ROME– FAO Director General Jose Graziano da Silva, evidently seeking to widen his power base to include Chancellor Angela Merkel's government, has appointed German diplomat Christoph Martin Frick to head the UN agency’s climate division and confirmed German multinational Allianz as the FAO insurer, diplomatic sources say.

“I have appointed Mr Christoph Martin Frick, Director of the Climate, Energy and Tenure Division, effective 15 March 2015,” Graziano said in a ponderous DG "bulletin" to staff at the Rome-based agency. Frick served as First Secretary of Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs at the Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations in New York from 2005 to 2006. Between 2007 and 2010, he was Programme Director at the Global Humanitarian Forum in Geneva, Switzerland and in 2010, he served as Senior International Fellow at Demos in New York. From 2011 to 2012, he was Climate Diplomacy Leader at the Third Generation Environmentalism in Berlin, Germany.

Since 2012, Frick has been Ambassador of the German Federal Foreign Office to the international organizations in-country with a special focus on the Bonn based UN-organizations.

 Frick attended the Rio Summit on Sustainable Development two years ago with German Environment minister Peter Altmaier.

Allianz, Europe's biggest insurer, has been investing billions of euros of policy holders’ in renewable energy.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Environment Minister Altmaier have been seeking ways to cut rising renewable energy support, which consumers must pay for.

 FAO’s confirmation of Allianz as insurer for the agency and the appointment of Frick as director are indicative that Graziano wants to curry favour with Bonn and moderate his previous stance of shutting candidates from OECD countries, other than Latin allies such as Spain, out of top appointments, FAO watchers say.

 After taking office Graziano gave preference to candidates in top jobs from BRIC economies such as Brazil and China and from radical Group of 77 countries. But with Bric economies overheating and losing their drive the Brazilian DG can no longer afford to spurn so many OECD nations and has long seen Bonn as a potential ally, insiders at the Rome-based agency say.

 Brazil earlier this year paid up dlrs 15 million owed to FAO as a subscription for the agency for 2014, forcing the cash-strapped Brazilian government to withhold overdue payments at other UN organisations where it has lost voting rights.

 Now Graziano's re-election, without opposition, is ensured since no other candidates have emerged, Brazilian diplomats may seek to slow down further big injections of cash to Graziano's feifdom, meaning he has had to nuance his previous stance of anatagonism to the OECD, diplomats say.