USAID officials visit CATIE to strengthen regional cooperation

• Sustainable development, climate action and agribusiness, as well as digital development, were the topics of interest during the visit. 

Representatives from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) made an official visit to the CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) campus in Turrialba, Costa Rica, on Thursday, April 11. The purpose of the visit was to learn first-hand about CATIE's work on topics such as sustainable development, agribusiness as well as climate action. 

The delegation was led by Michelle Parker, USAID senior advisor for regional and technology coordination for Central America and Mexico, accompanied by John Polk, USAID country advisor for Costa Rica. The working day began with a meeting with Dr. Luis Pocasangre, Director General of CATIE, where they discussed strategies to promote joint projects to promote food security and rural development in the region. 

Subsequently, topics related to climate change adaptation and mitigation were addressed in a meeting with the Climate Action Unit, led by Dr. Pablo Imbach. "We showed how CATIE's work goes from research actions to information that supports decision making, for example with the work of the Environmental Modeling Laboratory to generate information for the Central American region that becomes part of sustainable mechanisms for decision making and actions in the field, such as information systems and the use of digital tools," said Imbach. 

Precisely, digital development was one of the topics of greatest interest to the visiting delegation. "We talked with them about the areas in which digital development offers opportunities to support transformation processes in our adaptation pathways, including agribusiness development and access to financial mechanisms," Imbach added. 

Finally, Dr. Pocasangre showed the USAID representatives the international coffee collection housed at CATIE, the most important in Latin America and one of the most diverse coffee collections on the planet. "It has been an interesting visit, in which they took with them a good concept of CATIE, and we hope to continue collaborating with USAID", expressed Dr. Pocasangre.  

The presence of this delegation was also an opportunity to envision future cooperative actions between USAID and CATIE, with the commitment to continue working together to promote sustainable development and climate change mitigation in the region.