News
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.
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