This Thursday, 1 December, IICA will present a new study on the state of rural connectivity in Latin America and the Caribbean

San Jose, 30 November 2022 (IICA). This Thursday, 1 December, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) will launch the study “Rural connectivity in Latin America and the Caribbean: state of play, challenges and actions for digitization and sustainable development,” in a virtual event with the participation of ministers and secretaries of agriculture of countries in the region and representatives of the private sector.

The document, produced with support from the World Bank, Bayer, CAF-Development Bank of Latin America, Microsoft and Syngenta, updates the data contained in the document “Rural Connectivity in Latin America and the Caribbean – a Bridge to Sustainable Development during a Pandemic,” published in October 2020.

At that time, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the research revealed that at least 77 million rural dwellers in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) did not have access to Internet services with minimum standards of quality.

For this week’s event, scheduled to begin at 07:30 Costa Rica time (GMT -6), the participants include government representatives Indar Weir, Minister of Agriculture and Food Security of Barbados; Laura Suazo, Secretary of Agriculture and Livestock of Honduras; and Verónica Durán, Director of the Office for Agricultural Programming and Policy of the Ministry of Livestock, Agriculture and Fisheries of Uruguay.

Representing funding organizations and the private sector will be Diego Arias, the World Bank’s Agriculture and Food Manager for LAC; Beatriz Eugenia Arrieta, Bayer’s Regional Manager for Food Value Chain Partnerships; Christian Asinelli, CAF's Corporate Vice President of Strategic Programming; Herbert Lewy, General Manager of Smart Agriculture and Bioeconomy for Microsoft Latin America; and María Virginia Passaniti, Digital Solutions Manager of Syngenta, Argentina.

IICA Director General, Manuel Otero, IICA Deputy Director General, Lloyd Day, and the authors of the study ¾Institute researchers Sandra Ziegler and Joaquín Arias¾ will also be taking part. 

The presentation will be broadcast live on IICA’s channels on Facebook (Spanish) and YouTube (English).

The new study, divided into four chapters, updates previous data and provides a map of the state of play of rural connectivity in LAC, reconstructing the information for the 2020-2022 period.

It also contains exhaustive information about the initiatives implemented in the region over the last two years related to rural connectivity and the use of digital technologies. The initiatives include those carried out under the aegis of public policies, public and private sector partnerships, and international cooperation.

Event details

• Date and time: Thursday, 1 December, 07:30 Costa Rica time (GMT -6).
• Live broadcast: IICA’s Facebook Live (Spanish) and YouTube (English) channels.

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