US embassy cable - 04ROME4296

UNCLAS  ROME 004296 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
STATE FOR IO DAS MILLER, IO/EDA RICH BEHREND AND SHARON 
KOTOK, IO/S ABRAHAMS, OES/E, E, EB; 
USDA FAS FOR JBUTLER, MCHAMBLISS, LREICH, RHUGHES; 
AID FOR EGAT, DCHA/OFDA, DCHA/FFP 
 
FROM THE U.S. MISSION TO THE UN AGENCIES IN ROME 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: AORC, EAGR, EAID, SENV, KUNR, KPAO, FAO 
SUBJECT: FAO COUNCIL DISCUSSIONS: COMPREHENSIVE INDEPENDENT 
EXTERNAL EVALUATION 
 
 
1. Summary. Over the past several months one of this 
Mission's highest priorities has been to achieve Permrep and 
Secretariat agreement to launch a comprehensive independent 
 
SIPDIS 
external evaluation of the UN's Food and Agricultural 
Organization (FAO). Through such an evaluation, we hope to 
rejuvenate this large UN organization that spans a range of 
important rural development issues, but which often suffers 
from inchoate priorities and disparate member state 
expectations. We have succeeded in getting relatively broad 
support for this initiative: from the Director General, from 
the Regional Groups, and from the Independent Chair of the 
Council. Our objective for the 127th Council of FAO will be 
to achieve a mandate for the evaluation and the creation of 
a committee empowered to make decisions necessary to get the 
process immediately underway. 
 
2. The consensus for the project is still delicate. 
Achieving this important goal will continue to require 
continued diplomacy, lobbying, and advocacy. The tone of our 
approach should emphasize the common interest all members 
share in making the organization a better one.   End 
Summary. 
 
3. FAO's current structure is the remnants of a severe 
downsizing process that cut its regular program budget by 
over 24 percent in real terms, and its staff by 29 percent 
between 1994 and 2004. As we know from our own Department's 
experience in the Nineties, incremental downsizing is 
usually a sub-optimal way to organize a bureaucratic agency. 
This was especially true for FAO, which otherwise suffered 
from weak leadership and was torn between the conflicting 
interests of our politicized multilateral world. In face of 
the budget cuts, FAO navigated through the spending cuts in 
a way that tried to spread the pain equally rather than 
identify comparative advantage and maximize impact. The 
result was hardly the consolidated, more objectively focused 
institution we hoped to achieve through budget stringency. 
 
4. Today, few countries are satisfied with FAO, although 
many G77 countries are slow to admit it to us. Through a lot 
of hard work and tough diplomacy over the past several 
months, we have succeeded in breaking through the G77's 
facade to find common ground - and mutual interest in taking 
a zero-based look at the organization. Even Director General 
Diouf has come to reluctantly agree that a thorough 
independent evaluation might enhance the organization's 
impact and effectiveness. The Council's independent chair, 
Moroccan Ambassador to Washington Mekouar, calls the 
evaluation "essential." And all regional groups have now 
publicly told us that they accept the need for an 
evaluation. 
 
5. In order to move the initiative into an official channel, 
Canada joined us in sending a request from the North America 
Group to add an item entitled "Comprehensive External 
Evaluation" to the November 2004 Council agenda.  A week 
later, on October 28, the North America Group provided the 
Secretariat a background paper and draft resolution that 
 
SIPDIS 
would launch an evaluation (copies of the paper and 
resolution have been forwarded to IO by e-mail).  Over a 
dinner the DCM hosted that same day, we presented the paper 
to representatives of the regional groups, all of whom 
expressed support for an evaluation. They asked for time to 
discuss our paper before considering it in substance in a 
broader discussion. We will resume discussions with regional 
groups in mid-November with the aim of working an agreement 
on the resolution before the Council meets. 
 
