ABSTRACT
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is victim to a principal-agent schism, aggravated by inadequate leadership and management over a long period of time as well as disagreements among the principals, some but not all of which stem from a lack of trust in the organization's leadership. Simplifying somewhat, one axis relates to relevance and the other to the way an organization manages itself and its operations, which might call competence. FAO received a middling score for relevance but scored low on competence-lower than all but a few other United Nations organizations, as can be seen in the chart-form summary of the findings of the UK exercise in. FAO is making its most unique contribution to developing countries in those areas where its normative strengths can be drawn together with country needs in policy work and capacity building. Direct support to production technology transfer and piloting no longer emerge as areas of FAO comparative advantage.
