US Mission to UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture
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U.S. MISSION TO UN AGENCIES FOR FOOD AND AGRICULTURE READER TABLE OF CONTENTS Victor Skiles 1973-1976 USAID Representative, World Food rogram, Rome Charles Higginson 1975-1978 Deputy U.S. Representative, Food and Agricultural Organi,ation, Rome -ohn A. .aker, -r. 1977-1979 U.S. Representative, World Food rogram, Rome Roger A. Sorenson 1979-1983 ermanent Representative to United Nations Agencies, Rome 0illicent Hammond Fen1ick 1983-1987 Representative, United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture, Rome 3erald -. 0onroe 1989-1992 U.S. Representative, Food and Agricultural Organi,ation, Rome William Harrison 0arsh 1992-1995 Food and Agricultural Organi,ation, Rome VICTOR SKILES USAID Representative, W rld F d Pr gram R me (1973-197,- Victor Skiles was born in Idaho. He attended the University of Idaho at Moscow and received his BA in 194 . He also served in the US Navy in Germany. His career has included positions in countries such as Greece, Israel, East Africa, Ceylon, and Afghanistan. He was interviewed by John Kean on December 4, 1995. S6I7ES9 .efore I left 6abul I thought I 1as going fairly quickly to Rome as the AID representative to the World Food rogram and the FAO, but that turned out to take more time than I had anticipated. International organi,ations had al1ays had a bit of a mystique for most of us. To the extent that 1e 1ere internationalists, they 1ere more than a little bit interesting but they'd never been a very big part of our operation or our consideration. They'd been some1here out on the fringe. In the early '60s, 1e had a small cell in C 1hich had come over from the State Department, concerned primarily, as I recall, 1ith the Columbo lan and the UNCTAD, the trade and development organi,ation of the UN. .y 1972, a lot of changes had been made program-1ise and in terms of organi,ation. There 1as a fairly large group in C 1orking on international organi,ations. Several people on the UN proper and 1hat 1ere kno1n as the speciali,ed agencies -- one separate unit on contact 1ith the I0F and I.RD (1hich there had been for some timeA, and limited numbers 1ith the other functions 1ith other UN agencies. art of the process, as you recall, and this refers to the organi,ation comments earlier, had been a gro1ing recognition of AID in a role of responsibility for coordinating U.S. development assistance abroad (1ithout necessarily relieving other agencies of their interests or corollary roles as 1e 1ill see laterAB and at the same time the desire on the part of AID and the adoption of policies to rely more on the international agencies both to shape and to carry out assistance programs. No1, most of us -- certainly myself included -- had an interpretation far too narro1, having in mind primarily the reliance on the International .ank for Reconstruction and Development and the I0F to set policies 1ith respect to given areas -- given countries -- and to help the country provide the frame1ork for programs 1ithin 1hich the rest of us 1ould 1ork. This, of course, 1as not ne1, 1e'd been doing it for some time in the countries 1here I.RD had taken an interest and had sent out survey teams. They 1ere able to pick our brains as 1ell as everybody else's and came up 1ith some very reputable country development programs. Where this 1as the case it 1as advantageous for us to fit into it. And to a lot of people, this meant that 1e 1ere no longer so involved in overall development concepts and problems as much as 1e 1ere involved in picking out parts of that process 1hich 1e tend to define as the proCects. ./ 0r sectors1 S6I7ES9 Or sector programs, yes. .ut to others it meant more than that. It meant the other UN agencies also increasing their roles in the development business, hence in C an increase in their role of 1orking 1ith the United Nations agencies. This also relates, of course, to the revised style and role of USAID's reorgani,ation 1ork 1hich 1as going on at that time and 1as part of the complex that I 1alked into and that explains, to some extent, 1hy it took so long for me to get to Rome. 7et me hasten to say, though, that the main reasons for the delay 1ere frictions and disagreements that had built up bet1een the groups and the people involved. When I 1ent through Washington on the 1ay to Idaho to indulge in that favorite pastime that 1e call home leave, I 1as advised that the job 1as all set up, that I 1as the chosen instrument to carry it out. There 