TRUST FUNDS

FAO's Trust Fund programme is a form of "multi-bilateral" technical cooperation. It is bilateral in that one country finances technical assistance in another country, and multilateral in that an international agency, in this case FAO, provides the technical expertise to implement projects at regional or national level.

Trust Funds, a major source of FAO's technical cooperation activities, are set up and administered by the Organization on behalf of its Member Governments. FAO holds the grants provided for Trust Fund projects in trust for the benefit of the projects concerned. FAO's role in these projects is that of an "honest broker". Its task is to offer neutral and objective advice on the technical subject concerned and on project design. Upon request from governments, it also mobilizes sources for project funding and assists in the project implementation.

The major Trust Fund categories covered in the FAO Project Formulation Toolkit are the Government Cooperative Programme (GCP) and Unilateral Trust Funds (UTF): For multi-bilateral schemes (executed under FAO/GCP), the donor provides funds for a specific project in a recipient country using FAO for technical or other forms of assistance. GCP projects and programmes may be funded by several donors, mostly in cases of large-scale regional or international interventions. Under unilateral schemes (executed under UTFs), Member Governments or interested institutions provide the funds for development projects in their own country or region. FAO is the source of technical or operational expertise. Increasingly, such schemes involve loans from major international or regional development financing institutions.

Trust Fund projects originate from a recipient country's request for assistance in formulating and financing a development project. Under the Project Agreement with the Donor Government, and upon request of the government of the recipient country, FAO provides assistance for the execution of the project. The Organization is responsible for the recruitment, international travel, salaries and emoluments of the international experts. All project staff work under the direction of the Project Manager (Chief Technical Advisor), who, on behalf of FAO, is responsible for the technical execution of the project. FAO provides equipment and supplies as specified in the project document. It arranges for regular supervisory visits to the project, and reports on the project to the donor and the recipient government. The government of the recipient country take all necessary measures to facilitate the execution of the project. It is responsible for the recruitment, salaries, and social security measures of the national staff. It is also responsible for the customs clearance of project requirement, its transportation, handling, storage and related expenses within the country.

Preparation requirements and standard formats for project documents for both types of Trust Funds are provided under:

A number of Trust Fund NORMATIVE FRAMEWORKS and "best practice" PROJECT EXAMPLES can be found in this Toolkit by searching under PROJECT CATEGORIES and TOOLKIT PROJECT DOCUMENTS.

For more information on formulation of Trust Fund projects see: