IICA launches the Observatory of Public Policies for Agrifood Systems, a space for dialogue and proposals to face times of global uncertainty

San José, 30 March 2022 (IICA). –The mission of the new Observatory of Public Policies for Agrifood Systems (OPSAa), presented by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), will be to become a relevant instrument for helping countries navigate this period of uncertainty and instability, marked by the confluence of several crisis.
 
The Observatory is a digital tool that aims to contribute to the changing ways of formulating policies in the Americas, as it will provide a space for reflection and exchange of perspectives that contribute to strengthening agrifood systems and developing response capacity and resilience to future risks.
 
IICA undertakes this with the understanding that the ever-present need to create spaces for dialogue to support the decision-making processes is even more pressing today in light of a global scenario that is suffering from the impact of war in Eastern Europe in addition to the health, economic, and social effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
 
These phenomena converge with major and rapid technological changes and important climatic and environmental challenges that will give rise to significant transformations in global and regional multilateralism and in the countries’ policy responses.
 
This will provide a platform to discuss and follow up on public policies at a time when the countries of the Americas are already making initial decisions about food import reduction, input supply plans and stock preservation. It will also contribute to generating recommendations on good practices that are fundamental to these countries.
 
The OPSAa was presented with a high-level dialogue on the changing scenarios in policies and global geopolitics as a result of the war in Europe.
 
Enrique Iglesias, long-time economist and politician and former president of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) and Joseph Glauber, former Chief Economist of the US Department of Agriculture and current Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington, DC., participated in the conversation.
 
They both held a conversation with Manuel Otero, the Director General of IICA, about the nature of the global changes and how they will affect the positioning of the region as a whole.
 
“We are going through a dangerous process of change in the world. The war between Russia and Ukraine is a reflection of the instability and we are embarking on an era change, which implies that there are very important decisions that we must collectively make”, Iglesias noted, who in his long career has served as Uruguay's Minister of Foreign Affairs and Executive Secretary of ECLAC.
 
“We came from what I would say were the 75 brightest years in the history of humankind, at the end of the Second World War. A time in which the world’s population and production grew exponentially. There has been a great awakening to technologies accompanied by a spectacular phenomenon of globalization. Furthermore, we have managed to incorporate something that seems normal to us today: the concept of solidarity, the idea that we must help those who suffer. That world is in danger due to the competition for political leadership”, he said.
 
“The issue of food security is always essential, and today it is fundamental as part of a new era”, he concluded. “These are difficult times and the capacity for international dialogue is at stake. Latin America has a huge task ahead because of its food production capacity and because it owns a significant part of the world’s water, fertile land and forests, among other natural resources.”
 
Glauber, meanwhile, stressed that the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine have disrupted the agrifood supply chains that underpin world trade.
 
“Globalization is being challenged and countries must be prepared to find new suppliers of the goods that matter. Many maintain that the time has come to be self-sufficient, but I believe otherwise: now is not the time to look inwards. Protectionism, self-sufficiency and subsidies distort production and they are not the way forward”, he noted.
 
Glauber emphasized that any international sanctions imposed should not involve trade in food or fertilizers. “Many countries in the world depend on fertilizers to produce food. And if there are difficulties in accessing them, the poorest people will suffer the most, and we must protect them," he warned.
 
The Americas, guarantor of food security
 
Manuel Otero pointed out that the OPSAa will seek to be "a sounding board for what is happening in the world and how it impacts our continent”.
 
“The issue that has been concentrating our attention and pain for about a month is the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the impact of which is undeniable because agriculture in the Americas has huge ties worldwide. We are convinced that we are the guarantors of food and nutritional security and environmental sustainability of the planet,” he added.
 
The Director General of the IICA cautioned that “protectionist drums” are beating and in that sense, he rejected any intention of restricting global food trade because of the fears of many countries and sectors. “Global and regional trade must be number one worldwide because they are a guarantee of food security on the planet,” he stated.
 
Otero said that the OPSAa will be one of the avenues for the technical cooperation of IICA, an organizing element of technical cooperation actions which should always focus on generating proposals to strengthen the institutional framework of the countries.
 
“The Observatory can only be conceived within a framework of alliances and make this concept a reality with IICA as a bridge between people and institutions, looking at the world from the Americas”, he concluded.
 
In turn, the Deputy Director General of IICA, Lloyd Day, noted that the war will affect the entire world’s food supply and that the mission of the OPSAa will be to contribute to enhancing public policy to address such sensitive issues as food and agricultural input prices. As we said in our 16 messages presented at the Food Systems Summit in 2021, agriculture is part of the solution to global challenges," he recalled.
 
The presentation of the digital platform was given by Joaquín Arias, IICA Technical Specialist, who explained that it will be a tool for connecting people and institutions of the public and private spheres, transforming knowledge into evidence for better management of public policies in the Americas and making international technical and financial cooperation more effective and efficient.

More information:
Institutional Communication Division.
comunicacion.institucional@iica.int