Africa will be my priority – New FAO Boss
The New Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Mr José Graziano da Silva who formally took the helm of affairs at the agency January 1, 2012, has pledged to prioritise Africa during his tenure of office.
“Africa will be a priority during my mandate,” said Graziano da Silva at his inaugural press conference held January 3, 2012 in Rome, Italy where the agency’s headquarters is located.
Born in the US to Brazilian parents of Italian origin, Graziano da Silva said he will be visiting Africa end of January this year to scale up its support to a number of low-income, food deficit countries, especially those facing prolonged crises.
“I will travel to the continent at the end of January to take part in the African Union Summit and visit the Horn of Africa, to see the situation and the work being done there firsthand,” text of his media statement said.
Over 12 million people are said to have been affected by the famine in the Horn of Africa.
He adds “Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend all the events I have been invited to in these next months, but hopefully there will be new opportunities in the next few years.”
The UN food agency chief promised to review the FAO’s programme of work and budget and thus focus on the five pillars that he presented to Member States during his election campaign – eradicate hunger; move towards more sustainable systems of food production and consumption; achieve greater fairness in the global management of food; complete the FAO’s reform.
Mr Graziano da Silva, who succeeded Jacques Diouf of Senegal, was confident that the world can “regain lost ground and make progress towards the first Millennium Development Goal of halving the proportion of people living in hunger and extreme poverty by 2015.”
“That also happens to be when my mandate ends, so there is no time to lose. We will start right away: FAO will scale up its support to a number of low-income, food deficit countries, especially those facing prolonged crises. This is an important step towards the complete eradication of hunger,” he said.
By Ekow Quandzie