Podcast Summary: The CGD Podcast

Episode: Focusing the FAO on Global Public Goods – Vijaya Ramachandran
Date: October 22, 2013
Host: Lawrence MacDonald
Guest: Vijaya Ramachandran, Senior Fellow at the Center for Global Development

Overview

In this episode, host Lawrence MacDonald speaks with Vijaya Ramachandran, lead author of a new report on the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). The discussion centers on the critical need for a reorientation of FAO’s mission, arguing that the organization should focus its resources on supplying global public goods—such as agricultural research, data, and early warning systems—rather than on fragmented, country-level projects. The working group’s recommendations are detailed, pragmatic, and quantitatively specific, offering a roadmap for future FAO reform in the face of growing global food security challenges.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Why Focus on the FAO Now?

• Global urgency: With the world’s population projected to increase by 2 billion by 2050, there are immense pressures on food supply, intensified by climate change and volatile production cycles.
• Persistent hunger: Roughly a billion people remain undernourished worldwide.
• FAO’s role: "We need an organization that can meet those challenges." – Vijaya Ramachandran [00:49]

2. The Working Group & Report Development

• Nearly two dozen global experts (from China, the US, Germany, Australia, Nepal, and more) contributed perspectives and expertise.
• Process: Eighteen months of collaboration, consensus-building, and experience exchange went into developing key themes and messages.
• Expertise breadth: All group members "believe very strongly that FAO needs to play a central role in raising agricultural productivity." – Ramachandran [02:56]

3. Consensus: Shift to Global Public Goods

• Unanimity on mission: Despite group diversity, there was rapid agreement that FAO should specialize in global public goods.
• Historic successes: The global eradication of rinderpest and development of food safety standards illustrate the organization’s greatest impacts—transnational problems requiring coordinated solutions.
  • “FAO’s biggest achievements was around things like the eradication of rinderpest... these are the kinds of things that we consider to be global public goods.” – Ramachandran [03:30]
• Problem with current focus: Recent decades saw FAO fragmented into small-scale, local projects, often at governments’ request, rather than acting on issues with cross-border significance.

4. What Are Global Public Goods in Agriculture?

• Examples: Data collection, research, early warning systems for pests, food balance sheets, and neutral venues for global policy dialogue.
• Contrast: Projects strictly in individual districts or villages "seemed to me to be the antithesis of global public goods." – MacDonald [04:33]
• No substitute: "We want the kinds of products that are widely applicable where no other organization can provide these types of goods." – Ramachandran [05:00]
• Case study: FAO’s leadership in eradicating rinderpest—a viral cattle disease—with a decades-long vaccination campaign.

5. Prospects for Change Under New Leadership

• Hopeful climate: Recent appointment of Director General José Graziano (after 18 years of previous leadership) creates opportunities for organizational renewal.
• Data focus: Renewed commitment to improving the collection of agricultural data—critical for planning and policy.
• Funding challenge: “One thing that's very critical... is that the member states of the FAO provide funding for its core activities rather than funding that's earmarked for specific country level projects.” – Ramachandran [06:47]
• Trust fund reliance: Over-reliance on specific, non-core funding undermines long-term, broad-based action.

6. Concrete Recommendations

• Budget reallocation: Recommendation that at least 50% of FAO’s activities focus on providing global public goods (currently ~33%).
  • National/provincial activities should be reduced to 5%.
  • Remaining funds should be directed to regional public goods—like productivity projects in Sub-Saharan Africa.
  • "About 50% of FAO’s activities should be directed towards the supply of global public goods." – Ramachandran [07:33]
• Pragmatic numbers: Distinct from generalized recommendations, the report provides specific, actionable targets.

7. Reception Within FAO and Challenges Ahead

• Organizational dynamics: Internal FAO perspectives will vary—staff invested in small-scale projects may resist, while proponents of global initiatives may embrace these recommendations.
• Influence of the report: Early conversations with FAO staff and management at sister agencies (WFP, IFAD) are welcoming.
• Potential impact: “This report can serve as a very good basis for a dialogue on where FAO should be going.” – Ramachandran [09:46]
• Reform complexity: Even logical reallocations are difficult within large, vested-interest organizations.
  • “Anytime you're trying to reform a large organization... it is, in fact, extremely difficult.” – MacDonald [10:20]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “We need to worry about having a proper agency that will guide the thinking and the policy dialogue around increasing the productivity of agriculture, increasing our food supply, having enough food for people to eat.”
  — Vijaya Ramachandran [00:55]

• “Everybody in the group... felt that FAO’s biggest achievements was around things like the eradication of rinderpest, the introduction of international food safety standards—the kinds of things that we consider to be global public goods.”
  — Vijaya Ramachandran [03:30]

• “Unfortunately over the last couple of decades, FAO has been pulled into very small scale or very country level type activities, often in response to demand from Agriculture Ministers... What it really does need to be doing is providing public goods that can be used by farmers and by other people in the world food system all over the world.”
  — Vijaya Ramachandran [04:52]

• “The group believes that about 50% of FAO’s activities should be directed towards the supply of global public goods. Currently it’s about a third... [and] national level things... be reduced all the way to 5%.”
  — Vijaya Ramachandran [07:33]

• “I think the report will generate a lot of dialogue, a lot of debate around where the organization should go... This report can serve as a very good basis for a dialogue on where FAO should be going.”
  — Vijaya Ramachandran [09:04], [09:46]

Key Timestamps

• 00:49 – Why should we care about the FAO now?
• 01:48 – Composition and expertise of the working group
• 03:22 – Consensus on focusing FAO on global public goods
• 04:52 – Critique of FAO’s country-level projects vs. global role
• 06:09 – Prospects for FAO reform under new leadership
• 07:30 – Specific recommendations: budget allocation targets
• 09:04 – How the report is being received within FAO
• 10:32 – The challenge of organizational change

Summary

This episode underscores the urgent need for the FAO to refocus on delivering global public goods, drawing on its historic successes and the global nature of food security challenges. The discussion is pragmatic and consultative, offering precise recommendations for the organization’s future and acknowledging the complex realities of institutional reform. The report’s fundamental insight: only by prioritizing activities with worldwide benefits—like disease eradication, data, and research—can the FAO fulfill its mission in an era of unprecedented global food pressures.