Bangladesh elected Member of WFP Executive Board

The 49-member FAO Council has unanimously elected Bangladesh as a Member of the WFP (World Food Programme) Executive Board for two years (January 2022 to December 2023).

The decision came from the council’s on-going 168^th Session of Plenary on Thursday, says a press note.   

With this membership, Bangladesh becomes one of the 36 Members in the WFP’s governing body for the next two years that will provide intergovernmental support, policy direction and supervision of the activities of the WFP.

Eighteen Members are elected by ECOSOC and eighteen Members are elected by FAO Council. With this election, Bangladesh becomes the member of the Executive Bodies of the three Rome-based UN Agencies including at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) Council (2022-2024) and International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) Executive Board from (2020-2022).

Bangladesh Ambassador to Italy was elected as one of the three Vice Chairs of the FAO Council on the inaugural day (29 November 2021) of the Council. The Embassy of Bangladesh in Rome remained pro-actively engaged from the very beginning to obtain support from the Member States in favour of Bangladesh.

The FAO Council, held at hybrid format from FAO’s Headquarters in Rome, is being attended by the 6-member Bangladesh delegation led by Mr Md Shameem Ahsan, Ambassador of Bangladesh to Italy and Permanent Representative to Rome-based Agencies (RBAs).

Other members are Ms Tajkera Khatun, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Manash Mitra, Economic Counsellor and Alternate Permanent Representative to RBAs, Mr Bidhan Baral, Deputy Secretary, Economic Relations Division (ERD), Mr SM Imrul Hasan, Deputy Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture and Mr Md Mosharraf Uddin Molla, Member-Director, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council.