FAO and Hungary reach an important milestone together

After careful consideration and negotiation, the decision was made in 2007 – exactly 10 years ago – to relocate FAO’s Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia from Rome to Budapest.

To be sure, Budapest already had a place on FAO’s map: the Hungarian capital had been home to the Organization’s Subregional Office for Central and Eastern Europe since 1996. In the 1990s, with the transition to market economies in countries of Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States, FAO’s activities in the region were growing in importance.

Establishment in Budapest of an FAO Shared Services Centre was covered under the same agreement as that of the Regional Office. The Center provides administrative services – human resources, finance, travel, purchasing – for FAO offices and personnel in Europe, Africa, and the Near East.

With number of staff at the Regional Office staff now approaching 90, and with 140 at the Shared Services Centre, FAO’s share of the total United Nations presence in Budapest continues to grow. The Organization’s employees are a truly international mix of people from all continents.

At present, all have their offices on the fourth floor of the Hungarian Ministry of Agriculture building at Kossuth Lajos ter, opposite the landmark Hungarian Parliament. The Regional Office team are scheduled to move yet again in 2018, after renovations are complete on their Benczur utca premises.

To mark the 10-year anniversary – and the strong relationship between FAO and Hungary – the Ministry of Agriculture yesterday organized a commemorative ceremony and hosted evening festivities for the entire FAO team.

Minister of Agriculture Sandor Fazekas and FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative Vladimir Rakhmanin headed the list of speakers. Also present for the occasion were many graduate students from foreign countries, who study agriculture-related disciplines at Hungarian universities under the FAO-Hungary scholars programme.

12 December 2017, Budapest, Hungary