Mr Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil was elected yesterday as director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations agency tasked with reducing world hunger at a time of high food prices.
Mr Graziano, currently FAO’s regional representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, won on the second ballot with the support of 92 of the 180 FAO member states voting.
He beat Mr Miguel Angel Moratinos of Spain, his main challenger, and four other candidates to replace Mr Jacques Diouf of Senegal, whose 18-year tenure prompted a change in the agency’s rules to set term limits.
He takes over the agency at a time when high food prices are putting the lives of millions of already hungry and malnourished people at further risk and raising fears of a repeat of the high-price-driven social unrest of 2007-2008.
The FAO put the number of hungry people in 2010 at 925 million, the overwhelming majority living in developing countries.
The Rome-based FAO is the largest United Nations agency, with an annual budget of about US$1 billion (S$1.24 billion). It has faced long-standing calls from top donors like the United States for bureaucratic reform, budget cuts and better prioritising of projects.
In his speech on Saturday, Mr Graziano promised to deliver the FAO’s reform plans and said Africa should remain a priority for the agency, with the FAO playing a central role in water and marine resources management. But Mr Graziano’s emphasis was mostly on the need for a shared vision and bridging gaps between different positions to enhance the organisation’s decision-making.
