Strategic partnership between CAF and IICA to promote modernization of agriculture in the Americas

The executive president of CAF, Luis Carranza Ugarte, and the director general of the IICA, Manuel Otero, signed a broad agreement in Lima to mobilize funds from both institutions to stimulate public and private investments in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sectors, as well as to boost rural development.

The first actions derived from the agreement include missions to the border between Haiti and the Dominican Republic and San Martin in Peru’s Amazon region, to identify productive development projects. CAF and IICA will also contribute to the Modernization Plan for Panama’s Western Region.

“This partnership is based on and recognizes clear complementarities between CAF and IICA, between the field of financing and technical assistance, between infrastructure and productive development,” said Otero.

“This partnership also recognizes the importance of the extended territorial presence of IICA,” he added, in reference to the 35 offices of the hemispheric organization, in its 34 Member States and Spain.

CAF executive president, Luis Carranza Ugarte, said that with this initiative, both institutions seek to help increase public and private investments that fosters innovation and have an impact in terms of productivity, equality, inclusion and poverty reduction in the region.

“To address inequality in our countries, we need a productivity pact that allows us to sustain the social improvements attained in recent decades, and to bring about greater inclusion and equality, especially in rural areas,” he underscored.

The five-year agreement will also aim to modernize institutions in these sectors, in a partnership that will focus on enhancing value chains and access to markets, promoting activities of recovery and sustainable use of lands, strengthening agricultural insurance systems and other key risk management mechanisms against the effects of climate change, as well as promoting quality standards on issues such as healthcare, food safety and traceability.

The agreement will also support technical assistance and rural expansion systems, institutional strengthening and development of public policies, as well as associativity processes, use of agricultural information and technology innovation.

The CAF-IICA partnership will also give a boost to green businesses, including biotrade, ecotourism, forestry, agroforestry and silvopasture.

The agreement between these institutions addresses the need to enhance the agricultural sector through funding and creation of the necessary infrastructure for the sector to take production more efficiently to markets.