IICA and the Organization of American States (OAS)
www.oas.org

The Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) is a specialized agency of the Inter-American System, and its purposes are to encourage and support the efforts of its Member States to achieve agricultural development and well-being for rural populations.

With more than six decades of institutional life, the Institute is responding to new mandates issued by the Heads of State and Government of the Americas, the General Assembly of the Organization of American States (OAS) and the ministers of agriculture of the Americas, to reposition itself so that it can meet both the new challenges facing agriculture and the requests for support it receives from its member countries.

IICA has been working closely with the Technical Secretariat of the Summit of the Americas process to implement and provide follow-up to the mandates related to agricultural and rural life issued by the heads of state and government, in collaboration with the other Summit partners (OAS, IDB, ECLAC, PAHO, CABEI, CAF and CDB). 

IICA is also involved in the work of the Summit Implementation Review Group (SIRG), composed of the presidential delegates of the OAS Member States, which is responsible for preparing the Summit meetings and reviewing the progress made in achieving the objectives of the Summit action plans.  The Directorate for Strategic Partnerships, (DSP) based in Washington D.C., helped develop an agenda for cooperation with the OAS Executive Secretariat for Integral Development and several of its operating units.

Since then the two organizations have collaborated on various initiatives including the Institute’s Annual ‘IICA Day,’ held at the OAS.  This event aims to elevate the importance of agriculture and rural development for the Americas by bringing awareness to developing issues such as Biotechnology, Bio-Energy, Agro-tourism, Animal Health and Food Safety, Food Security, Agri-Business and trade and the  Contribution to Rural Prosperity, to name a few.  In the areas of Animal Health and Food Safety, the two entities worked together in educating the public through a series of briefings on the impact of the potential threat of Avian Influenza in the Americas.