CATIE and FAO Explore New Cooperation Opportunities

• Information exchange between the projects carried out by each institution would serve to strengthen the strategic alliances..

October 18, 2023. In a crucial meeting for regional cooperation, officials from various research units of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) gathered to meet with Melissa Marín, the Coordinator of Livestock Projects for Latin America at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. The meeting aimed to explore new collaboration opportunities in critical areas such as livestock, food security, and water resources.

The meeting took place at the Henry Wallace building this Wednesday and marked the beginning of a close partnership between CATIE and FAO in the search for innovative solutions to common challenges. Both institutions recognized significant synergies in their respective fields of work and committed to harnessing them for joint actions.

Claudia Sepúlveda, the leader of the Livestock and Environmental Management Unit, emphasized the importance of the meeting by stating, "We have identified natural synergies between what we do at CATIE and what FAO does, especially in the area of Sustainable Livestock, as well as relevant and cross-cutting topics for FAO such as food security and water. We are exploring how the knowledge and evidence we generate can be useful for the actions they undertake in their projects."

Reinhold Muschler, coordinator of the Agrobiodiversity and Food Security Unit, Laura Benegas, coordinator of the Watersheds, Water Security, and Soils Unit, and Bayardo Quintero, coordinator of the Water Harvesting project, had the opportunity to share the scope of CATIE's work in the region.

Melissa Marín, on her part, congratulated CATIE on its 50 years of existence and expressed her joy at visiting the institution's campus once again. "I am also very pleased with the possibility of having this conversation, this exchange of information between the projects carried out by each institution, to strengthen alliances and thus promote a transition of agriculture and livestock towards sustainable systems," stated the FAO representative.

Identification of Priorities

The meeting, the result of discussions that have been ongoing for the past three months, focused on the identification of shared priorities. Sepúlveda highlighted that this initial meeting lays the groundwork for a future work plan in which both institutions could define concrete actions they could undertake together.

CATIE and FAO already have a history of successful collaboration, having worked on joint projects through various initiatives such as CODEGALAG (Livestock Development Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean), which is the technical advisory forum on animal production and health of the Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean. In addition to collaboration with the GASL (Global Agenda for Sustainable Livestock), this meeting serves to resume and expand upon what they had already been doing together.

The link between both institutions represents a valuable opportunity to address critical challenges related to livestock, food security, and water resource management in Latin America. The synergy between CATIE's knowledge and experience and FAO's implementation capacity promises a fruitful collaboration that will benefit the region and contribute to the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.

This meeting marks a significant step on the path to innovative solutions to address the key challenges of the region, and it is expected that the resulting work plan will lead to a positive and lasting impact on livestock and food security in Latin America.