6. Rather than sink into details, the proposed resolution 
consists of a simple decision by the Council to: (1) mandate 
an evaluation to be funded by extra budgetary contributions, 
and (2) to establish and empower a "Committee of the 
Council" to work out terms of reference and modalities, and 
to oversee the fund-raising and evaluator selection 
processes. To the extent possible, we will want to avoid 
discussion on modalities now and in the Council. There will 
be an obvious tendency to politicize any initiative as broad 
as this one in a Council debate.  Nevertheless, a US non- 
paper that outlined purpose and modalities, as we saw them, 
has been widely circulated among most permanent 
representations in Rome. A tacit agreement to enable smooth 
Council consideration by assigning disQussions on modalities 
to a Committee establised for this purpose now exists among 
most member delegations. 
 
 
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POINT: The US delegation should seek to shift discussions on 
modality details to the Committee of the Council rather than 
engage them on the Council floor. 
------------------ 
 
7. If we wish to use evaluation findings in the strategic 
framework review now scheduled for 2007, something that 
would be valuable, we will need them by the November 2006 
Council. Working the timeline backwards, we will want the 
evaluation underway by summer 2005. We should allow 12-18 
months for the evaluation. That leaves only six months for 
the Committee of the Council to work out terms of reference 
(TOR) and other modalities, to raise funds, to budget, and 
to tender/select the evaluators. That's a big bill and will 
require much Committee work within a labor and time- 
intensive multilateral framework. If the Committee has to 
return to the June 2005 Council to approve TORs, everything 
will shift by another several months. Moreover, it is in the 
interest of efficiency and effectiveness that the TOR be 
worked out in the Committee rather than debated on the 
Council floor. We need to empower the Committee to make 
decisions, and this may be controversial among the always- 
conservative G77 membership. 
 
------------------ 
POINT: The US delegation should seek Council empowerment for 
the Committee to make necessary decisions without returning 
for subsequent Council approval. 
------------------ 
 
8. The deal breaker in getting broad and adequate regional 
support for an evaluation is any perception that (1) there 
is a US and/or OECD Group political agenda behind our 
initiative, (2) our goal is to criticize the organization in 
an effort to justify even further funding cuts for the 
future, and/or (3) the evaluation process will not be 
independent of the Secretariat and/or member state and 
regional group political interests. On the other hand, all 
regional groups already support (1) an evaluation that is a 
quality first class piece of work, (2) an evaluation that 
produces an objective set of constructive findings, and (3) 
an evaluation that results in visible improvements in the 
way the organization does its work, i.e., one that could 
justify greater resources from donor capitals. [Comment: on 
this latter point we have informally stressed the difficulty 
FAO faces due to its low profile when the UN organization 
budget pie is cut in major donor capitals such as our own. 
More specifically, we have stressed the flip-side: that 
without an evaluation that produces reform, it will be even 
harder for us to justify resources for the organization in 
the future. End comment] "Credibility," or the FAO's lack 
thereof, is a negative buzz-word among many G77 colleagues. 
They accept our point about FAO's "low profile," however, 
and understand exactly what we mean. 
 
------------------ 
POINT: The US delegation should keep a positive spin on the 
value of doing the evaluation, avoiding a focus on the 
organization's weaknesses, and stressing our desire to make 
FAO better. 
------------------ 
 
9. We will continue to lobby and do advocacy with the perm 
delegates in Rome. Ideally, the Resolution could pass with 
little or no floor debate, but we know that in FAO's world, 
what is "ideal" happens too rarely. Nevertheless, the larger 
set of details must be assigned to Committee of the Council 
deliberations where we will set up a structure and process 
that produces effective results. Between now and the Council 
meeting we will organize discussions with other regional 
groups to see how far we can agree on the resolution we have 
now tabled. We will keep the Department briefed on these 
talks and will elaborate on our progress further when our 
delegation to the Council arrives in Rome. 
 
HALL 
 
 
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 2004ROME04296 - Classification: UNCLASSIFIED