Rome – Three* candidates have been presented by FAO member nations for the post of Director-General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) to be elected in July 2023.
Election for the Organization’s top leadership post with a four-year term of office starting on 1 August 2023 will take place during the 43rd session of the FAO Conference (Rome, 1-7 July 2023), the highest governing body of the Organization.
The deadline for submission of nominations was Tuesday, 28 February 2023.
The three candidates, each nominated by the governments of their respective countries, include the incumbent Director-General QU Dongyu (China), Hamid Khalaf Ahmed (Iraq) and Dilshod Sharifi (Tajikistan).
QU Dongyu was first elected in June 2019. FAO Directors-General may serve only two consecutive terms.
*On 6 March 2023, the Secretary-General of the Conference and Council of FAO received a communication from the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq to the United Nations informing of the withdrawal of Hamid Khalaf Ahmed’s candidature.
*On 3 April 2023, the Secretary-General of the Conference and Council of FAO received a communication from the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan informing of the withdrawal of the nomination of Dilshod Sharifi.
Since the establishment of FAO in 1945, there have been nine Directors-General:
• Sir John Boyd Orr, United Kingdom, 1945-1948
• Norris E. Dodd, United States, 1948-1954
• Philip Vincent Cardon, United States, 1954-1956
• Binay Ranjan Sen, India, 1956-1967
• Addeke Hendrik Boerma, Netherlands, 1968-1975
• Edouard Saouma, Lebanon, 1976-1993
• Jacques Diouf, Senegal, 1994-2011
• José Graziano da Silva, Brazil, 2011-2019
• QU Dongyu, China, 2019 -