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This year presents significant opportunities for advancements in food systems and climate milestones, with key events such as COP30 in Brazil and G20 meetings chaired by South Africa.
The organizations’ latest work plan aims to address increasing demands from nations for enhanced strategic collaboration. The focus is on strengthening both public and private institutions, sharing technical expertise, improving food security, promoting agricultural trade, protecting the environment, and fostering rural development.
Agra and IICA’s efforts complement each other—Agra works to transform smallholder farming in Africa by collaborating with governments, private sectors, civil societies, and farmers. Meanwhile, IICA specializes in rural development in the Americas through excellent international technical cooperation.
Dr. Manuel Otero, IICA’s director-general, highlights the partnership as a pivotal move towards advancing South-South cooperation. He emphasizes that Africa and the Americas share similar agricultural challenges and opportunities, and this collaboration leverages their combined strengths to boost rural development, sustainable trade, and support vulnerable communities.
Otero also believes this partnership will promote regenerative tropical agriculture as a solution to Africa’s pressing challenges, positioning the continent as the next global agricultural frontier. With 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land and 10% of its renewable water resources, Africa has immense potential to become a key player in the global supply chain for food production.
The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) builds upon prior high-level collaborations between the regions, such as the Africa-Americas Joint Ministerial Summit (Costa Rica, July 2022), the Inter-regional Ministerial Roundtable (Vietnam, 2023), and the Africa Living Soils Initiative (Kenya, 2024), launched alongside the Africa Fertilizer and Soil Health Summit.
These initiatives emphasize the importance of inter-regional cooperation in transforming food systems globally. Recently, the Africa-Brazil Dialogue on Agricultural Research, Development, and Innovation in Brasilia brought together experts, ambassadors, and high-level officials to discuss shared goals. A letter of intent was signed during the event to facilitate knowledge exchange between 30 researchers from African nations, focusing on technologies for food security, regenerative farming, and restoring degraded land.