• The two organizations signed a letter of intent to strengthen and deepen their collaboration in order to boost the modernization of the agricultural and rural sector, the development of smallholder farming and food security in the region.

April 10, 2024- The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Latin American Association of Development Financing Institutions (ALIDE) signed a letter of intent to work on agreements to improve access to credit by small and medium agribusinesses and thereby hasten agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Present at the signing ceremony, held at ALIDE’s headquarters in Lima, Peru, were FAO Deputy Director General and Regional Representative for Latin America and the Caribbean, Mario Lubetkin, and ALIDE Secretary General, Edgardo Alvarez. They were accompanied by FAO Representative in Peru, Mariana Escobar, and Pablo Rabczuk, Senior Liaison and Regional Political Affairs Officer of the FAO Regional Office.

The institutions seek, with the signing of this document, to boost the enhancement of strategies for effective agricultural and rural development financing in the region, with a view to improving food security, reducing rural poverty levels and promoting gender equality through initiatives like studies and research, training, and the dissemination and exchange of information.

These initiatives will center on subject areas like the strengthening of development bank financial and technical assistance policies and strategies, the financial inclusion of small and medium-scale producers, and financial and non-financial services for improving access to credit by small and medium agribusinesses.

The agreement also aims to promote the approach taken by FAO’s “Hand-in-Hand” program for hastening agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development, as well as for increasing and boosting public and private investments to accelerate transformation toward more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable agri-food systems.

«It is of fundamental importance to understand that, in order to achieve sustainable development through the transformation of the agri-food system, we must work closely with the Development Financing Institutions.  This agreement will enable us to work together to promote effective financing of agricultural and rural development in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in the most vulnerable areas,” Mario Lubetkin, FAO Deputy Director General and Regional Representative, pointed out.

ALIDE Secretary General, Edgardo Alvarez, for his part, stressed that this letter of intent between FAO and ALIDE makes it possible to relaunch the institutional relations between the two organizations, based on the priority and currently relevant issues for promotion and development of the agricultural and rural sector in our region’s countries, with the end purpose of attaining food security.

Alvarez went on to say that “ALIDE will contribute the role that the agricultural development financing institutions can play in the context of FAO’s regional effort to speed up its agricultural transformation and sustainable rural development.”