IMFAO? Pinching Pennies – Losing a Billion
Rome, 20.11.09 - The day after the close of the World Food Summit, government delegations gathered in Commission II of the FAO Conference to see how the Summit rhetoric would translate into a budget for FAO. The mood of the meeting - often closed to observers - was petulant and pecuniary. OECD delegates took the microphone complaining that FAO's Secretariat seemed not to realize that there is a financial crisis "out there" and that now is not the time to increase funding. Among the industrialized countries, only Norway supported the budget submission and called for increased financial support. Even the G77 - battered by many weeks of closed-doors debate -seemed ready to accept only an inflationary adjustment.
But the real shock was the recurring emphasis on the global financial crisis. Not a single delegate ventured to mention the reality debated in the same rooms the day before – that there is a food crisis. No one mentioned that more than a billion people are hungry – 160 million more than five years ago and that the crisis is not going away. While governments complained about line items and inflationary assessments, and called for “due diligence”, no one insisted that due diligence should also mean good diets and no deaths. It was, by any standards, a shameful meeting.
To be fair, the G20 have proposed – but not given – a new $20 billion food and agricultural fund (over three years) to be managed through a multi-donor facility in the World Bank. But if this new money is not to be wasted, governments will have to depend heavily on the program expertise and statistical information that can only be found at FAO. Due diligence should require the spendthrifts in Commission II to recognize that a modest scaling up of FAO’s support capacity is simply good governance.
In mid-October for example, governments joined unanimously with FAO, the World Food Program, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, and the institutes of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research to expand the work and mandate of the UN/FAO Committee on World Food Security to ensure policy and program coherence among all those on the frontline fighting hunger. Coordination requires administration. The CFS needs a significant budget increase to have the personnel and flexibility to help the United Nations “deliver as one”.
At the end of the day, Commission II decided to reconvene as an off-the-record “Friends of the Chair” meeting in the German room leaving many to wonder if the OECD states think they are in a meeting of the IMF and not the FAO.
Signed: IPC, FIAN, ETC Group, Development Fund (Norway)