The Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat is pleased with the progress on the Agriculture Policy Programme (APP) which it said has delivered significantly to the Region’s agriculture community.
The APP has delivered significantly in providing direct support to the agriculture community while also addressing the broader regional policy framework to ensure that Member States align their agriculture policies, plans and strategies to the Community Agriculture Policy (CAP) and the Regional Food and Nutrition Security Policy (RFNSP) and the priority commodities.
The CARICOM Secretariat is pleased with the progress made and we can attest to the strengthening of the inter-agency relationships and a better appreciation by all partners of each other’s management systems and programmes of work. I must mention the development that CARICOM Secretariat in 2014 – 2015 went through the 7 pillar assessment. We passed the test, which means that when the CARICOM Secretariat is going to work with other partners, we will have to demand the same rules and procedures to be followed,” CARICOM Deputy Secretary-General said.
She was at the time delivering opening remarks on Wednesday at a regional two-day meeting to disseminate the validation trial results under Component 2 of the APP. The work was conducted by theCaribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI) and its partner entities under the APP. The meeting is being held at the Grand Coastal Hotel, Georgetown, Guyana.
The APP aims to address the development needs of smallholder agriculture. It is funded by the European Union under the 10th European Development Fund with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) as the Executing Agency, and the CARICOM Secretariat and CARDI as implementing partners.
As implementing partner for Component 1, the CARICOM Secretariat supported the implementation of regional agricultural policies and strategies, specifically the Community Agriculture Policy (CAP); the Liliendaal Declaration; the Jagdeo Initiative; and the Dominican Republic Agriculture Policy. The Secretariat facilitates the development of national agriculture policies and incentive regimes targeting small producers and entrepreneurs and strengthened regional statistical capabilities in agriculture and food systems.
The APP winds down at the end of the year, but the Deputy Secretary-General said that the Secretariat fully supported the request to have the financing agreement extended.
CCS fully supports the request to have the Financing Agreement extended after 31 December, 2016, by the European Union Ambassador, we trust that you and your colleagues in Trinidad and Brussels will support the Region in convincing your principals in Brussels of the valuable contributions of the APP to the Region’s development and the securing of all the resources allocated to the programme.
Work needs to continue within the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whereby poverty reduction is crucial – other focus segments are youth in agriculture with usage of IT skills, social media, gender mainstreaming in agriculture. These segments are not stand-alone issues, but very much related and linked to poverty reduction,” she said.
