations adequately covered major elements of the various international conferences and that the Secretariat's editing would trigger a reopening of the debates. This puts in question the advisability of attempting to summarize the goals of Member Nations when they have already been debated at length in other fora.
 

9. A number of additional global goals were also suggested which often did not really add new goals as such, but tended to emphasize one or the other aspect of the three proposed goals, elevating them to the status of separate goals (for example, poverty eradication, capacity-building, protection of biological diversity, equitable participation of women and men etc.).
  Part B of the Questionnaire: Goals-related Areas of Work for FAO

10. As shown in Table 2 below, a clear majority of countries have attached a high or very high degree of priority to all the goals-related areas of work identified for FAO. The work areas are ranked according to the percentage level of positive responses and shown in descending order of priority:

11. Basically only one sub-area -1.2 (ii) : "regular assessments and analyses of trends in food security, agriculture, fisheries, forestry, natural resources and scientific knowledge (ii) For your country"- was rated at a much lower level of priority. The reason, as confirmed by the comments, appears to be that a number of countries perceived this work area to be a national prerogative and responsibility. Also, it is noteworthy that these were mostly countries belonging to the Europe & North America region, with only a few countries from other regions expressing the same opinion.

TABLE 2: GOALS RELATED AREAS OF WORK FOR FAO: Level of priority
 

 
12. With regard to the importance attached by Member Nations to the role of FAO as a supplier of services in the various goal-related areas, the ratings were generally positive, particularly in the areas of data collection and assessment (area no. 1) and securing agreement on and monitoring international standards (area no.2). Results are shown below in a descending order of priority:

TABLE 3: GOALS RELATED AREAS OF WORK FOR FAO: FAO's Role as a Provider of Services
 

 
13. An analysis of the regional and economic patterns of negative responses in the lowest ranked of the six areas above was carried out to attempt to "explain" the relatively less favourable rate achieved in these areas. The results of the analysis, based on the number of respondents which rated FAO's role as "minor" or "little", is shown below:

TABLE 4: Analysis of FAO's Role as a Provider of Services - Selected Goals-related Work Areas

 
14. Clearly the negative ratings are largely due to the group of developed countries, and in most cases are easily explained by the fact that they naturally see no role for FAO providing services to their respective countries in areas of work for which they have the necessary capacity and which are deemed to be a function of national sovereignty (or, in some cases, delegated to the European Union). Some developing countries have joined this point of view, particularly in Asia and Latin America, where they felt they have already developed sufficient national capacity to deal with the matters unaided. All other countries, who directly benefit from FAO assistance, have tended to reply positively. The result, to some extent, was predictable and is in line with what developed countries themselves expected when they consistently gave a higher rating to work areas "as seen from developing countries' point of view".

15. A complete picture of the regional distribution of responses to the goals related work areas is presented in Table 5 below.
  TABLE 5: GOALS-RELATED AREAS OF WORK FOR FAO Regional Distribution of Responses  

APPENDIX 1: LIST OF RESPONDENTS - CLASSIFIED BY REGION

Appendix II - Text of Questionnaire to Member Nations