Between last week’s Global Dialogue on Family Farming, a visit from President Evo Morales and the 3rd ICN2 run up dialogue on nutrition, this week continues its demanding autumn schedule with FAO’s Finance and Programme Committees.

The Global Dialogue on Family Farming

Throughout 2014, the International Year of Family Farming (IYFF) has brought the attention of the world to the contribution family farmers and can make to eradicating poverty while looking after our environment.

The success of the IYFF is confirmed by thousands of initiatives that have been undertaken and are continue worldwide thanks to the attention given by the dedicated International Year.

A Global Dialogue on Family Farming was held at headquarters on 27-28 October.  Government representatives, family farmers and their organizations, civil society, private sector, academia and development agencies came together to assess the momentum created and consider ways forward for action post-2014.

Dialogues on Nutrition

President Evo Morales Ayma of the Plurinational State of Bolivia, current chairman of the Group of 77  countries  honoured FAO with his presence at the third "Dialogue on Nutrition" successfully held last Thursday, 30 October. Devoted to gathering views from the G-77 in the lead up to the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2) later this month, the third and final dialogue was even better attended by the last two. In a panel chaired by the Director-General, President Morales urged countries to put in place guarantees on food, land and access to water for all. Previous dialogues in the series engaged officials from the United States and from the BRICS countries: Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Programme and Finance Committees

This week begins with meetings of the Programme and Finance Committees, which will discuss a wide range of issues, and the Director-General will address their Joint Meeting on Wednesday.

Special focus will be given by the Finance Committee to a proposal by the Director-General to reduce the costs charged by FAO to donors who provide voluntary contributions.   

The new idea is that FAO must truly consider the work it does from extra-budgetary resources as an integral part of the Organization’s work. Project work funded by voluntary contributions will no longer be in seen as addition to what we do, but a key part of what we do.

The proposal  will make the future policy on project support costs (PSC) more transparent, simpler, and cheaper – by introducing a lower standard 7 percent rate in place of the current 13 percent, and by abolishing the complicated “Indirect Cost Recovery Uplift" (ICRU) introduced in 2011.

Other important issues to be discussed this week will include review of technical priorities and evaluations in the Programme Committee, and progress of FAO’s strategies for partnerships with the private sector and civil society in the Joint Meeting.