Ex-IAS Officer From Odisha In Race For United Nations IFAD President

Bhubaneswar: Former IAS officer from Odisha Shobhana Kumar Pattanayak is in the race to be the president of the International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), a specialised agency of the United Nations that works to address poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries.

A 1982-batch Karnataka cadre IAS officer, Pattanayak retired as Agriculture Secretary in 2018. He was the first mission director of the National Horticulture Mission when it was launched in 2005. Between 2009-12, he was posted as Minister (agriculture), Embassy of India, Rome and Alternate Permanent Representative of India to Un Agencies in Rome.

He has a PhD in the field of Food Security. The thesis was titled “Policy Options for a Food Secure WorldInternational Experience and its relevance for Developing Countries including India”.

The new president will be appointed by the Governing Council of IFAD at a special session on July 7, 2022. The elected President will take office on October 1 for a four-year term.

“The president will lead IFAD at a crucial time, as COVID-19, climate change, and conflict converge to result in rising food and fuel prices. This in turn could lead to a global food crisis, with the world’s poorest rural people likely to be hardest hit,” the official website said.

IFAD plays a crucial role in increasing the resilience of rural small-scale producers. the Fund’s investments in climate adaptation and sustainable food systems are helping to achieve many of the Sustainable Development Goals, it added.

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