IICA’s Director General attends a meeting in Paraguay with Ministers of the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS)
San José, 3 May 2018 (IICA). Manuel Otero, Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, attended the XXXV Ordinary Meeting of the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS) this Thursday in Asunción, where he spoke about the renovation process that he is spearheading as the leader of this organization that promotes rural development in the region.
In his presentation to Ministers of Agriculture of the CAS member countries - Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay – Otero praised the agricultural sectors of the region’s Southern Cone for their efficiency. He also reflected that since taking over the helm of IICA in January his mandate has been to re-establish the position of leadership of the organization, which plays a key role in rural development in the American continent.
“We aim to reposition IICA as a strategic resource that serves these countries and contributes significantly to their agricultural transformation. IICA is strengthening its commitment to mechanisms for sub-regional and regional integration by providing supranational projects that seek common solutions to shared problems. We are working more closely with each of the countries”, Otero said.
Thus, in emphasizing that IICA “is once again serving as a mobilizing, relevant and constructive force”, he provided examples of the organization’s renewed role. For example, he spoke of the tour coordinated by IICA, where Ministers of Agriculture and high-level officials from 14 Caribbean countries visited Brazil and Argentina in March. He also mentioned agreements signed with Vinicio Cerezo, Secretary General of the Central American Integration System (SICA), and Chile’s Minister of Agriculture, Antonio Walker Prieto.
Otero maintained that “We are pushing new boundaries in the Institute to create a more productive, inclusive and resilient agricultural sector, in which young men and women are active participants. The tour by the Caribbean Ministers of Agriculture opened a new avenue for cooperation between two of the Continent’s most advanced agricultural sectors and 14 nations that are vulnerable in the area of food security and climate change, creating conditions to strengthen political linkages and increase trade and investment flows”.
He added that “We are establishing a Strategic Partnership with SICA to drive plans for improvement in the region and we are signing an agreement with Minister Antonio Walker Prieto, who is here today. This will allow us to enhance IICA’s work in Chile thorough innovative activities that we hope can be extended throughout Mercosur. Our message to the governments of the hemisphere is to ensure that the agricultural sector is given priority in an agenda that focuses on development”.
Since assuming office as IICA’s Director General in January, Otero has adopted measures to reduce bureaucracy in the Institute for improved efficiency, while focusing on resolving problems through technical cooperation, with special emphasis on urgent and relevant issues such as climate change and its mitigation; trade and health; innovation and development; the bio-economy and its value chains; and family farming and land.
Otero also argued that a dynamic agricultural sector will allow us to “tackle many of the critical issues that have held back our region”.
In this regard, he ended by emphasizing that “according priority to agriculture is essential because agriculture is the key to resolving the pressing problems of our planet and because agriculture can be the best social policy available to our countries”.
“We have to be stronger” - he said – “and to assume a greater position of leadership, simply because we are working in a sector that is a priority for the social, economic and political development of each of our countries”.
About the Southern Agricultural Council (CAS)
CAS is a forum for consultation and coordination of regional action, and it is made up of the Ministers of Agriculture of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay, with a mission to define agricultural priorities, to adopt positions on topics of regional interest and to ensure the implementation of agreed actions. Since its creation in 2003, CAS has received technical and financial support from IICA.
About the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA)
IICA is the Specialized International Agency for Agriculture within the Inter-American System. Boasting a history of 75 years, its mission is to stimulate, promote and support the efforts of its Member States to achieve agricultural development and rural well-being through first-class international technical cooperation. It serves a network of 35 Delegations in 34 Member States and in Spain, providing technical and administrative expertise at the national level. Its aim is to foster a competitive, inclusive and sustainable Inter-American agricultural sector that feeds the hemisphere and the world, while providing opportunities to reduce hunger among rural producers and residents.
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José Alfredo Alpízar
Press and Outreach Coordinator, IICA