ROME– FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva has strongly denied he is favouring Latin Americans since he took office at the food agency in January.

 “I assess managers and staff members by the work they do and not by the post they have,” Senior Graziano, a Brazilian, told a meeting of a recent FAO Council earlier this year.

“In the spirit of FAO’s global mandate I see no Brazilian, no American, no Italian, no French, no Chinese, no Canadian, but only International Civil Servants.”

 The FAO press office made available the text of the Director General’s remarks after persistent reports that senior FAO staff from OECD countries are being sidelined under changes introduced since he took office as Latin Americans and Spaniards take over top jobs in the Rome-based United Nations agency.

“The Director-General of FAO is categorically not favouring any nationality or regional groups” an FAO spokesman said.

“FAO members are fully supporting the changes that are being proposed by the Director-General and introduced after extensive formal and informal consultations with member countries, governing bodies, external experts and FAO partners.”

 “For the first time in FAO history, OECD and G77 countries agreed on the decentralization proposal presented by management which is part of FAO’s institutional strengthening process,” the spokesman, Enrique Yeves, said.

 Diplomatic sources said ambassadors to the FAO from OECD countries planned to protest the alleged discrimination against their nationals.

 Some 900 FAO staff walked off the job in a protest staged by staff associations in May to dramatise opposition to job restructuring. 

 “One could now call the FAO the ‘organisation of Latin America, Spain and the Caribbean,’” one senior staffer told the Italian Insider, “it is no exaggeration to say that people from OECD countries live in fear of losing their jobs.”

 “Diplomats to FAO stopped short of complaining till now because it was felt Graziano had to be left a free hand in his first six months in the job,” one source said, “however it is to be expected that they will make representations imminently.”

 In addition to the internal "purge," staffers from Western countries have been irked by Graziano bringing back as consultants to the FAO former Latin American staffers who officially had retired – a practise seen as typical of the jobs for life culture adopted by previous director generals Edouard Saouma and Jacques Diouf – rather than introducing new blood to the agency.