Concept note for the international seminar: Towards a new generation of public policies for agri-food systems in the Americas

In 2021, the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) initiated a series of activities with its member countries, culminating in the creation of the Continental Alliance for Food Security and Sustainable Development. This alliance, supported by the ministers of agriculture of the Americas at their twenty-second meeting, has two main objectives: to increase the influence and coordination of the Member States in international agricultural forums, and to implement collective actions to share information, knowledge and investment strategies, in order to strengthen agrifood systems. Consequently, this continental alliance is intended to serve as an institutional mechanism for consolidating and increasing the presence and collective impact of the Institute's member countries in these multilateral forums, in order to demonstrate the global importance of their agrifood systems and their capacity to meet the challenges of providing more and healthier, safer and more nutritious food at a lower cost to an increasingly urbanized world population, and to respect environmental management practices related to the protection of natural resources, the recovery and maintenance of fragile agroecological systems and the preservation of fragile agroecological systems, and nutritious food at a lower cost to an increasingly urbanized world population and to respect environmental management practices related to the protection of natural resources, the recovery and maintenance of fragile agroecological systems and the reduction of emissions of polluting gases responsible for climate change around the world.