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International Civil Aviation
Organization (ICAO)

Established in 1944 and a UN specialized agency since 1947, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) is charged with the orderly and safe growth of international civil aviation. The Assembly, consisting of all member states, meets at least once every 3 years. The ICAO Council is the executive body. In 1991 Belize, Albania and Namibia adhered to the Convention on International Civil Aviation, increasing total membership to 164. On March 12 the Council elected Dr. Philippe H. P. Rochat (Switzerland) as Secretary General to succeed Dr. S. S. Sidhu (India) upon expiration of his term of office on July 31.

Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against Civil Aviation

The ICAO International Air Law Conference, held February 12-March 1 at headquarters in Montreal, adopted a Convention on the Marking of Plastic Explosives for the Purpose of Detection. The United States strongly supported adoption of this convention, developed in response to alarming incidents in recent years involving destruction of aircraft in flight through use of plastic and sheet explosives, e.g., destruction of Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988.

The convention would require a party to prohibit and prevent the manufacture or the movement into or out of its territory of unmarked plastic explosives. It provides for the creation of an International Explosives Technical Commission, consisting of at least 15 international experts, to evaluate technical developments relating to the manufacture, marking and detection of explosives; report its findings to all states and concerned international organizations; and, as appropriate, propose amendments to the Technical Annex to the convention.

Since the convention had not yet entered into force, the Council decided to maintain the Ad Hoc Group of Specialists on the Detection of Explosives. The Group met September 23-27 to continue studies to update the convention.

The fifth meeting of the Aviation Security Panel, held June 10-21 at headquarters, included a Representative of the United States. The panel recommended 10 new Standards and 4 Recommended Practices for incorporation in ICAO Annex 17 on international aviation security. These new provisions dealt with screening checked baggage and security controls for cargo, courier and express parcels, and mail.

10th Air Navigation Conference

This worldwide conference, held at headquarters September 5-20, endorsed the new satellite-based communications, navigation, and surveillance (CNS) and the air traffic management (ATM) systems formulated by ICAO's Special Committee on Future Air Navigation Systems (FANS). The United States played a leading role in development of the new CNS system, which will form the basis for more efficient management of air traffic.

The Conference called upon ICAO to continue to examine in depth the technical, financial, managerial and legal aspects of the CNS/ATM concept for worldwide civil aviation. ICAO is to monitor and coordinate global harmonization of planning and implementation of the new systems, and provide assistance to states as required. The United States announced at the Conference that the U.S. satellite Global Positioning System (GPS) would be available for use by civil aviation, free of user charges, for 10 years beginning in 1993.

Conference on Airport and Route Facility
Management

This first meeting since 1981 on the financing and management of airports and route facilities, held at headquarters October 29-November 9, reaffirmed guidelines for states when assessing charges for international airports and en route air navigation facilities. Discussions were guided by the need to balance the interests of airport and route facility providers with those of airlines.

The Conference on Airport and Route Facility Management (CARFM) agreed that airports may produce sufficient revenues to exceed all direct and indirect operating costs, and therefore provide a reasonable return on assets to contribute towards necessary capital improvements. It also recommended that states refrain from imposing charges on airlines, passengers and air cargo shippers for services and functions not associated with international civil aviation or which discriminate against international civil aviation in relation to other modes of international transport.

As proposed by the United States, the Conference recommended that meteorological costs should be allocated between air traffic services for airports and for air routes. In states with more than one international airport, the Conference stated that meteorological costs could be allocated among the airports

involved. On the financing of the CNS/ATM system concept endorsed by the 10th Air Navigation Conference, CARFM urged ICAO to include in its policy guidelines for states the appropriateness of including costs attributable to satellite use in the cost basis for route facility and airport charges. The Conference endorsed ICAO's existing policy guidelines on charges related to aircraft noise and requested an ICAO study to determine if changes could help reduce the environmental consequences of aircraft engine emissions.

Committee on Aviation Environmental Protection

The second meeting of the Committee, which replaced ICAO's Committee on Aircraft Noise and Committee on Aircraft Engine Emissions, was held at headquarters December 2–13. Fourteen Committee members, including the United States, attended.

The Committee recommended that the Council increase by 20 percent the stringency of ICAO Standards relating to emission of oxides of nitrogen from future aircraft engines, as a first step toward development of even more stringent future requirements. The Committee planned to undertake research and analysis to determine what additional steps might protect the environment. It also reviewed existing noise certification requirements; recommendations were made for a new noise certification scheme for light helicopters and a new procedure for ultralight aircraft.

