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The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) leads international efforts to defeat hunger. Serving both developed and developing countries, FAO acts as a neutral forum where all nations meet as equals to negotiate agreements and debate emerging global policy issues.. FAO is also a source of knowledge and information. FAO helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices and ensure good nutrition for all. Since its founding in 1945, FAO has focused special attention on developing rural areas, home to 70 percent of the world’s poor and hungry people.
The World Food Programme (WFP) is the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide. In emergencies they get food to where it is needed, saving the lives of victims of war, civil conflict and natural disasters. After the cause of an emergency has passed they help communities rebuild their shattered lives.
WFP is part of the United Nations system and is voluntarily funded. Born in 1961, it pursues a vision of the world in which every man, woman and child has access at all times to the food needed for an active and healthy life. The organization works towards that vision with their sister UN agencies in Rome — as well as other government, UN and NGO partners.
On average, WFP reaches more than 80 million people with food assistance in 82 countries each year. 11,367 people work for the organization, most of them in remote areas, directly serving the hungry poor.
The International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established as an international financial institution in 1977 as one of the major outcomes of the 1974 World Food Conference. The Conference was organized in response to the food crises of the early 1970s that primarily affected the Sahelian countries of Africa. The conference resolved that “an International Fund for Agricultural Development should be established immediately to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in the developing countries.” One of the most important insights emerging from the conference was that the causes of food insecurity and famine were not so much failures in food production, but structural problems relating to poverty and to the fact that the majority of the developing world’s poor populations were concentrated in rural areas. IFAD is dedicated to eradicating rural poverty in developing countries. Seventy-five per cent of the world’s poorest people – 1.4 billion women, children and men – live in rural areas and depend on agriculture and related activities for their livelihoods.
ICCROM is the only institution of its kind with a worldwide mandate to promote the conservation of all types of cultural heritage. As an intergovernmental organization, it operates at the service of its Member States.
ICCROM achieves its mission primarily through the provision of knowledge, tools and training to those who are working to conserve culture. It works at the international and governmental level, and with institutions and professionals on the ground. Through selected outreach activities, it aims to engage and inform new generations of upcoming professionals and the general public with an interest in heritage.
ICCROM also maintains an active, engaged network of professionals from around the world who are passionate about heritage and its protection.
In addition, the organization contributes to preserving cultural heritage in the world today and for the future through five main areas of activity: Training, Information, Research, Cooperation and Advocacy.
The International Development Law Organization (IDLO) is the only intergovernmental organization exclusively devoted to promoting the rule of law. Governments, multilateral organizations, private foundations and the private sector support our work. We are headquartered in Rome, where we were first founded, and where we continue to enjoy strong support from the Italian government. We are present in The Hague, a city whose hospitality connects us with an unrivaled legal tradition. And we are represented at the United Nations in New York and Geneva, where we help shape the debate about human rights and development.
We enable countries to design, reform and strengthen those laws and institutions most apt to deliver justice, dignity and economic opportunity. We do not champion law for law’s sake: if we promote well-functioning courts, we also strive to make them accessible. For us, helping draft a national Constitution means giving a voice to the rural widow. The same emphasis on the end-user informs IDLO’s record on commercial law, intellectual property law, environmental law, and every other area of law, national or international.
The International Institute for the Unification of Private Law (UNIDROIT) is an independent intergovernmental organization with its seat in the Villa Aldobrandini in Rome. Its purpose is to study needs and methods for modernizing, harmonizing and co-coordinating private and in particular commercial law as between States and groups of States and to formulate uniform law instruments, principles and rules to achieve those objectives.
Set up in 1926 as an auxiliary organ of the League of Nations, the Institute was, following the demise of the League, re-established in 1940 re-established in 1940 on the basis of a multilateral agreement. Membership of UNIDROIT is restricted to States acceding to the UNIDROIT Statute. UNIDROIT’S 63 member States are drawn from the five continents and represent a variety of different legal, economic and political systems as well as different cultural backgrounds. The Institute is financed by annual contributions from its member States which are fixed by the General Assembly in addition to a basic annual contribution from the Italian Government. Extra-budgetary contributions may be made to fund specific projects or activities.
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