The first of a series of development partnerships to be concluded at Lyon were signed yesterday (Monday) by Mr. Rubens Ricupero, Secretary-General of UNCTAD, and top officials from the Andean Development Corporation (CAF), and the International Federation of Agricultural Producers (IFAP). The agreements embrace two new fields of growing importance, the conservation and sustainable development of biodiversity, and commodity risk management.
The CAF -- a regional development and integration body headquartered in Lima (Peru) -- assists member countries, among other things, in making their economies diversified, competitive and more responsive to social needs. IFAP is a Paris-based federation of over 60 national farmers´ associations, representing their interests at the global level.
These two partner organizations will be working with UNCTAD´s Biotrade Initiative and with the UNCTAD unit responsible for the promotion of those market-based financial tools that can help stabilize the earnings of agricultural commodity exporters. The recent plunge in most commodity prices has hit hard many developing countries, notably in sub-Saharan Africa.
After the signing of the CAF agreement on Monday evening, Mr. Enrique Garcia Rodriguez, its President and Chief Executive Officer, said this alliance would open doors to concrete projects in each country, supported by the governments concerned but without their interference.
Mr. Ricupero pointed out that the agreement would be able to give solid economic content to the intergovernmental Convention on Biological Diversity. Its key objectives are to tackle poverty among the peoples of the Amazon tropical forests and, simultaneously, help to protect the region´s rich biodiversity.
The "letter of intent" states that the two organizations will establish a framework of collaboration for the implementation of the Biotrade Initiative in the Amazon regions of the five Andean countries, Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. A separate agreement will be signed later during the Lyon meeting for Brazil, whose territory contains the largest size of the Amazon basin.
The agreement with CAF calls for coordinated action in research, training and public awareness programmes, to promote the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity. It will also look into ways of enhancing the Andean countries´ ability to compete in the emerging market for biological resources, while improving the functioning of the market.
Meanwhile, under the theme of "Preparing farmers for the twenty-first century," UNCTAD and IFAP have agreed to establish a broad-ranging partnership aimed at getting recommendations and guidelines to farmers associations, so as to tackle the problems of extremely expensive credit and extreme exposure to price fluctuations. Many smaller farmers have to pay very high short-term interest rates and face difficulty in obtaining longer-term credit. The two organizations said they believed that their partnership could make "a significant contribution" to solving these problems, through the use of modern risk management instruments and finance tools.
As a result of their use, farmers could expect a drop of 10 - 15 per cent in the cost of credit; renewed access to agricultural inputs on credit terms (this facility has virtually disappeared in many countries, following the withdrawal of governments from the supply of inputs); and protection against extreme price volatility. Thus, at the moment they decide to plant, maintain or harvest a crop, farmers will have the comfort of knowing the minimum sale price they will eventually receive for their product.
UNCTAD and IFAP agreed to begin their collaboration through pilot projects in a number of sub-Saharan African countries, such as Cameroon, Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania. Lessons learned will be disseminated through the IFAP network of national organizations.
