Excerpts from an address to the Inter-American Board of Agriculture, Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, by Dr. Chelston Brathwaite, director-general-elect, Inter-American Institute for Co-operation on Agriculture (IICA) on November 26 this year. Dr. Brathwaite was elected director-general of IICA for the period 2002 to 2006.
AS A platform for Inter-American Co-operation on Agriculture, and a mechanism for forging strategic partnerships in the Hemisphere, IICA is more relevant today than at any other time in its 59-year history.
A new vision for IICA must incorporate "a culture of co-operation, a culture of partnership and a culture of shared responsibility to channel the energies of the member states towards the development of prosperous rural communities" and the Institute must create a culture of excellence which results in the provision of information, knowledge, leadership and technical support which contribute to improving the lives of people and ensuring prosperity of the nations of the hemisphere.
"Sustainable growth of the agricultural sector holds the most important promise for alleviating rural poverty in our countries. It is therefore our opinion that the Institute should pursue with the member states a single strategic goal in the future. That goal should be to support the member states in the pursuit of progress and prosperity in the hemisphere by modernisation of the rural sector, promoting food security, and developing an agricultural sector that is competitive, technologically prepared, environmentally managed, and socially equitable for the peoples of the Americas," Dr. Brathwaite said.
"To achieve this strategic goal, in my opinion, the Institute should focus its action in five strategic areas, pillars of the strategy:
Trade policy and integration
Promotion of competitiveness of agribusiness and rural enterprises
Promotion of food safety and agricultural health
Sustainable rural development, and the use of natural resources; and
Institutional modernisation
With respect to trade policy and integration strategy, IICA must continue to provide the technical and policy support for the agricultural sector in the formation of the FTAA (Free-Trade Area of the Americas). IICA must also be a dynamic forum for critical strategic thinking in the sector, and for the establishment of common positions and agendas, for forging alliances in regional and hemispheric integration and for the development of common standards, especially in those areas such as food safety and sanitary and phyto-sanitary issues.
PROMOTION OF
COMPETITIVENESS
With respect to the promotion of competitiveness of agricultural and rural enterprises, agribusiness and rural enterprises have a critical role to play in the creation of prosperity, employment and economic growth in the hemisphere. IICA must provide training and must promote the incorporation of business principles, innovative technology, new information, and communication systems into agricultural production and agribusiness enterprises in order to increase their competitiveness. The Institute must engage more with the private sector in a strategic way.
FOOD SAFETY AND HEALTH
With respect to the promotion of food safety and agricultural health, non-trade issues such as food safety and agricultural health continue to be critically important for the process of globalisation and trade liberalisation. The co-ordination of policy initiatives in support of strategies to address these issues is vital for the member states. IICA must, therefore, continue to support national and regional programmes which focus on the elimination of sanitary and phyto-sanitary barriers to trade and agricultural products, and must seek to harmonise approaches to food safety and the control of pests and diseases of plants and animals, which present barriers to trade and agricultural productivity. The member states must also be assisted to modernise their organisation and operations in this area, in order to comply with the new international commitments of the WTO and other trade agreements.
With respect to the sustainable rural development and the use of natural resources, the sustainable use of natural resources is critical for prosperity and the sustainability of rural life. IICA must collaborate with other institutions - national, regional, hemispheric and international - to promote the sustainable use of our natural resources, and the concept of a new rurality.
Critical to this theme are issues of deforestation, land degradation and water for agriculture. Our development projects must therefore incorporate environmental management, and the sustainability of fragile ecosystems such as hillsides, watersheds and coastal areas. The preservation of our biodiversity is also critically important.
With respect to the strategy of institutional modernisation: Ministries of Agriculture and other institutions of the public sector are in the process of restructuring and refocusing their efforts and programmes in order to cope with the new challenges of the global trade environment, and the need for the agricultural sector to be efficient and competitive in conditions of reduced budgetary resources. As an institution, IICA must be able to bring the experiences of other countries to the debate and discussions, and provide technical, policy and administrative support for this process of institutional modernisation.
Focusing on these five strategic areas will ensure the use of our limited resources for impact, using four instruments: training, information, technical and policy support and transfer of
experiences.
