“Our members are currently in ongoing negotiations to further reform the agricultural rules at the WTO,” said DDG Paugam during his meeting with IICA's Director General, Dr Manuel Ortero, and his technical teams. “We are looking to strengthen our strategic partnerships with organizations like IICA who are mandated to support WTO members in effectively engaging in the multilateral trading system,” he said.

IICA, as an observer organization to the WTO's Committee on Agriculture (CoA) and the WTO Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Committee, has been working closely with the WTO Secretariat to deliver technical assistance to WTO members and to support the committees with analysis and data from the region on critical topics. IICA hosts the “WTO-IICA Reference Center,” a go-to source of relevant information on the WTO for governments, the private sector and civil society. IICA also implements projects financed by the Standards and Trade Development Facility (STDF) to support the delivery of the SPS Agreement.

Under the cooperation with IICA, WTO members can be supported by the latest research and trade policy analysis on critical agricultural topics, such as food security, public stockholding, domestic support, market access and subsidies. DDG Paugam discussed with IICA's leadership and its technical teams the idea of developing a more strategic framework for future collaboration. A reinforced collaboration could include launching a new suite of technical assistance offerings, tools and training activities on agricultural topics under negotiation at the WTO to better assist members in responding to the SPS Declaration ministers adopted at the 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) in June 2022.

Ahead of MC13, which will be held in February 2024, IICA will release a new publication with the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) assessing the challenges in the multilateral agricultural negotiations and what they mean for Latin America.

IICA recently published two publications related to the food security crisis titled “A threat to global food security” and “Ukraine one year later: Impacts on global food security.”  A more strategic collaboration between the WTO and IICA would also help the WTO Secretariat respond to member needs, in particular the MC12 “Ministerial declaration on the emergency response to food security”, which calls on the Secretariat to increase cooperation with other relevant international organizations.   

IICA is the specialized agency for agriculture of the Inter-American system that supports the efforts of member states to achieve agricultural development and rural well-being.