The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Chelston Brathwaite, headed the Institute’s delegation to the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS), that took place in Medellin, Colombia, from June 1 through 3.

Brathwaite, accompanied by Deputy Director General Christopher Hansen and the IICA Representative in the United States, David Hatch, had an opportunity to discuss with officials from OAS Member States the need to make food security a top priority on national development agendas.

For this organization of the Inter-American System, according to the document entitled “IICA’s Response to Rising Food Prices”, the time has come for the countries of the Americas to review their food security policies and take steps to design appropriate policies to make agriculture a priority on the national development agenda.

IICA’s delegation to this OAS General Assembly planned to hold meetings with foreign ministers and ambassadors to discuss specific items. It also hold working discussions with heads of other organizations of the Inter-American System.

IICA and the Summit of the Americas Process

The top officials from the Institute took part in the meeting of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), hold in Colombia on Monday, June 2.

At that time, the status of the mandates emanating from the Summit of the Americas, the most recent of which was the meeting held in Mar del Plata, Argentina, in 2006, were reviewed. Decisions were taken in connection with preparations for the next meeting of Heads of State and Government, scheduled to be held in Trinidad and Tobago in 2009.

IICA has status as an institutional partner in the Summit process and as such focuses its efforts on consolidating the positioning of agriculture and rural life on the hemispheric agenda.

The Institute is the secretariat for the Ministerial Meetings on Agriculture and Rural Life and is already organizing, in conjunction with the Government of Jamaica, the Fifth Ministerial Meeting to be held in Jamaica in 2009.