The Director General of the Inter-American Institute for
Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), Chelston Brathwaite, presented awards to more
than 40 members of the organization’s staff for their contributions, as
individuals and as members of teams, to efforts to improve the Institute’s
efficiency, image and operations.
The award ceremony took place on 21 August at the Institute’s
Headquarters in Costa Rica. In addition to the Director General’s Awards for
Excellence for 2009, Brathwaite presented three special awards. Other staff
members were honored for years of service and tribute was paid to international
personnel retiring from the Institute.
The presentation of the awards - held annually for the last six
years - took place during the closing ceremony of IICA’s most important in-house
meeting, Representatives’ Week, during which senior management, the
Representatives in the 34 Member States and regional specialists came together
to discuss their achievements, good practices and lessons learned between 2002
and 2008.
“I am pleased that at IICA we have a culture of recognition, a
culture that we could not have built without the support and commitment of the
entire personnel,” the Director General said.
Since 2007, awards have been given out in only two categories,
with no distinction made between Headquarters and the IICA Offices in the
countries. One category recognizes individual contributions and the other,
teamwork.
This year, Brathwaite decided to present a third award for
excellence (which is his prerogative, as Director General) - “a special award to
a particular group” that has become his “right hand.”
The Awards Selection Committee was made up of Suzanne Dancourt,
Eduardo Salvado and Jorge Ardila, “former IICA officials with extensive
knowledge of the Institute,” explained Linda Landry, the Director of Human
Resources, who served as the Committee’s Technical Secretary.
Landry also said it was the first time that the Selection
Committee had met via videoconference, using the equipment available in three of
the Institute’s Offices.
Brathwaite presented the awards accompanied by the CEO of the
Credit Union of the Organization of American States (OAS), Carlos Calderon, and
the Vice President of Rutherfoord International Inc., Philippe de Dreuzy. Other
IICA officials on hand were the Deputy Director General, Christopher Hansen, the
Assistant Deputy Director General, David Hatch, the Director of Technical
Leadership and Knowledge Management, James French, and the Director of Human
Resources.
Individual contributions
This year, five IICA officials were honored for their
individual contributions. In addition to a statuette, each staff member received
the sum of US$1000, to be used to finance training activities and/or
professional development linked to their duties and responsibilities.
In this category Ena Harvey, Hemispheric Agrotourism
Specialist, was honored for her pioneering contribution to the
activity’s development, for which IICA has been recognized not only in the
Caribbean but throughout the hemisphere.
Her work has created opportunities for rural tourism in seven
Caribbean, seven Central American and two South American countries. Her
contributions have led to the development of strategies, workshops, training
courses, databases, catalogues, videos, manuals, reports, websites and other
tools for agrotourism.
Federico Sancho, Head of the Documentation and
Publications Unit, was another of the winners in this category.
“Under his leadership, the team managed to integrate the
Institute’s knowledge into the digital world and promote a new culture of
agricultural information management in the Member States,” the members of the
Selection Committee said. Working with partners like FAO and Google, he was
involved in the digitization of over 24,000 documents.
Luis Paulino Fernandez, a programmer of the Informatics
and Information Systems Unit at Headquarters, received an award for
excellence for creating a system that electronically transmits and manages
requests for editing, translation and interpretation services.
“A great sense of responsibility, professionalism, integrity,
flexibility, creativity and initiative were essential to meet this priority need
of the Institute’s Language Services Unit,” the members of the Selection
Committee said.
Una May Gordon, IICA Representative in the Organization
of Eastern Caribbean States (OECS) was another official honored.
Gordon received the award for the key role she played in the
design and establishment of the Caribbean Week of Agriculture, a regional event
that has been held every year since 2002, and for her leadership in ensuring
that “the technical cooperation that IICA provides to the Eastern Caribbean is
well received and supported by the national authorities.”
Miguel Angel Arvelo Sanchez, IICA Representative
in Ecuador, received an award for injecting “new life” and introducing a fresh
approach to the IICA Office, and improving the dialogue and interaction among
the personnel.
The work carried out with his team and his commitment to the
problems of Ecuador’s agriculture and rural life have given IICA in Ecuador a
image that differentiates it from other technical cooperation agencies in the
country, a positioning that is underpinned by the Office’s recognized technical
capacity, which it has developed with a corporate institutional vision.
Teamwork
Five teams received awards for their work in this category.
Each member of the winning teams received a statuette and each group received a
check for US$1000, with the money to be used to organize a separate ceremony.
The team of the project Peruvian Observatory of
Agricultural Production Chains and Rural Territories was one of the
winners of this award, having implemented this model in four regions of Peru.
