Showing posts with label FAO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label FAO. Show all posts

Thursday, December 6, 2012

For Whom Do the FAO and Its Director-General Work?


Click here to read this story in full @: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/goswami041212.html

by Rahul Goswami
 
For farmers small and large?  For the tens of millions of food-consuming households, poor or just getting by?  For the governments and bureaucracies of small countries who want to import less and grow more?  For the organic cultivators on their small densely bio-diverse plots?  Or for the world's large food production, trading, and retail corporations, whose influence is wide and whose power is vast?

There is the continuing if travel-stained hope -- held by so many of us, those who work at humble stations in the food and agriculture sector -- that, of all those whom the director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO of the United Nations) does work for, it is not that last.  But, since 2011 June, when José Graziano da Silva became the head of the FAO, the signs have been otherwise, and they are growing stronger with each passing month...

Click here to read this story in full @: http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2012/goswami041212.html

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Pro-poor means this at United Nations



Click here to read the Decision of Executive Board of World Food Programme on housing subsidy for WFP Executive Director. Read on the last page how they refer to housing subsidy the FAO Director general receives.


Monday, November 26, 2012

Are you wondering where Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was/is ? Wonder no more : United Nations has engaged his services as best practices to fight hunger in Africa !

UN, African Union and Instituto Lula join forces to fight against African hunger

Click here for this story :  http://www.un-foodsecurity.org/node/1371
 in 
21 November 2012 – A new initiative fusing United Nations know-how, African leadership and the political backing of former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva kicked-off today as the three partners declared their intent to join efforts in the fight against hunger and undernourishment in Africa.
During a meeting at the African Union’s (AU) headquarters in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, the heads of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the African Union (AU) and the not-for-profit Instituto Lula agreed to pursue their “shared vision” of a hunger-free Africa through a coordinated campaign against malnutrition and food security, according to an FAO news release announcing the partnership.
“Building a food and nutrition-secure Africa requires better governance, renewed political will and strong commitment to work together through innovative and comprehensive food security and nutrition programmes and strategies involving all concerned stakeholders,” said FAO’s Director-General, José Graziano da Silva.
According to FAO statistics, the number of undernourished people on the African continent has steadily increased since the early 1990s, from 175 million to 239 million today.
Despite the negative trend, the Chairperson of the AU Commission, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, underscored Africa’s agricultural potential, noting that 60 per cent of the continent’s arable land was still unutilized.
“This enormous potential can make a real difference to improve our agricultural production and food security,” said Ms. Zuma, adding that the time had come for African farmers to move beyond subsistence agriculture to more expansive methods of agro-industrial production.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

United Nations' Head of FAO blames U.S. for food scarcity in the world


Click here to read this in full @ Business Day Live: http://www.bdlive.co.za/opinion/columnists/2012/10/26/the-worlds-debt-for-food-scandal

Another American factor is energy legislation that requires that nearly half this year’s maize output be devoted to producing ethanol for fuel. Six state governors have formally petitioned the Environmental Protection Agency administrator to implement a full, one-year suspension of the ethanol mandate. The FAO has already pressed the US to suspend its production of biofuel ethanol. Its director-general, Jose Graziano da Silva, says the worst drought in 50 years "is inflicting huge damage on the US maize crop, with serious consequences for the overall international food supply".

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

United Nations lied about 1 billion hungry people

Click here to read this in full @ Business Week: http://www.businessweek.com/ap/2012-10-09/un-says-world-hungry-not-1-billion

ROME (AP) — The United Nations said Tuesday its 2009 headline-grabbing announcement that 1 billion people in the world were hungry was off-target and that the number is actually more like 870 million.

The U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization blamed flawed methodology and poor data for the bum projection, and said it now uses a much more accurate set of parameters and statistics to calculate its annual estimate of the world's hungry.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

United Nations sucking up to China !

Click here to read this in full : http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43191&Cr=food&Cr1=#.UG1vPBjK49A




José Graziano da Silva presents Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao with Agricola Medal. Photo: Xinhua News Agency

2 October 2012 – Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao was today presented with a top United Nations award for his efforts to increase food production, contributing significantly to reducing the number of people around the world suffering from extreme poverty.

“Let me give you one number that illustrates the magnitude of this contribution,” the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, said in presenting the agency's highest award, the Agricola Medal, to Mr. Wen at a ceremony in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, attended by 150 senior Government officials, representatives of Chinese farmers and academia.

