A majority of EU countries are against such extra-budgetary funding for the UN agency and instead feel that funding for development activities in needy countries should got to the WFP, which conducts not only food emergency operations but also long term reconstruction or rehabilitation actiosn, to IFAD and to existing NGOs, whose costs are below those of FAO.

 But extra-budgetary funding by the EU is within the authority of the bureaucratic European Commission, which negotiates and provides funding to the FAO without direct involvement of EU members.

 EU member states often are unable to impose on the EU Commission bureaucracy their views on policies toward China and on development funding, the sources say.

 As many observers see it, the EU block of 27 is doomed to inefficiency owing to divisions among EU states and tensions between EU members and the Commission,

 "The Commission seems to be more interested in asserting its independence than in efficiency and in helping populations in an efficient manner," one veteran FAO watcher says.

   Between 2018 and 2020, the EU contributed approximately EUR 541million to more than 250 FAO projects undertaken around the world, supporting FAO in implementing programmes and projects in line with the Paris Agreement on climate action and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

jf