Extending LAGs’ Networks to Latin America

 

Extending LAGs’ Networks to Latin America

The president of ELARD  participated in the Intercontinental Forum on Sustainable Territorial Development
organized in the Balneário Camporiú, Santa Catarina, Brazil 22^nd-24^th November 2011

website of the Forum: http://www.foro-santacatarina2011.org/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Background

15 Latin American and European organisations had joined their forces to organise a conference in the South of Brazil showcasing and sharing the best practices of territorial development on the two continents. The main partners were the Latin American Centre for Rural Development (www.rimisp.org, Mr Annibale Ferrini) and the Italian National Institute of Agricultural Economy (www.inea.it, Mr Franco Mantino) – the latter is also hosting the National Rural Network of Italy.

Some 200 conference participants came from almost all Latin American countries and walks of life, from local fishermen and farmers to ministry officials and politicians. FAO, IFAD, OECD, UNDP and UNESCO were among the international organisations present.

The first day debate

On the first day Plenary Session we heard the introduction to the intercontinental cooperation initiative from Mr Mantino. The process had started in 2010 with a similar forum meeting organised then in Rome, focusing in the decentralisation policies. I was then presenting the European rural development experience, emphasising the LEADER approach that is able to involve and empower the local level people and renew the structures of rural economies (also mentioning the dissemination experience in Mozambique). The questions that followed related with respecting the local people’s knowledge, LEADER adaptability to different socio-economic conditions as well as LEADER funding. Ms Claudia Serrano from RIMISP continued explaining the territorial development experience in the Latin America in general and Mr Ademir Cazella in Brazil/ Santa Caterina State in specific. The following debate dealt with governance and programme/ initiative ownership issues as well as lack of involving the practitioners and local level people to the programme design and implementation.

From a total population of 192 million people Brazil has 16 million people below the poverty line. 66% of the people live in cities bigger than 100 000 people, and poverty is both urban and rural phenomenon. The country has one million small-scale farmers, for example, that don’t own their land. In addition there are 1.8 million farmers with an average of only 1.7 hectares land property. From rural development point of view the both groups are considered as part of disorganised civil society and the question is how to involve them. Also the public sector, most importantly the local municipalities, suffer from institutional fragility. The federal, state and municipal administrations are all autonomous in Brazil. The conference audience unanimously agreed that there is a need to shift from government initiatives and ownership to local level initiatives and ownership.

The territorial cases and future cooperation

The second round of Plenary Session and the three parallel afternoon workshops went on to present territorial development cases from Far Maremma and Po Delta LAGs in Italy and Chile, Peru and Argentina in the Latin America, just to mention few. The Italian LAG Managers present saw contact building and partner search in Latin America as an attractive and inspiring cooperation opportunity. Also the Italian National Rural Network is strongly supporting the intercontinental cooperation of LAGs.

The case approach continued the second day with five parallel excursions. I took part in a bus trip around Bajo Valle de Itajaí, where we got to see mussels farming, a family-owned dairy farm producing cheese and a local fish market, among other things. These cases showed strong entrepreneurial spirit despites many problems in the business environment, for example illegal mussels trade to avoid taxes (75% of the total sales).

Picture: Local family entrepreneurs. Cheesemaking business.

The third conference day morning we spent discussing the excursion experience. Our group concluded that all the cases we saw were encouraging but very individual. More strategic approach on local or state level could help networking of the isolated case project, boost new ones to show up on the grassroots level and target the support actions to the most relevant development initiatives.

The last session of the conference focused on future intercontinental cooperation. In June 2012 there will be a continuation conference of the experience exchange process in Peru. Meanwhile ELARD is available to become a European partner on bottom-up development to any Latin American territorial initiative. We are also ready to host delegations in Europe and send experts and exchange personnel to Latin America.

 

Report by Mr Petri Rinne
petri.rinne@elard.eu

Also see a short interview of Ms Carina Almeida introducing her home territory Garopapa in Santa Catarina, South Brazil.