Message from the Director

To Governments and Partner Agencies:

June has been a very important month to RUTA. To some of the partner agencies, this month marks the official closing of the Project’s current phase, in particular the collaboration with the World Bank comes to an end. As a partner of RUTA, the Word Bank has contributed key human and financial resources to our region. On behalf of RUTA, I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Bank and its managers and specialists, for their continued professionalism and dedication to the Project. Their support has been essential to the successful implementation of RUTA’s mandate of promoting rural development in Central America.

RUTA, with special support from DFID and other partners such as IFAD, FAO and IFPRI, will continue working over the next months focusing on finalizing ongoing programs and projects. Our current activities include two strong initiatives such as the CAFTA information dissemination program and the technical assistance program to support the formulation of the Central American Agricultural Policy.

Encouraged by the positive results of the external evaluation, and following the guidelines of the Steering Committee that met in Washington DC on March 2007, RUTA is now also committed to the formulation of its new phase. The design of the new phase focuses on RUTA’s institutional transformation and on achieving sustainability in the medium term.

The approval of the Concept Note by IFAD’s Grant Screening Committee (GSC) is a promising first step in this direction, and now it needs to go through several stages that are part of the clearance process. If everything goes as expected, the proposal will be presented to IFAD’s Executive Board by December 2007.

As usual, we will keep you all informed on the progress as RUTA moves into its new phase.

With best regards,

Miguel R. Gómez
mrgomez@ruta.org