Central American countries harmonize resources to promote agricultural and rural development

Nicaragua and Honduras are applying the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAP), a methodology that helps integrate efforts of all public sector actors and international cooperation towards strategic private sectors

Two Central American countries are at different stages of implementing their own version of the Sector-Wide Approach (SWAP), a process and operational tool to help implement agricultural and rural development strategies by coordinating the cooperation efforts of all actors and directing these towards sectors and subsectors of special interest. SWAP targets the support of the public sector and of international cooperation towards the private sector of a particular subsector, under government leadership. In this way, rural development strategies and policies may be more effective and integrated.

This approach is currently being applied in Nicaragua and Honduras, two countries that are in the process of implementing or updating their national rural development strategy. These first efforts to apply SWAPs have been supported by RUTA, the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Department for International Development of the British Government (DFID).

In Nicaragua, the SWAP experience is in an intermediate phase, and is being implemented through PRORURAL, a process and program that focuses on the rural production sector. This program is being executed in the context of the “Productive Rural Development Strategy: Working Document “ (2003), which forms part of the country’s National Development Plan.  At the same time, RUTA is assisting MAGFOR in the development of analytical tools to help expand PRORURAL to the territorial level, through a study on milk and meat chains in Nicaragua’s central region. This process is being led by MAGFOR with support from RUTA, FAO, the World Bank and the Government of Finland.

In Honduras, progress has been made in the design of 4 sub-SWAPs in various strategic subsectors of the agrifood and forestry sectors. This process is being implemented in the context of the “Strategic and Operational Plan for the Agrifood and Forestry Sectors in the Vision of Citizens’ Power (2006-2010)”. This plan contemplates a medium-term strategy that is being updated based on the State Policy for the Agrifood Sector and the Rural Milieu (PESA 2004–2021).

In El Salvador, the government, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG), and with the close cooperation of various actors, prepared the “Strategy for Rural Economic Growth” (2004), which is being used in the preparation of a sub-SWAP for the agricultural technology and innovation subsector.