1ere a fe1 little problems to 1ork out 1ith State but these 1ould be taken care of 1hile I 1as on home leave and 1hen I came back I should expect to be going in short order. I suppose this 1as in mid '72, and, as it turned out those things had not been 1orked out 1ith State and they 1eren't for quite a long time. I didn't get to Rome until April of 1973. So I had quite enough time in Washington to get a re-education -- something of an education on the international institutions and to 1ork on various problems such as the one on implementation of the reorgani,ation. During the process, I became convinced that some things 1e 1ere doing 1ith the international organi,ations 1ere pretty bad, in the sense that, to use the example of the proCect approval process, 1hat 1e 1ere doing, it seemed to me, made it impossible for the UND to operate 1ith any semblance of efficiency in carrying out a development program. It took forever to get clearance by members of the governing body for a proCect 1hich UND 1anted to carry out, partly because the function just 1asn't taken all that seriously in AID D Washington, and there 1ere not competent personnel assigned to the task of getting the job done. ./ Let me see if I understand. Can you elaborate a little bit 33 just to be specific 33 whether the pro4ects you were talking about were UN,5 pro4ects or USAI, pro4ects1 S6I7ES9 UND proCects. .ut the system that had been set up -- 1ell, 1e'll come back to this later because it affects most of the 1hole UN system. The system that had been set up 1as for proCect clearance by members of the governing council of the international agency before the agency could go ahead 1ith any kind of implementation. In AID Washington, there 1as a huge backlog of proCects that had not been processed -- 1e had not said yesB 1e had not said no. I could just picture the guys at UND in Ne1 Eork holding their breath for month after month 1hile 1e got around to deciding 1hether to clear a proCect or not. In other 1ords, it just 1asn't 1orking. ./ And was this a peculiar problem in the USAI, relationship with UN,5 or did other countries have similar problems or e6ercise similar foot dragging1 S6I7ES9 I don't kno1 ho1 bad the problem 1as 1ith other countries. T1o points. First, especially if 1e are encouraging a gro1ing role in development for them, 1e should do our best to try to bring about the conditions 1hich 1ill make it possible for the UN agency to be an efficient and effective operator of its program. Second, to the extent the U.S. takes on an operational role, 1e'd better get ourselves set up to do a decent job of operating. Frankly I did not find this in C - rogram olicy and Coordination - 1hich 1as the central body for United Nations activities in AID Washington. eople 1ere too busy 1riting papers, going to meetings, preparing position papers for an upcoming meeting - far less mundane things than making sure that the operational steps in a program of a UN agency 1ere properly and expeditiously taken care of. I think it 1ill save time if I first try to sketch in a bit of the United Nations frame1ork, then of the U.S. frame1ork for 1orking 1ith the UN, then come more specifically to the FAODWF complex. The UN is not a straight line hierarchy. It is not a top to bottom organi,ation in the sense of approval, directive, and administration, though there are do1n and up reporting channels and in some phases coordinating devices. 3enerally speaking, the 3eneral Assembly and the Security Council are the entities 1e tend to think of as the UN, headquarters Ne1 Eork City. They deal primarily 1ith political and security affairs. They are serviced to considerable extent by the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOCA, also in Ne1 Eork, 1ith respect to economic, social, cultural, educational, health and related fields. Then there are a number of speciali,ed agencies dealing 1ith such things as Development (UND A, child feeding (UNICEFA, health (WHOA, education (UNESCOA. I 1ouldn't care to get into a discussion of the degree of independence of the top structure (UN3A, Security Council, ECOSOCA, but it does seem to me that the International 0onetary Fund (I0FA and the International .ank for Reconstruction and Development (I.RD, or World .ankA are the most independent, perhaps FAO next, simply because it came into existence in 1955, even before the UN proper 1as organi,ed. The World Food rogram came much later (1962A and is a bit of a hybrid. Its title is UN-FAO World Food rogram, 1hich means that it does report to both FAO and ECOSOC.