Exchange of experiences

Main goals

With this product, the Project seeks to promote the exchange of experiences of the governments of the participating countries on post-COVID-19 response, recovery policies and programs that facilitate better decision making.

Events held

In this context, the following activities have been carried out:

• Workshop “Exchange of experiences in digitalization and connectivity in rural areas of Latin America and the Caribbean”. In this activity, technical professionals by FAO and Governments, who support the implementation of digital pilots in Argentina, Barbados, Chile, Costa Rica, cuba, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, Panama, suriname, Trinidad and Tobago and Uruguay, joined together face to face to talk about digitalization in agriculture and rural territories.

• Seminar “Digitalization of agriculture: Chinese experience and challenges for Latin America and the Caribbean”, where Dr. Guofu Feng, an expert in digital agriculture and associate professor at Shangai Ocean University, provided an overview of connectivity development in rural areas of China, showecased types of technologies and platforms that can be integrated into food systems, and offered recommendations for the challenges facing the region on its path to digitalization. 

• Seminar "Chinese Experience in Digitalizing Rural Areas and the Role of E-commerce in Poverty Alleviation: A Reference for Latin America and the Caribbean," where Haibo Zhu, a technical expert in rural digitalization, discussed government and private sector efforts to reduce poverty and advance digitalization in China. Additionally, he shared successful examples of e-commerce usage for community development in China.

• Seminar "Regional Dialogue: cooperation and opportunities to strengthen climate action in agriculture", which was attended by representatives of the Ministry of the Environment of Chile, the WMO Regional Office for the Americas, the Platform for Climate Action in Agriculture in Latin America and the Caribbean (PLACA), the Soil Alliance of Latin America and the Caribbean (ASLAC) and the Central American Commission for Environment and Development (SE CCAD).

• Conference "Political dimension of the digital transformation of the rural world: Advances and Challenges" in the context of FAO's +Rural +Digital fair, with the participation of Angela Penagos, president of the Agricultural Sector Financing Fund (FINAGRO), Monica Rodrigues, economic affairs officer of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), Silvia Massrusha, general head of digital agriculture of the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa) and Francine Brossard, executive director of the Foundation for Agricultural Innovation (FIA).

• Conference on international experiences of digitalization in rural sectors at FAO's +Rural +Digital fair, with presentations by Alibaba and the FarmBetter initiative, moderated by the Innovation Officer, Souroush Parsa. This event was attended by Annie Li, Alibaba's Rural Vitalisation Commissioner in Pingshun County, Shanxi Province; and Benjamin Gräub, a FarmBetter expert who leads a digital advisory team for farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America and Asia.