Central American Agricultural Policy consultations are now concluded

National and regional consultations have enabled a broad dialogue between the private sector and the civil society

Regional Consultation

From April through May, one regional and seven national consultations took place in each country of the region, concluding the first phase of the Central American Agricultural Policy formulation process.

The main objective of the consultations was to establish a broad and transparent dialogue with representatives of the private sector and the civil society at regional and national levels, on progress and perspectives of the policy formulation process. The consultations were also a mechanism to gather feedback on the proposal, particularly on the design, implementation, monitoring and evaluation components. Consultations were based on a core document entitled “Central American Agricultural Policy: A competitive and integrated agriculture for a globalized world”, and a support document entitled “Background and general framework for the Central American Agricultural Policy formulation”. Both documents are available at RUTA’s web site.

IFAD’s team at RUTA provided direct support to the Central American Agricultural Council on the regional consultation and on the national events held in Belize, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Nicaragua. Between April 10 and June 15, 2007, the team held an electronic forum to gather feedback on the document.

A total of 348 participants took part on the consultations, including representatives of 180 organizations. Participants came from the private sector, professional associations, cooperatives, private banks, academia, civil society, regional and international organizations.

Overall, the policy document was well received. In fact, most comments referred to technical aspects, and they did not require a substantial modification of the document. All comments and suggestions were put together in a series of reports available at RUTA’s website www.ruta.org/paca.

The comments were compiled and integrated into a new version of the document entitled “Central American Agricultural Policy: A competitive and integrated agriculture for a globalized world”, also available on the above web address.