The staff members involved in this project are Maria Febres
Huaman (in charge of technical aspects and adviser on rural development with a
territorial and chains approach, Luis Moran Cavero (technical support for
training and project dissemination) and Veronika Villar Biffi (technical and
administrative coordinator).
Another of the teams honored developed a strategy for
information and communication technologies in Uruguay. Under the
strategy, the six team members created a Web page, the distance learning
platform Uruguay Alimentario al Mundo, electronic forums and
videoconferences, online information systems and registration for activities via
the Intranet. They also empowered 160 livestock SMEs and their families by
equipping them with digital tools.
The members of this team, all based at the IICA Office in
Uruguay, were Yoselin Gallaztegui (Secretary and Assistant to the Technical
Sector), Rosa Waldman (Principal Secretary), Bernardo Perez (Office Assistant),
Marcelo Sastre (Accountant), Denise Chifflet (Administrator) and Santiago Cayota
(Technical Coordinator).
The results achieved by the partnership comprising the
team of the Distance Training Center (CECADI) and the Directorate of
Agricultural Health and Food Safety earned the staff members concerned
an award for excellence in this category.
The joint effort provided distance training to public and
private sector officials in the Central, Southern, Caribbean and Andean regions
with regard to the regulatory processes of the international standard-setting
organizations and enabled national and regional AHFS specialists to interact
with informatics personnel of the IICA Offices in the countries.
The members of this team were Ana Marisa Cordero (AHFS
Specialist), Ericka Calderon (AHFS Specialist), Lilliana Chang (in charge of
distance training processes), Olman Vargas (multimedia specialist), Mariela
Madrigal (administrative assistant of the AHFS Directorate), Ninive Zuñiga (AHFS
secretary), Leticia Gimenez (administrative assistant of CECADI), Ricardo Molins
(Director of AHFS) and Jose Ramirez (Coordinator of the CECADI).
The PROMECAFE team was also honored for
incorporating a series of new improvements, part of the continuous improvement
that this project has undergone since it was first implemented nearly 20 years
ago.
The team’s work has helped strengthen the coffee sector and
make it more competitive, based on a strategy of differentiation, positioning
and the protection of coffee quality linked to its origin. Actors in the chain
say that developing gourmet coffees has empowered them and is a great
opportunity for coffee growers in the region.
The following members of this initiative were honored:
Guillermo Canet Brenes (Executive Secretary), Armando Garcia (Technical
Assistant), Dulce Obin (Secretary), Omar Funez (National Coordinator of the
Coffee Quality Liked to its Origin Project) and Johana Lam (Accountant).
A team of staff members from the areas of Programming
and Budget and Administration and Accounting received an award for
developing indicators to measure the performance of each process carried out by
the IICA Office in Brazil.
Their work resulted in greater administrative and operational
transparency and flexibility. The 13 officials who systematized the information
and standardized the institutional language were: Adriano Rocha (Coordinator of
Accounting), Claudio De Lima (Records Management Assistant), Fernanda Meireles (Administrative
Assistant), Fernanda Rocha (Coordinator of Finance), Janete Gomes (Treasury
Assistant), Luciana Mattei (Specialist in Accounting), Mauro Sergio De Oliveira
(Technician), Maximiliano Saudades (Coordinator of Administrative Services),
Reginaldo Dos Santos (General Services Assistant), Rodrigo Pedrosa (Specialist
in Planning and Organization), Severino Noel Da Silva (Specialist in Human
Resources), Tereza Cristina do Menino Jesus Nepomuceno (Accounting Assistant)
and Braulio Cezar Lassance Britto Heinze (Administrator of the IICA Office in
Brazil).
The Director General also presented an award for excellence to
Pamela Stroude, Maureen Obando, Lidy Astorga, Blanca Ramirez, Michel Chartier,
Ronald Hidalgo, Marlon Rodriguez, Sonia Gonzalez, Marianela Rivera and Allan
Brenes.
“Honest, responsible and committed staff are essential for
efficient and effective work. Therefore, this year I have decided to present a
special award to the team of my office, who have never given a
thought to the hours they have had to work or the day of the week, and who have
always offered me support and understanding,” Brathwaite said.
Special acknowledgements
During the ceremony, the IICA Director General also presented
two other awards in recognition of outstanding leadership and management.
One of the recipients was the IICA Representative in
Haiti, Alfredo Mena, for his “significant contribution to technical
cooperation services, in extremely difficult conditions over many years …
demonstrating courage, vision, effort and, in particular, commitment to carrying
out the mission entrusted to him.”
The Director General also paid tribute to the commitment and
leadership of the Director of Trade and Agribusiness, Miguel Garcia,
who in 2003 took charge of the Inter-American Program for the Promotion of Trade,
Agribusiness and Food Safety, based in Miami.