“The number of poor in the world fell from 2.3 billion in 1990 to 1.5 billion in 2008, a reduction of 34.1 per cent. A world without China would have progressed much more slowly, with a reduction of only about 11 per cent of the number of poor over the same period,” he added, calling the award a tribute to Mr. Wen’s life-long dedication to promoting food security and poverty reduction in China and the world....

Click here to read this in full : http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=43191&Cr=food&Cr1=#.UG1vPBjK49A

Friday, September 28, 2012

Kevin Rudd says: " FAO and United Nations are to be blamed for food crisis - they are only printin reports instead of executing their mandate to really fight poverty and develop agriculture"

UN criticised on food security

Click here to read this @ Nation.com.pk: http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-online/international/28-Sep-2012/un-criticised-on-food-security

HONG KONG - Former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday criticised the UN food agency for failing to do enough on food security, as fears mount of a repeat of the 2007-2008 food crisis.

Rudd told a conference in Hong Kong that the leadership of the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), based in Rome, needed to get its act together and not just release “another set of reports”. “The fact that we’re having this kind of conference is an indictment of the failure of the FAO,” he told the meeting - titled “Feeding the world: Asia’s Prospect of Plenty” - which was organised by The Economist magazine.

“The execution of its mandate, which is food security, must now be done.“A practical programme against the billions of people who are hungry in the world today needs to be done - not another set of reports, not another set of committees. Action, action, action,” he told reporters later.

The FAO has called for “swift, coordinated international action” this month as a sharp rise in maize, wheat and soybean prices renews fears of a looming food crisis.Drought in the United States has pushed grain prices to record highs, and the FAO has cut its global 2012 rice output forecast due to low monsoon rainfall in India.

UN estimates say the world population is projected to increase by two billion people between 2012 and 2050 to around nine billion, with Asia accounting for more than half of the increase.“Hunger is the world’s most challenging problem,” UN World Food Programme China director Brett Rierson said.“There is a common perception that hunger is an African problem, but two-thirds of them are from Asia so hunger is here in Asia,” he said.

Manila-based Asian Development Bank warned in April that food shortages could slow poverty reduction, and a rise of 10 percent in domestic food prices could push 64 million more Asians into poverty.

This news was published in print paper. Access complete paper of this day.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

FAO accused of “promoting the destruction of peasant and family farming”

Click here to read this in full @ Social Watch: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/15373




FAO director-general José
Graziano da Silva.
(Photo: FAO/Ozan Kose)
Relevant environmental and peasant groups declared themselves “shocked and offended” because the heads of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) called on governments to embrace corporations as the “main engine” for global food production growth. In a collective statement, the civil society organizations said the FAO is abandoning its mission by “promoting the destruction of peasant and family farming” and the “land grabbing”.

The appeal to private companies for doubling their investments “in the land […], in machinery and seeds” in “a vast swathe of land stretching from Mongolia in Central Asia to Morocco in North Africa” was made by Jose Graziano da Silva, director-general of the FAO, and Suma Chakrabarti, president of the EBRD, in an article published by The Wall Street Journal on September 6.
“The simple truth is that the world needs more food, and that means more production. There is plenty of room for agricultural growth in the areas in which the EBRD operates […]. The private sector can be the main engine of such growth,” Da Silva an Chakrabarti wrote.

“The private sector needs to double investment in the land itself, and in machinery and seeds. Investment in storage, transport and trading infrastructure are the key not only to ensure that food reaches its intended destination but also to build buffers against adverse shocks and droughts. Some of the infrastructure investment could be done jointly with governments in appropriately structured joint ventures,” they added.

La Via Campesina, GRAIN, Friends of the Earth International (FoEI), Coordinadora Latinoamericana de Organizaciones del Campo (CLOC), the World March of Women, the ETC Group and the Latin American Articulation of Movements Toward ALBA warned in a joint statement that “the heads of these two influential international agencies make a clear call for a world wide increase in private sector investment and land grabbing.”

Click here to read this in full @ Social Watch: http://www.socialwatch.org/node/15373

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

FAO publishes Russian Forest Sector Outlook study until 2030

Read this article in full at: http://indiaeducationdiary.in/Shownews.asp?newsid=15484


Rome: The forest sector in the Russian Federation needs to be modernized using innovations and breakthrough technologies to maximize its potential as a global mitigator of climate change and an important source of timber, according to a new study presented today by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of the Russian Federation. 

