The Food and Agri­cul­ture Or­gan­i­sa­tion of the Unit­ed Na­tions (FAO) and the Latin Amer­i­can As­so­ci­a­tion of De­vel­op­ment Fi­nance In­sti­tu­tions (ALIDE) re­cent­ly signed a let­ter of in­tent to work on agree­ments to im­prove ac­cess to cred­it for small and medi­um-sized agri­cul­tur­al en­ter­pris­es to ac­cel­er­ate agri­cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion and sus­tain­able rur­al de­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean.

In a state­ment, the FAO said this seeks to strength­en strate­gies for ef­fec­tive fi­nanc­ing of agri­cul­tur­al and rur­al de­vel­op­ment in the re­gion, adding it will im­prove food se­cu­ri­ty, re­duce rur­al pover­ty, and pro­mote gen­der equal­i­ty through ini­tia­tives such as stud­ies and re­search, train­ing, dis­sem­i­na­tion, and ex­change of in­for­ma­tion.

“These ini­tia­tives will fo­cus on strength­en­ing de­vel­op­ment banks’ fi­nanc­ing and tech­ni­cal as­sis­tance poli­cies and strate­gies to sup­port agri­cul­tur­al and agro-in­dus­tri­al pro­duc­tion units, fi­nan­cial in­clu­sion of small and medi­um-scale pro­duc­ers, and fi­nan­cial and non­fi­nan­cial ser­vices to im­prove ac­cess to cred­it for small and medi­um-scale agri­cul­tur­al en­ter­pris­es,” the FAO ex­plained.

In ad­di­tion, the agree­ment seeks to pro­mote FAO’s “Hand in Hand” pro­gramme ap­proach for ac­cel­er­at­ing agri­cul­tur­al trans­for­ma­tion and sus­tain­able rur­al de­vel­op­ment, as well as for in­creas­ing and stim­u­lat­ing pub­lic and pri­vate in­vest­ments to ac­cel­er­ate the trans­for­ma­tion to­wards more ef­fi­cient, in­clu­sive, re­silient and sus­tain­able agri-food sys­tems.

“It is crit­i­cal to un­der­stand that, to achieve sus­tain­able de­vel­op­ment through the trans­for­ma­tion of agri-food sys­tems, we must work close­ly with the De­vel­op­ment Fi­nance In­sti­tu­tions. This agree­ment will al­low us to work to pro­mote ef­fec­tive fi­nanc­ing for agri­cul­tur­al and rur­al de­vel­op­ment in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the most vul­ner­a­ble ar­eas,” Mario Lu­betkin, FAO as­sis­tant di­rec­tor-gen­er­al and re­gion­al rep­re­sen­ta­tive said.

Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al of ALIDE, Edgar­do Al­varez, point­ed out that the let­ter of in­tent be­tween FAO and ALIDE al­lows the re­launch­ing of the in­sti­tu­tion­al re­la­tion­ship be­tween both or­gan­i­sa­tions, putting at the base the pri­or­i­ty is­sues of cur­rent rel­e­vance in the pro­mo­tion and de­vel­op­ment of the agri­cul­tur­al and rur­al sec­tor in coun­tries of the re­gion, with the ul­ti­mate goal of achiev­ing food se­cu­ri­ty.