Eleven international organizations agreed to join forces to help Latin American and Caribbean countries secure their food systems and maintain agriculture and food trade during the current COVID-19 pandemic.

The Caribbean Agency for Agricultural Health and Food Security (CAHFSA), the Caribbean Institute for Agricultural Research and Development (CARDI), the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), the Organization of the United Nations for Food and Agriculture (FAO), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA), the International Regional Organization for Plant and Animal Health (OIRSA), the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) and the World Food Program (WFP) agreed on the following five main points.

Joint work: to coordinate their actions and better help governments, the 11 agencies established a virtual communication and information platform. They agreed to meet every two weeks to review their work and plan their future actions.

Advocacy: Joint work in this regard will focus on keeping agri-food trade alive, expanding social protection schemes to ensure food security for the poor and vulnerable, common and science-based sanitary and phytosanitary standards, and increasing of intraregional trade.

Analysis and Technical Assistance: Agencies will coordinate their analysis and technical assistance to support the design and implementation of measures to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on food and agriculture. This work will include options to accelerate the recovery of agricultural and food systems when the pandemic begins to subside.

Monitoring: The agencies agreed to share and coordinate the monitoring efforts that each of them carries out on different aspects of the effects of COVID-19 on food and agriculture. This includes areas such as logistics (ports, wholesale markets, distribution chains), input production, food security, food stocks and prices, and key social and economic variables (food insecurity, rural poverty).

Dialogue: Agencies will work together to promote public dialogue and the exchange of good practices between countries and sectors, for example through online seminars.