The new Director-General stressed the need to consider food security alongside other global challenges, including climate change and natural resource degradation.
He pledged to work to make the FAO more effective and administratively efficient, and strengthen direct assistance to countries.
3 January 2012: Committing to a renewed focus on food security, José Graziano da Silva, former Assistant Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) and lead designer of Brazil’s “zero-hunger” programme, has taken office as FAO Director-General.
In his first press conference, Graziano da Silva highlighted that hunger eradication should not be separated from responses to other global challenges, such as climate change adaptation and mitigation, as well as natural resource degradation. He noted the need to work with member countries, UN agencies, the private sector, civil society and other stakeholders. He pledged to work to make the FAO more effective and administratively efficient, and strengthen direct assistance to countries. Graziano da Silva succeeds to Jacques Diouf, who held the post from 1994 to 2011. His term will last three and one-half years. [FAO Press Release] [FAO Press Conference]