Read-out of the Director-General’s meeting with the Werner Isaac Vargas Torres, Secretary-General of the Central American Integration System (SICA)

Rome – FAO Director-General QU Dongyu today had a meeting with the Secretary-General of the Central American Integration System (SICA), Werner Isaac Vargas Torres.

The SICA Secretary-General showed his appreciation for the meeting at FAO headquarters and highlighted that food security is a crosscutting theme in all areas of work promoted by SICA. He noted that the during the most difficult period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the eight SICA members (Belize, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama) were able to put in place a biosafety protocol to strengthen food trade within the bloc.

The FAO Director-General noted the importance of an action plan to address the challenges related to the Dry Corridor and highlighted the Hand-in-Hand Dry Corridor Regional Initiativepresented at the FAO HiH Investment Forum (Rome, October 2022). He stressed that local and vulnerable farmers in the Dry Corridor need support to face the impacts of the climate crisis and be able to produce and commercialize food products, which would consequently mitigate the root causes of forced migration.

They agreed on strengthening collaboration in areas such as food security, biodiversity, the impacts of the climate crisis, and support for women and youth in rural areas.