Sprawling from the Baltic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, Russia has more than a fifth of the world's forests, which makes it the largest forest country in the world. However, the considerable potential of Russian forests is underutilized and Russia's share of the global trade in forest products is less than four percent. Lack of governance, outdated equipment and underfinancing are among major factors that impede the development of the Russian forest sector, according to the report. 

The Russian Forest Sector Outlook Study to 2030 urges immediate action on modernizing the Russian forest sector, increasing its investment attractiveness, stimulating domestic demand for forest products such as wooden housing and furniture, addressing the illegal logging issues and reforming forest public institutions and legislation. 

"The study broadens our knowledge about the huge opportunities and possible development potential of the Russian Federation's forest sector," said FAO Assistant Director-General for Forestry Eduardo Rojas-Briales. "Modernizing Russia's forests will have a positive impact on social, economic and environmental conditions in the Russian Federation and will contribute to the development of world forestry, forest industry, wood trade and the environment."

Monday, September 24, 2012

FAO publishes "2012 State of the World's Forests Report" - brags about links with sustainable development, ask for money for indigenius groups but says no word on how will account for all past billions spent on forest

Read this here: http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=42971&Cr=sustainable+development&Cr1=#.UGC6Ohjy_6s





FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva addresses the opening of the Committee on Forestry. Photo: FAO/Giulio Napolitano


24 September 2012 – From soil and water preservation to conserving biodiversity, forests play a crucial role in helping countries achieve sustainable development, a senior United Nations official stressed today at the opening of a key gathering on forestry.
“The success of FAO’s work in improving lives will depend very much on how we balance the use and preservation of natural resources. This includes forests, which play an important role in environmental factors like carbon sequestration, soil and water quality preservation and conserving biodiversity,” said the Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva, at the opening of the agency’s Committee on Forestry in Rome, Italy.

The Committee is the highest FAO statutory body on forestry, bringing together heads of forest services and other senior government officials to identify emerging policy and technical issues, to seek solutions and to advise FAO and others on appropriate action.

During the five-day meeting, the Committee will discuss how to build on the commitments made at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) regarding the protection and sustainable use of forests. Among the issues to be addressed are rural development, the integration of forests with environmental and land use policies, and improving the management of forestry resources, including wood and non-wood products.

Some 100 Heads of State and government, along with thousands of representatives from non-governmental organizations, the private sector and civil society attended Rio+20, all seeking to help shape new policies to promote global prosperity, reduce poverty and advance social equity and environmental protection.

In his remarks, Mr. Graziano da Silva noted how some 350 million of the world’s poorest people, including 60 million indigenous people, depend on forests for their daily subsistence and long-term survival. However, deforestation and forest degradation are contributing to significant losses of soil each year, putting the lives of many in peril.

“Preserving our soil is necessary to sustain life on the planet and yet the slow process of desertification has not captured as much attention as it merits,” the FAO chief said, adding that sustainable agriculture and forestry can reverse soil degradation and help combat desertification, noting that, “we need to make sure that soil protection and the fight against desertification are placed high on the international agenda.”

“We will need to work together with governments, civil society and the private sector to maximize the role that forests and wooded land will play in food security in the future,” Mr. Graziano da Silva said. “It will take a collective effort, including of all our partners within and beyond the UN system, to manage the world’s forests in a sustainable way.”

The 2012 State of the World’s Forests report – which focuses on how sustainable use of forestry resources can help reduce poverty, hunger and climate change – will also be released during the Committee on Forestry meeting.

Friday, September 21, 2012

UN's FAO spent $1.1 Million to study shared stock of shrimp and groundfish in Guianas


To Read this in full click here: http://www.guyanatimesgy.com/2012/09/14/fao-studying-shared-stocks-of-shrimps-groundfish-in-guianas/

The Food and  Agriculture Organ-isation (FAO) of the United Nations has facilitated a case study on the shared stocks of shrimps and groundfish in the Guianas-Brazil Shelf under the Caribbean Large Marine Ecosystem (CLME) Project.


In a release, the FAO said the overall objective of the project is to improve management practices of the shrimp and groundfish fishery at the national and sub-regional levels, to ensure that maximum benefits can be gained from these resources and to improve livelihoods of those directly and indirectly dependent on these fisheries. The project commenced in July 2011, and is expected to be completed in November 2012.


Guyana, Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago are involved in the study, whereby each country is expected to prepare a Baseline Report on the current situation with respect to their shrimp and groundfish fishery. A draft report was prepared for Guyana and several priority issues and suggested actions were identified. The report is expected to be validated by stakeholders.


