Candidates for next chief of UN food and agriculture agency to outline agendas

13 April 2011 – The six candidates who have been nominated to serve as the next head of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) will today outline their programmes and plans if they are selected to the post.

The candidates for the position of Director-General will address the FAO Council at the agency’s headquarters in Rome.

A meeting of the FAO’s conference of 191 member nations from 25 June to 2 July, also in Rome, will select a director-general to succeed Jacques Diouf, who steps down at the end of 2011.

The next chief – the seventh in the history of FAO, which was created in 1945 – will serve from 1 January 2012 to 31 July 2015, and will be eligible to run for a second, four-year term.

The candidates are:

• Franz Fischler (Austria), a former European Union commissioner for agriculture, rural development and fisheries;
• José Graziano da Silva (Brazil), currently FAO’s Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean;
• Indroyono Soesilo (Indonesia), a natural resources scientist and senior Government official;
• Mohammad Saeid Noori Naeini (Iran), who has served as his country’s Ambassador to FAO and as the Chairperson of the agency’s Council;
• Abdul Latif Rashid (Iraq), his country’s Water Resources Minister;
• Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé (Spain), a former foreign minister of his country.