CATIE contributes to the impact of the TRANSFORMA-INNOVA program in Costa Rica

• A delegation from the German Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ) visited the CATIE campus in Turrialba this week.

CATIE's Director General, Dr. Luis Pocasangre, received a delegation from the German Development Cooperation Agency (GIZ) at the campus in Turrialba, Costa Rica, with the objective of strengthening the Center's support to the TRANSFORMA-INNOVA program. They are the program coordinator, Alberto Vega, as well as the Policy and Governance advisor, Patricia Ruiz. Reinhold Muschler, coordinator of CATIE's contributions to this initiative, also participated in the working meeting.

The program “Low-carbon and climate-resilient transformational pathways in Costa Rica” (TRANSFORMA-INNOVA) aims to enable producers to shift their agricultural and blue production systems towards sustainable, biodiverse, low-carbon and climate-resilient value chains. In this way, they will be able to contribute to Costa Rica's NDCs (Nationally Determined Contributions) for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as to the National Decarbonization Plan.

CATIE's work as part of the program focuses on supporting NAMAs (nationally appropriate mitigation actions) in coffee, livestock and musaceae for the implementation of good agricultural and manufacturing practices.

Muschler explained that “TRANSFORMA-INNOVA is making a significant contribution to the promotion of NAMAs in Costa Rica and during this working meeting we discussed the importance of increasing its impact during the last year of implementation”.

CATIE is currently part of two programs coordinated by GIZ with funding from the International Climate Initiative (IKI) of the German government: TRANSFORMA-INNOVA and EbA LAC (Scaling up Ecosystem-based Adaptation measures in Rural Latin America). Arlene López, coordinator of CATIE's contributions to the latter program, was also part of this meeting with the GIZ delegation.

The TRANSFORMA-INNOVA Program is coordinated by the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (MAG) of Costa Rica, co-financed by the European Union and the German Federal Ministries of Economics and Climate Protection (BMWK) and Environment, Nature Conservation and Consumer Protection (BMUV), through the IKI, and implemented by the German Development Cooperation GIZ in conjunction with CATIE, Conservation International (CI), the Costa Rica - United States Foundation for Cooperation (CRUSA), Environmental Bank Foundation (FUNBAM) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).