Rome, 23 March 2014 - In a meeting held last Friday, the Permanent Representatives of Brazil, China, India, Russian Federation and South Africa to FAO informed the Director-General of the Organization, José Graziano da Silva, of the new mandate given to the Rome-based BRICS informal consultative group of Ambassadors by the Ministers of Agriculture of those countries during a Ministerial meeting in Brasilia this month.

According to the meeting’s decision, which highlighted the importance to collaborate on several main activities of FAO - such as the International Year of Soils, the Post-2015 development agenda and the Agriculture Market Information System (AMIS) initiative -, the Group is set to work through a more programmatic schedule as establishing a regular inter-sessional coordination and consultation, as well as elaboration of joint initiatives on food security and agriculture for the Organization. The Ambassadors have emphasized that BRICS coordination at FAO would play an important “bridging role" to consolidate the membership positions across the regions.

The BRICS representatives also committed support for approval of the upcoming Programme of Work and Budget (PWB) proposed by the Director-General, including increased resources for FAO's Technical Cooperation Programme and to the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) programme. They agreed that further efficiency cuts would jeopardize the implementation of the programme of work, and committed to working with other member countries to achieve consensus on the PWB proposal during the Council meeting. 

The Presidency of the BRICS group is currently with Brazil and will be transmitted to the Russian Federation in April.