The 2024 MOPAN assessment finds that the deterioration of global food security conditions over the past five years and the growing urgency of global climate action have made FAO’s mandate more relevant than ever. In 2023, about 733 million people faced hunger, around 2.33 billion lacked access to adequate food, 282 million people in 59 countries faced acute food insecurity and over 2.8 billion could not afford a healthy diet. Developing countries have been hit by multiple new and overlapping crises, alongside longstanding structural challenges to food security. FAO is increasingly called upon to lead the response to these challenges, at global and national levels.
The MOPAN assessment concludes that FAO has retained its key strengths. It has a clear mandate as the UN’s lead agency on agricultural and food systems, solid core functions, strong partnerships and a commitment to strategic innovation. It is valued for its technical competence and its convening power. It has taken positive steps to address issues raised in previous MOPAN assessments, including by diversifying its resource partners and strengthening internal coherence.
FAO has tight constraints on its core budget, while its extra-budgetary voluntary contributions have grown significantly. The sharp increase in project funding at the country level, though a sign of the high demand for FAO’s work, has brought two challenges.
First, it stretches the capacity of FAO’s country offices. This makes it necessary to equip them with the right capacities to ensure solid, high-quality delivery and accountability. It also requires FAO to manage its human resources management in a more strategic and agile manner and to strengthen the performance of internal controls.
Second, the shift towards predominantly earmarked voluntary funding hampers FAO’s flexibility to allocate resources against its strategic objectives.
FAO is in the process of addressing these challenges. Solving them will call for close dialogue with Members. This, in turn, will require creating the preconditions and incentives for members to support a progressive transition towards more sustainable funding practices in support of core functions.
This MOPAN assessment aims to provide a platform for dialogue between FAO and its membership, highlighting strengths on which FAO can build and issues that merit enhanced engagement. The forthcoming report will provide the findings from the assessment, outlines FAO’s organisational journey, including issues that FAO – Secretariat and Members alike – may wish to consider for the future.
