Countries of the SICA region hold first meeting of the inter-institutional committee to support rural MSMEs

As part of the intersectoral work being carried out by the Regional Center for the Promotion of MSMEs (Cenpromype) and the Executive Secretariat of the Central American Agricultural Council (SE-CAC) with the support of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the meeting of the Intersectoral Committee for the support of rural MSMEs in the SICA region was held.

This meeting was the first meeting with national representatives of the agricultural sector, rural development and MSMEs in the SICA region, to present the projects related to rural MSMEs, which are being implemented within the framework of the partnership between Cenpromype, SE-CAC and FAO.

FAO’s Subregional Coordinator for Mesoamerica, Adoniram Sanches Peraci, explained that these actions seek to continue positioning the issue of rural MSMEs on the agenda of the SICA region, creating a structure for their governance and monitoring.

David Cabrera, Executive Director of Cenpromype, emphasized that in order to promote rural competitiveness, the rural MSME initiatives focus their efforts on building an ecosystem of territorial business development, public, private and academic, that provides business development services to promote the growth of MSMEs in the territories.

The Executive Secretary of the SE-CAC, Lucrecia Rodríguez, indicated that economic development of agricultural enterprises is fundamental. “That is what intersectoriality is all about, to make a complementarity of what each institution knows how to do best,” he said.

During the meeting, the initiative to establish the Interinstitutional Technical Committee was presented as a technical-strategic space to facilitate regional coordination between the governing bodies of both sectors to align with national strategies and action plans prioritized for the development of agrifood MSMEs in the territories.

The Interinstitutional Technical Committee is considered instrumental for achieving the objectives of the projects related to rural MSMEs, as it will facilitate the execution of a regional agenda and collaborative work to achieve results, including the alignment of national plans, the exchange of experiences and generation of knowledge, capacity building and collaboration networks in the territories.

As part of this collaborative effort between the MSME sector and the agricultural sector, a series of meetings and intersectoral meetings will be held in the coming months, where inputs will be obtained for the construction of the roadmap to be addressed in future meetings, which in turn will contribute to the preparation of the High Level Meeting where MSME authorities and the ministries of agriculture of the eight SICA countries will participate and where results and lessons learned from the implementation of rural MSME projects will be socialized.

These actions are part of the Mano de la Mano Initiative – Building resilience in the dry corridor and arid zones of the SICA region.This initiative, promoted by FAO and led by the General Secretariat of SICA, was recognized and positively received during the 57th Meeting of Heads of State and Government of SICA in Belize (June 2023), and is aligned with and complements the efforts and actions being promoted in the intersectoral work to accompany the countries of the region to promote comprehensive and sustainable territorial development, as well as to identify investments with a high socioeconomic impact at the territorial level.