ROME – A year after his election as the president of the International Fund for Agricultural Development, Spanish finance geek Alvaro Lario still is punching below his weight and over dependent, in the eyes of many staff, upon senior executives hired by his predecessor, Gilbert Houngbo, including domineering French chief of staff, Charles Tellier, IFAD sources say.

 While respected by staffers for his honesty, dedication and likeable personal qualities, Lario still appears timid and afraid of change and evidently decided basically after his election to the Rome-based agency last year to keep virtually the same top management team in their sinecures on sky high salaries, while accepting new personal advisors to the president suggested by M. Tellier.

 In a further test of his resolve, Lario is under pressure from the influential Mutho0 clan wielding power in the UN food agencies in Rome who want Indian playboy Ashwani Muthoo to return to IFAD as a vice president, a move that would be sure to be highly unpopular among staff, the sources added.

 France and other EU countries supported Lario’s election last year but Lario would have had little trouble in easing out Tellier as a Houngbo appointment, the sources added.

 Also disappointing IFAD watchers is the failure so far by the Spaniard to reshuffle the cohort of IFAD goodwill ambassadors and special envoys inherited from Houngbo, spearheaded by British lothario Idris Elba and his glamorous model wife.

 Some such celebrity ambassadors at the UN food agencies in Rome – not IFAD – are criticised for travelling business class or even on private jets at UN expense while arguably contributing little either to the agencies’ brand or fund raising.

  One long time diplomatic observer noted: “How can you say that you really want to change the internal culture and then at the same time keep the same top team who are the symbols of that culture?”

  “It is widely known that the executive management committee is mired in power struggles, turf wars and nasty back stabbings, which staff are all too well aware of and find very counter productive to serious culture change.”

 Lario is known to be very cautious man who treads very carefully before making any decision. This may hamper decisiveness at the time when the organisation really needs it. In order to have serious change, it is inevitable that some shake-up is needed. That seems to be wishful thinking judging by the actions taken so far.

 Another serious concern for staff was the downgrading of the important post of Director of the Ethics Office. This function should serve to protect staff and should be held to the highest international standard by a top notch professional.

 Instead, the new management decided to downgrade the post to a P5 and to only issue the vacancy internally, raising concerns that they want to dump some internal staff member in the function rather than going through a competitive international recruitment process based on merit and competence to get the best candidate possible.

 jf