ABSTRACT
The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is the largest of the United Nations (UN) organizations, with a total biennial budget of around US$2.4 billion and a regular staff of around 3,500. It is an autonomous body, answerable to its members but linked for coordination purposes with the UN and other specialized agencies through the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). The director-general (DG) of FAO is a member of the Chief Executives Board (CEB). The extent of answerability to the members depends upon the effectiveness of the governing bodies such as the FAO conference and council. However, as with other international organizations, actual performance is the output of a coalition between member countries, their representatives, the different groups within the membership, the governing bodies, the director-general, and the staff of the organization. At times, this coalition has been uneasy, evidencing the lack of trust among
members, and between members and the secretariat, highlighted by the Independent External Evaluation (IEE) in 2007.1
For nearly ten years, FAO has been undergoing intense, pervasive, and turbulent change which accelerated with a new director-general taking office in 2012 after 18 years of the previous incumbent. This change is affecting not only the structure of the organization but also the nature and focus of its work and its working methods. The FAO reform process has potentially far-reaching implications for the relationship between the different players, the functioning of the organization, and its mission. It is premature to judge how the latest stage in the FAO reform process will work out and what its eventual impacts might be. This chapter focuses more on the reasons why that process was instigated and the roles of the various players in provoking and shaping it.
