Through this agreement, these students will have the opportunity to do an internship in IICA offices in Ecuador and Colombia. For the next academic year, the office of Ecuador together with the students will develop a pilot study that analyzes the effects of the world financial crisis over the payments sent by the Ecuadorian emigrants to their rural territories. In Colombia, the students will develop a methodology for the post assessment of the two agreements between the Colombia Office and the Agricultural and Rural Development Department of the University of Lleida.

The Development and International Cooperation Master’s Degree is an official master, with a degree acknowledged in all the European arena of superior education, specialized in the rural development in Southern countries. The main goal of the master’s degree is to improve the investigator’s abilities, execution and/or evaluation of intervention projects located in rural areas of the Southern countries. The University of Lleida is offering this master’s degree with the help of the Cooperation Centre for the Rural Development (CCDR) and the collaboration of the Latinoamerican Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) headquartered in Ecuador. 

The signing of this agreement is framed by IICA’s Permanent Office in Europe’s (OPE) strategy for cooperation with new strategic partners in Spain and Europe. This is the first cooperative tool between the IICA and a public university inside the European Union territory. This collaboration has been reached through the intermediation of the Cooperation Centre for the Rural Development (CCDR). The CCDR is an initiative promoted by different rural development agents that work to improve the quality of life in the rural communities of the South such as universities, investigation centres, public administration, and the ONGD. Mr. Sergio Sepúlveda is a member of the Scientific Committee of the CCDR.