Representatives from the Costa Rican agricultural sector are fine-tuning the features of the policy, with the assistance of IICA and recognized Brazilian experts. It should be completed within a year.
San Jose, Costa Rica, March 25, 2014, (IICA). National and international specialists with extensive experience in this field concluded that having transformed its Institute for Agricultural Development into the Institute for Rural Development (INDER), in March 2012, Costa Rica should now proceed to establish a national policy on rural area-based development (RTD).
At the invitation of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) at its headquarters in San Jose, representatives from government agencies affiliated with the Costa Rican rural sector are collaborating with Brazilian experts to establish the foundation for this policy.
The group included officials from the Ministry of National Planning and Economic Policy (MIDEPLAN) and from INDER, as well as from the Executive Secretariat for Planning in the Agricultural Sector (SEPSA) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG). Other participants were Brazil’s former Deputy Minister of Territorial Development, Humberto Oliveira, and Joâo Torrens, IICA RTD specialist.
According to Patricia Vargas, RTD specialist at the IICA Office in Costa Rica, the specialists all concurred that the new policy should facilitate the participation of area-based stakeholders and should enhance the visibility of marginalized groups, such as women, youth, the indigenous population and persons with disabilities, inter alia.
It should also embrace multiple sectors, be representative of all interest groups, and should facilitate effective institution-building that ensures that the needs of territories are addressed.
The Brazilian experts assisting the Costa Ricans have extensive experience in RTD. Oliveira held the position of Executive Secretary of the National Council for Sustainable Rural Development (CONDRAF) in his country and was Deputy Minister of Area-based Development from 2003 to 2011.
In 2008, Torrens, who is an IICA specialist for the Andean region, collaborated with Oliveira to develop and implement Territories of Citizenship (Territorios de Ciudadanía), a Brazilian program, the primary impact of which was to reduce poverty and inequality in 120 rural territories in that country.
In that initiative, Torrens represented civil society interests and Oliveira represented those of the public sector. The program focused on integration and decentralization, and therefore it is hoped that it will also be a key element in defining the RTD policy in Costa Rica.
In Costa Rica, Law 9036 led to the transformation that resulted in the existing INDER. The regulations are intended to establish an institutional framework that will drive sustainable rural development and allow for the formulation, planning, execution and evaluation of national policy in this area, with an emphasis on the most vulnerable territories.
It also assigns responsibility for the formulation of RTD policy to the MAG, and INDER with the execution thereof.
The process to develop and implement an RTD national policy in Costa Rica began in 2012 and will continue until a foundation has been firmly established, said Patricia Vargas. The next step is to work towards formulating, consulting on, and validating the proposal.
Formulation of the policy would require at least one year, since it encompasses complex issues such as competitiveness and employment, quality of life, environmental sustainability, equity and inclusion of the rural population and strengthening of rural institutions. It also involves the participation of multiple stakeholders, such as institutions, civil society and the private sector.
A strategic element that will be evaluated in the process of formulating this policy is the Proposal regarding the Foundation for a National Policy on Rural Area-based Development for Costa Rica, which was one of the final outcomes of the IICA project Innovative Policies for Rural Area-based Development in Latin American – PIDERAL, which published its findings in February and was financed by the Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation (AECID).
PIDERAL is assisting Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Peru to prepare a national policy for rural area-based development, which will allow these territories to be incorporated into the overall development dynamic.
For further information:
patricia.vargas@iica.int
