15 March 2018
Central American Stakeholders Strengthen Regional Soil Partnership
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The Regional Soil Partnership for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean met to assess progress and kick start implementation of a new biennial programme of work.

Held under the auspices of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP), the meeting took place in Panama City, Panama, and aimed to tackle multiple challenges posed by soil degradation.

26 February 2018: Five years since the establishment of their regional soil network, representatives from 15 Central American and Caribbean countries and Mexico met to assess progress and kick start implementation of a new biennial programme of work. The meeting agreed on a set of priority actions to reverse the degradation of soils, including through strengthening soil partnerships and ensuring greater impact at the regional level.

Held under the auspices of the Global Soil Partnership (GSP), the meeting took place in Panama City, Panama, on 16 February 2018. It aimed to tackle multiple challenges posed by soil degradation and their impact on agricultural production, economic development, climate change adaptation and food security. The GSP estimates that approximately 32% of arable land in Central America is degraded, resulting in considerable losses in crop productivity.

The regional plan aims to: promote protection, conservation and sustainable productivity; enhance investment, technical cooperation, policies, awareness and training; develop research and improve information and data collection; and harmonize methods, measures and indicators for sustainable management and protection of soil resources. Towards this end, the meeting agreed to further strengthen regional cooperation on soil testing and information networks and to scale up implementation of the Voluntary Guidelines for Soil Management at the national level.

The GSP was established in December 2012 with the goal of enhancing collaboration and synergy of efforts among land users and policy makers to improve governance and promote the sustainable management of soils.

The Regional Partnership for Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean was established in 2013 in Havana, Cuba. It seeks to: promote the management, conservation and recovery of degraded soils; raise awareness on the importance of this resource; improve soil information; and establish a legal framework to enhance the sustainable management of soils in the region. [FAO Press Release] [The Global Soil Partnership]

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