International Fund for Agricultural
Development (IFAD)

The International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) was established in 1977 in response to widespread concern that international attention be focused on the small farmer and the landless poor in developing countries. IFAD's mandate is to increase food production and improve living conditions in developing countries through loans for projects benefiting the rural poor in the poorest food deficient regions. In 1991 IFAD loans and grants totaled approximately $269 million. Administrative costs, funded from its investment income, were approximately $49.8 million.

IFAD's headquarters are in Rome. Its President, Idriss Jazairy (Algeria) is serving his second 4-year term, which expires in January 1993. IFAD's 147 members are divided into different categories as follows: Category I (OECD members, including the

United States), Category II (OPEC members) and Category III (other developing countries).

Each IFAD member country is represented on the Governing Council, which meets annually. The Council elects, on a staggered basis, 6 members from each category to the 18-member Executive Board for 3-year terms. The Executive Board is responsible for the conduct of IFAD's general operations, and exercises the powers placed on it by the IFAD agreement and delegated to it by the Council. As the largest donor, the United States is the only member of IFAD to enjoy a permanent seat on the Executive Board.

IFAD was originally intended to be financed through balanced contributions from members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 3year replenishments. OPEC contributions have declined, however, while contributions from other developing countries have increased. For the third replenishment, which covers the period from July 1990 through June 1992, OECD pledged 67 percent, OPEC 22 percent and other developing countries 11 percent. The U.S. pledge of $82.8 million to the third replenishment represents 14.6 percent of the total third replenishment target of $567.4 million. The United States contributed $30 million in fiscal year 1991 toward its third replenishment pledge.

The declining percentage of Category II contributions to IFAD in each successive replenishment has led the United States and other major donors to become increasingly concerned about the present governance structure, which gives equal voting representation to each category. In discussions with the IFAD Secretariat and other member states throughout 1991, the United States held that, should Category II donors not resume their traditional funding share, the discrepancy between funding shares and voting rights would need to be adequately addressed before the United States could consider contributing to a fourth replenishment.

IFAD uses its resources to leverage additional financing from other international development institutions and host governments for projects which benefit the rural poor. Between 1977 and 1990, IFAD funded 292 projects in 93 developing countries with a total value of $11.8 billion, of which IFAD provided $3.1 billion (26 percent), external cofinancers such as the World Bank and the regional development banks about 33 percent, and the recipient countries themselves about 41 percent. Of these projects, 28 percent were related to rural development, 25 per

cent to agricultural development, 16 percent to credit and 10 percent to irrigation. The remaining projects involved livestock development, research, extension services, training, fisheries, and marketing, storage, and processing.

About two-thirds of IFAD's loans are on highly concessional terms-one percent annual service charge with a 50-year maturity period, including a 10-year grace period. These loans are available primarily, but not exclusively, to countries with a per capita GNP of $300 or less (in 1976 dollars). Intermediate-term loans, at 4 percent interest with a maturity period of 20 years including a grace period of 5 years, have averaged about 30 percent of the total lending program. As IFAD has sought to address the pockets of poverty in middle income countries, a growing percentage of loans has been made on ordinary terms, 8 percent interest and 15-18 year maturity period including a 3year grace period.

As a funding rather than implementing agency, IFAD's projects are supervised and implemented by the multilateral development banks, the UN Development Program, and other implementing agencies in the UN system.

During 1991, IFAD strengthened its project evaluation activities through establishment of an in-house Evaluation Panel. This panel provides a forum for discussion of the evaluation reports by IFAD staff in order to draw lessons from interim and completion evaluations and to establish follow-up procedures for the issues recognized as critical for the remaining period of the project. IFAD also began to implement the 1990 decision making, an evaluation compulsory before a second phase of a project could be begun.

The major findings of the evaluations undertaken in 1990 and 1991 related to project design. They included recommendations for greater attention to the expressed needs of beneficiaries, consideration of the consequences of given land tenure systems on the implementation of a project, better recognition of the constraints faced by resource-poor farmers, and incorporation of climatic variability estimates in expected project outcomes. Other recommendations emphasized the need for clarification of priorities and possible sequencing of activities in IFAD projects, and increased attention to the marketing and processing of the additional production generated by IFAD projects.

Governing Council

The 14th session of the Governing Council, originally scheduled for January 22-24, was postponed until May 29-30 as a

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