FAO Conference resolutions

Resolution

13/97

Review of FAO

statutory bodies

THE CONFERENCE

Conscious

of the continuing need to enhance the efficiency of the Organization and its governance in a time of financial challenge, to eliminate Statutory Bodies that are obsolete, to ensure more flexible task-oriented and time-bound working arrangements for those that remain and to limit the creation of new Bodies to those that are strictly necessary,

Recognising

the importance of moving towards increased self-financing for Statutory Bodies that have regional focus, and of enhancing the responsiveness of those bodies to the needs of their Members:

Decides

to abolish the Bodies listed in Annex A to this Resolution;

Recommends

to the parent Bodies concerned that their Subsidiary Bodies listed in Annex B be abolished and calls on those parent Bodies to take the necessary action unless they consider, taking into account the financial and programme implications, that there are overriding reasons for retaining any such Bodies in existence and to report to the

Council

through the

Programme

and

Finance Committees

on the actions taken and, where appropriate, on the reasons for retaining any of the Subsidiary Bodies recommended for abolition;

Requests

the

Director-General

to consult with the organizations listed in Annex C with a view to securing alternative arrangements for, or the abolition of, the joint Bodies listed in that Annex as deemed appropriate and authorises their abolition, as appropriate;

Recommends

to the

Codex Alimentarius Commission

that it continue its review of the usefulness of its Subsidiary Bodies set out in Annex D;

Encourages

regional commissions established under Article VI of the Constitution to seek more extra-budgetary resources to supplement the resources made available to them under the FAO Regular Programme Budget, taking into account the economic capacity of the regions concerned and of their Members;

Calls on

the Contracting Parties to Conventions and Agreements establishing regional bodies under Article XIV of the Constitution to seek where appropriate, increasingly to provide such Bodies with their own financial resources, whether through cooperative programmes or other voluntary contributions, or through the establishment of autonomous budgets financed from mandatory contributions;

Decides

that in future, Statutory Bodies should be established only where strictly necessary and where the work to be undertaken cannot be carried out by ad hoc groups, and that the Terms of Reference of all new Bodies created should provide for a periodic review of their usefulness;

Further

decides

that, to this end, the following factors should be taken into account in establishing new technical Bodies and in the establishment of new Subsidiary Bodies

Centrality to the FAO mandate and the Organization's current priorities as expressed by FAO Members and reflected in planning documents;

Clarity of the definition of the task, which should normally be of limited duration;

Positive impact of the Body's work at the level of FAO Members;

FAO's comparative advantage, thereby avoiding overlap and creating synergy with the work of other Bodies;

Proportion of the FAO Membership to which the work of the proposed body is of importance with due regard to the economic capacity of less-advantaged members, including least developed countries and small-island developing states;

Willingness of their Members to contribute financially and through non-monetary inputs to the work of the Body, especially where the Body will serve a more limited number of countries, with due regard to the economic capacity of their less advantaged members and the availability of other financial support;

Requests

all Statutory Bodies to examine how their Rules of Procedure and working methods could be streamlined to facilitate positive inter-action among participants at meetings, to promote a task-orientation and to strengthen the involvement of civil-society partners;

10.

Further

requests

the

Secretariat

to prepare information notes to facilitate review by the Council, following discussion in the Programme and Finance Committees, of (a) possibilities for streamlining procedures and avoiding repetitious discussion in Bodies at various levels, taking full account of the experience of other international organizations; and (b) modalities for greater civil society involvement;

11.

Decides

that, in general, Executive Committees should cease to be listed as formal Statutory Bodies in the Directory of FAO Statutory Bodies, except for the Executive Committee of the Codex Alimentarius Commission.

(Adopted on

18 November 1997

)

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