Hunger: FAO

My favorite UN agency has to be the FAO. For a livestock veterinarian, it doesn't get any better than the Food and Agriculture Organization. And they do crops, too!

The FAO has as it's mandate

to raise levels of nutrition, improve agricultural productivity, better the lives of rural populations and contribute to the growth of the world economy.

They aim to help people help themselves (sensing a theme in the organizations I like yet?), by providing technical advice in any area of agriculture. That means teaching new farming techniques, yes, but it also means teaching policy techniques to governments, setting up disease surveillance systems, and alerting the rest of the world to situations that need relief.

The FAO is not a funding agency, but a technical agency. It has limited funds to supply, but large amounts of expertise. That expertise is available to all, in every form from rural extension seminars to Internet databases. People working for the FAO may be in an office in Rome, doing basic research, or out in the bush, putting the research into practice.

Yes, I sound like a cheesy public service announcement. What can I say, I want to work for them!

There is even peacemaking potential at the FAO, as it provides neutral ground for dispute resolution. The directors aim to decentralize, bringing the resources closer to the people who need it, but the central office is still a meeting place for all agriculturalists who need to interact on a global scale.

The FAO is commited to the Millenium Development Goal of cutting hunger in half by 2015. At this point, frankly, it would take a miracle. Still, trying for a major miracle can cause minor miracles to happen.