The USA bolsters its support for IICA
San Jose, Costa Rica, October 5, 2010 (IICA). The Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) of the United States Department of Agriculture has signed an agreement with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture under which the FAS is to finance the hiring of international professionals who will provide their services in IICA.
The signing of the agreement marked the establishment of the Associate Professional Officer (APO) Program. The FAS and IICA believe this program will help promote the development of a viable and sustainable agricultural system in the Americas.
IICA’s Director General, Víctor M. Villalobos, on thanking the USDA for this important initiative, noted that the agreement is a further expression of the United States’ support for the Institute, an agency of the Inter-American System specializing in agriculture.
“The United States regards us as a valuable partner and has offered its support to enable us to contract highly qualified personnel to work on behalf of sustainable agriculture in the Americas,” he said.
The agreement was signed within the framework of the General Agreement for Cooperation between the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and IICA, which dates from June 2000.
The FAS will be making an initial disbursement of US$300,000 to fund the program. The positions funded under the APO Program must be in keeping with the objectives of IICA, its Strategic Plan, and its Medium-term Plan.
The strategic issues on which IICA focuses are innovation for productivity and competitiveness, agricultural health and food safety, agribusiness and commercialization, and agriculture, territories and rural well-being. The Institute also has two programs that cut across the other four programs: one specializing in agriculture and food security, and the other focusing on agriculture, natural resource management and climate change.
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