To this end, the FAO, in collaboration with the Fisheries Department of the Agriculture Ministry, will be convening a National Stakeholder Consultation workshop. The workshop will be held on Tuesday, September 18, at the Regency Suites Hotel, Hadfield Street.

Thursday, August 30, 2012

Helen Clark declares war against UN's Regional Economic Commissions and Kim Won-soo's Change Management Team

Even on a declared "vacation" time, Uncle Helen can't stay without doing nothing. She has led a team of UNDP top advisers in "thinking out of the box" on how to undermine UN's Secretary-General desire to concentrate more power onto his hand on Development agenda.

Helen Clark and a group of "thinkers" are extremely fraustrated with the latest attempts from the Office of Secretary General and more concretely Kim Won-soo and the Swedish Deputy Secretary General who are inclined of stripping UNDP from some of the main "duties" that until now (for almost 60 years) the United Nations Development Programme took them for granted.

But with all the scandals UNDP has gone thru, Ban Ki-moon pressed by some key donor countries is taking away slowly some of them, namely:

- UNDG (Development Group);
- One UN Initiative;
- MDGs and world coordination (recently appointed Jeffrey Sachs and a Committee of world renown experts in this area)
- HC (Humanitarian coordination); and
- RC (Resident Coordinators) ....after many complains from UNICEF, WFP, FAO and UNEP, Ban Ki-moon will be stripping UNDP from the jewel of the UN System - the ability to head the UN work in any country.

But Helen Clark is not known to give up easily. Her advisers (who are mostly connected to United Kingdom) are calling for help from the Kingdom experts in "development". After 5 years of Ban Ki-moon, now UNDP is telling many donors how ineffective Ban's team is and why the donors might have more to loose by letting UN Secretariat to go away with this "crime".

Thus the action plan for September will be to run a massive campaign with Donors and Member States, and destroy the reputation of Regional Economic Commissions (ECLAC, ESCWA, ESCAP, ECE), UN-DESA (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) and most importantly go after Kim Won-so (Ban's stooge).

Will have more about this very soon !

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

UNDP and FAO promises to assist Zimbabwe to regain breadbasket status

DICTATORS BECOME BILLIONAIRES 
WHILE UNITED NATIONS FEED THEIR PEOPLE

Click here to read this on Financial Express

HARARE, July 18 (Xinhua): The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) Tuesday said it is prepared to work with Zimbabwe in ensuring the country regains its breadbasket status.

Visiting FAO Director General Jose' Graziano da Silva said this when paying a courtesy call on Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara. They discussed issues to do with food security in Zimbabwe and the region as well as financing of the agricultural sector by financial institutions.

Dr da Silva said Zimbabwe has the potential to become the breadbasket of the Southern African region, adding that the country can also emerge as one of the biggest exporter if government takes value addition seriously. "We have discussed at length issues that will improve Zimbabwe's agricultural sector," he said.

Mutambara said Zimbabwe has a lot to learn from FAO and Brazil on issues to do with food security, adding that stakeholders in the agricultural sector should take a holistic approach in addressing challenges that have bedeviled the sector

Friday, February 24, 2012

Financial Times: Gates attacks "outdated" UN food agencies


While Helen Clark is totally detached from reality - Bill Gates attacks WFP and UN Food Agencies
------


To read FULL ARTICLE go to Financial Times clik here



Bill Gates©Getty

Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder turned philanthropist, has broken a taboo in the development community by publicly accusing UN agencies of allowing infighting and inefficiency to undermine the battle against hunger.

The comments by Mr Gates, the largest donor to food security from the private sector, echoes the thinking of many government officials and hunger activists. But few senior donors have publicly denounced the problems of the UN system.

The UN has three agencies devoted to food security with a combined annual budget of roughly $4.5bn: the Food and Agriculture Organisation, founded in 1945; the World Food Programme, created in 1961, and the International Fund for Agricultural Development, founded in 1977. Although the three are based in Rome, they act largely as independent entities with little interaction.

Mr Gates, who has donated roughly $2bn to food security in the past decade and plans to give another $2bn in the next five years, told an audience of the three agencies in Rome that the current system was “outdated and inefficient”.

To read FULL ARTICLE go to Financial Times clik here

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

Helen Clark welcomes "new broom" at FAO - forgets that after three years at helm of UNDP has failed to clean/reform her own house


undpwatch
It's amazing 2 hear Admin mention . She's on 3rd yr & has yet 2 show leadership & clean corruption

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