Manuel Otero held meetings with high-level authorities of the USDA and the U.S. Department of State and attended the signing of an agreement between the OAS and Zicosur, which will strengthen the institutional framework of this integration mechanism.
San Jose, 20 September 2019 (IICA) – The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Manuel Otero, recently completed a three-day work agenda in Washington D.C., where he met with Ted McKinney, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary for Trade and Foreign Agricultural Affairs, and Kevin Moley, Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs.
Otero and McKinney discussed consensus-building to adopt measures that could contribute to fostering trade in agricultural products through transparent, science-based standards, as well as to eliminating non-tariff barriers.
“Under Secretary McKinney will be the head of the U.S. delegation at the upcoming meeting of the Inter-American Board of Agriculture (IABA) in October. Together, we will discuss areas of consensus to support the expansion of sectoral trade,” commented Otero, who also noted that IICA had been working closely with the USDA to foster the intensive use of technology to increase productivity and the dissemination of Codex Alimentarius standards.
The IABA is IICA’s highest governing body and holds meetings every two years. The next meeting will be held on October 31 in Costa Rica, within the framework of the 2019 Conference of Ministers of Agriculture of the Americas.
Support for regional forum
Together with Caio Rocha, Coordinator of IICA’s Southern Region, Otero attended the signing of an agreement between the Organization of American States (OAS) and the South American Central-Western Integration Zone (Zicosur).
The Director General of IICA highlighted the importance of this agreement. Zicosur is an integration forum comprising provinces of Argentina, Brazilian states, departments of Bolivia and Paraguay, regions of Chile and Peru, and municipalities of Uruguay.
“The agreement will allow for strengthening the institutional framework of this mechanism, to which IICA is contributing in its areas of expertise: agriculture and rural development. This region has great potential, especially for livestock farming, and the Institute is interested in developing supranational projects that could be funded by multilateral cooperation agencies,” stated Otero.
During his visit to the U.S. capital, the Director General of IICA also met with Katie Taylor, Executive Director of the Pan American Development Foundation (PADF).
Within the framework of a partnership, PADF and IICA are working to foster inclusion and empowerment by assisting vulnerable populations, including migrants, rural women and youth, as well as Afro-descendant and native populations in the Central American Dry Corridor, Haiti and Colombia.
More information:
Institutional Communication Division
comunicación.institucional@iica.int
