James Ingram (diplomat)

In retirement Ingram has maintained his interest in international development, agricultural, and humanitarian aid issues and in Australian foreign policy. He has been especially active in support of the Australian Institute of International Affairs (AIIA), the Crawford Fund, the ANU's Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy and the University of New South Wales which established the Ingram Fund for International Law and Development in 2002 as a permanent endowment in the Faculty of Law. He advised Australian ministers personally and as a member of advisory committees on development and humanitarian issues including:

James Ingram was executive director of the World Food Programme, a major operational program of the United Nations system, from 1982 to 1992. He held the personal rank of UN Under Secretary General. He is the only Australian to have headed such a UN organisation. Before that appointment, Ingram was the chief executive officer of the Australian Development Assistance Bureau (ADAB), the second of several names applied over the years to the organisation managing Australia's international development assistance programs.

Ingram served two five-year terms as executive director, i.e. chief executive, of the UN World Food Programme from 1982 to 1992. Under his leadership the organisation changed its focus from food for work and associated development projects to humanitarian assistance in support of victims of natural disasters and persons displaced by internal conflict and war. Today the WFP is the “world’s largest humanitarian agency” both in terms of the numbers helped and the cost of so doing. Most of the food distributed is bought from developing countries and much supplied to beneficiaries through cash vouchers. The transformation of WFP would not have been possible without the constitutional and other changes brought about over the course of Ingram's tenure: “Through his initiatives, each a tipping point in a ten-year deliberate strategy, Ingram laid the foundation for his successors to complete the transformation process”.

Ingram's service in developing countries and at the United Nations, where he had been the Australian representative on the Executive Boards of UNICEF, UNDP and UNCTAD, had convinced him that Australia's development cooperation program and overseas trade policy were critical components of Australia's foreign policy, although they were not always sufficiently recognised as such by responsible ministers and top officials. He was therefore pleased to be appointed in 1975 to the newly created Australian Development Assistance Agency (ADAA) and in 1977 as head of the renamed agency ADAB (Australian Development Assistance Bureau). In seeking to improve the quality of Australia's bilateral aid and increase its support for selected multilateral aid organisations Ingram worked closely with Sir John Crawford. Their efforts ultimately led, inter alia, to the creation of the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR), as well as more effective utilisation of the educational and research resources of Australian universities.

In 1970, Ingram was appointed Australian Ambassador to the Philippines and in 1973 Australian High Commissioner to Canada and concurrently non-resident High Commissioner in the then-newly independent Caribbean nations of Jamaica, Barbados, Guyana and the Bahamas, and Australian representative on the newly established, now defunct, International Bauxite Association.

Ingram's career with the Department of External Affairs (as it was then known as) began in 1946 with his selection as a diplomatic cadet on the basis of competitive public written and oral examinations. He was the youngest appointed under the cadetship scheme. His first diplomatic appointment was to Tel Aviv (1950–53) following his marriage. Subsequent postings were to Washington DC (1956–59); Brussels (1959-60), where he was Charge d’affaires responsible for opening Australia's Mission to the then European Economic Community and Embassy to Belgium; Jakarta (1962–64); and the Australian Mission to the United Nations New York (1964–66). On return to Canberra, Ingram was Assistant Secretary in the Department of Foreign Affairs responsible for East and South Asia, the Americas, the South Pacific, and Asia and Pacific Council (ASPAC) affairs.

James Charles Ingram AO (born 27 February 1928) is a former Australian diplomat, philanthropist and author whose career culminated in his post as the eighth executive director of the World Food Programme (WFP), a position which he occupied for ten years.