FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific
©FAO/Stavros Moschopoulos

The FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Far East was first temporarily opened in China in 1947. Through a decision of the FAO governing bodies, in 1948 the office moved to its present location in Bangkok which subsequently became its permanent site in 1953.

One of five FAO regional offices across the world, Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific has grown more than fourfold since 1948 and now has 46 member countries. The regional office is headed by an Assistant Director-General who is also the FAO Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

Our Offices

In order to fulfill the vision and mission, a highly participatory process was used to translate FAO's corporate strategic objectives into five Regional Strategic Priority Areas:

  • strengthening food and nutritional security
  • fostering agricultural production and rural development
  • enhancing equitable, productive and sustainable natural resource management and utilization
  • improving capacity to respond to food and agricultural threats and emergencies
  • coping with the impact of climate change on agriculture and food and nutritional security.

Within the above regional priorities, the core functions of the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific are:

  • providing perspectives, trend monitoring and assessments
  • capacity building and technical support
  • policy assistance and advice to subregions
  • building partnerships and alliances
  • strengthening information, knowledge and statistics
  • developing international instruments.

As a result, a new organizational structure was implemented which involved building multidisciplinary teams around three core areas: (a) agricultural production systems; (b) economic, social and policy assistance; and (c) natural resources and the environment.