ROME – Over a third of the FAO Evaluation division employees in the Eternal City have sought medical help to cope with the stress of working under bullying director Clemencia Cosentino who staffers say has created a toxic environment in a critical department of the UN agency as well as splurging hundreds of thousands of euros earmarked for the poor on spurious ‘divisional retreats’ held in luxury Rome hotels, FAO sources say.

 Such is the level of relentless workplace harassment of those out of favour with Ms Cosentino, an Argentinian American, and her two main sidekicks in the OED, that some staffers fear that one of the more vulnerable employees may take their own life, a tragedy for which there would be a precedent at FAO given the suicide of a Japanese staffer at the Cairo office of FAO in similar circumstances. Complaints have been made to the normally doughty Ombudsman, the ethics committee, the Human Resources department as well as the FAO medical team but none of them have had the courage to take up the matter with Chinese Director General Qu Dongyu, who in his pronouncements to staff frequently preaches that team leaders should look after the welfare of team members. The professional staff association at FAO, in the eyes of many observers long since bought off by management, also has turned a blind eye to the situation.

 Ms Cosentino, a Princeton graduate with a scientific and academic background enjoys a sky high salary of some dlrs 20,000 a month but has scant experience of development in the field. She has disturbed the 50 members of the division by boasting to staff that the director general has given her the authority to hire and fire at will. She frequently cites what she claims is the lack of skilled staff in the organization and criticises the quality of evaluations conducted by substandard, despite the fact that many of them were renowned for their excellence under the previous Japanese divisional director.

 “Such remarks have led personnel to question whether these are intentional tactics endorsed by the DG to intitimidate, harass and undermine staff confidence,” one veteran FAO watcher commented.

 Ms Cosentino’s reign of fear is carried out with the assistance of Sicilian American consultant Valentina Di Marco, who had to receive a waiver from the DG when she was appointed Knowledge Management Coordinator since she is the spouse of a senior officer, Davide Conte, the director of strategic planning. Normally this would have been a conflict of interest that would have prohibited her appointment but Qu made the waiver conditional on her having no direct professional contact whatsoever with Conte. However in practise they both attend regular planning meetings organised by his division where he is one of the leading organisers of that meeting and his wife represents the OED.

 Ms Di Marco previously worked at sister agency IFAD and a company she recommended organised two dubious divisional retreats in luxury Rome 5 star hotels where staffers could climax a meeting of minds by sleeping in the hotel. Total cost of the two retreats was as much as 250,000 euros out of FAO funds earmarked for the poor and it remains to be seen if anything was achieved other than blasting hot air.

 Also joining in the harassment of staffers targetted with the aim of pushing them out is Jenin Assaf, a Palestinian American, according to the sources.

 Traditionally the evaluation director reports both to the DG and the Programme committee and enjoys considerable power, including the ability to criticise the director general if they feel that his leadership of the organization and policy direction is off beam. FAO watchers say that Qu evidently appointed Cosentino as she is a lightweight in terms of field experience and therefore unlikely to criticise him.

 Also concerning demoralised staff is the increasing lack of diversity within the evaluation team. “The leadership appears to favour hiring predominantly European staff, specifically Italians, and Americans, on the pretext that other nationalities do not meet required qualifications,” an informed source told the Insider. In the last six months more than four Italians were hired in different positions from P4 to P2 in addition to other Italians with dual citizenship. “This hiring bias has drastically altered the team’s dynamics, leading to exclusion of other perspectives and a significant reduction in linguistic and cultural diversity, affecting both formal meetings and informal communications.”

 Staff also face a proliferation of unclear “memos” and are required to navigate multiple administrative systems set up by the "gang of three" that are unnecessarily duplicating existing FAO admin systems including time sheet, leave plan, appraisal of staff. This contributes to confusion and frustration.

 Misuse of authority by Ms Cosentino includes recent changes in consultancy contracts through the change from COE to Personal Service Agreements, meaning that consultants hired to make evaluations in the field no longer represent officially FAO and therefore lack protection in the field. Staff in the division have challenged this but Cosentino claims that “OED is an independent office, I will talk to the DG.”

 A significant portion of the  staff now require psychological support services due to a toxic work environment characterised by fear, intimidation and stress taking a profound emotional toll. Staff meetings held in the OED every week have become ordeals for staffers as Cosentino and her two henchwomen use derogatory body language to mock and belittle well-intentioned team members who are shy or not perfect communicators but who are trying their best.

 Qu frequently claims to have the welfare of FAO staff at heart. It remains to be seen whether he will intervene to discipline the Gang of Three or if it will take another tragedy at the agency to bring the culture of mobbing to an end.

 jf