On Friday 25 January in Brussels, Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle, the EU's first female and first single candidate for the post of Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), said that she wanted to make this body "more agile, bolder, more open and more transparent"(see EUROPE 12123).
The former Executive Director of the European Food Safety Agency (EFSA), from July 2006 to August 2013, is the French and EU candidate for the post of Director-General of the FAO.
Other official nominations have been submitted by China and India (more to follow).
"There will be some good competition, between 5 or 6 people, maybe more", explained Ms Geslain-Lanéelle, during a meeting with the press in Brussels on Friday.
Nominations for the position are open until the end of February and elections will be held during the week of 22 June. The term of office of the Director-General of the FAO (José Graziano da Silva) comes to an end in 2019.
Produce more and better. The EU candidate reiterated that famine has been on the rise again for the past three years. It affects more than 820 million people. More than 2 billion people suffer from malnutrition. Ms Geslain-Lanéelle considers the situation "worrying", but "there is reason for hope, because solutions exist to produce more and better".
In the EU, the objectives in this area have been achieved, but this is not the case "in sub-Saharan Africa and South and South-East Asia, where agricultural productivity must be increased, which sometimes remains up to 10 times lower than in Europe", said the woman who held the highest office in the French Ministry of Agriculture.
Increase investments. The FAO must be used to "re-engage governments and stakeholders" to meet the challenges (population growth, natural resource degradation, climate change), stressed the EU candidate.
Over the past 15 years, levels of public and private investment in the sectors (agriculture, food, fisheries and aquaculture) have declined overall.
The candidate therefore wants to ensure that the FAO "attracts more public and private investment in these sectors". She wants to work with international banks to ensure that more of the financing goes to agriculture, fisheries and to the forests.
Catherine Geslain-Lanéelle also stressed the need to find solutions to reduce losses (in transport and storage, in particular) and food waste, and provide farmers with better tools to fight price volatility.
The EU contributes $380 million annually to the FAO's operations. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)