Panelists at the Scaling Impact plenary during CGIAR Science Week 2025. Credit: CGIAR

By Naureen Hossain
NAIROBI, Apr 9 2025 (IPS)

The ASEAN-CGIAR program “unlocks opportunities to look at commodities in the region, interest, markets, and capacity building, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Dr. Yvonne Pinto said during a plenary that focused on fostering regional integration, scaling innovation, and amplifying the impact of CGIAR’s research in addressing agricultural challenges.

The ASEAN-CGIAR Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security Regional Program was established to help ASEAN member states address complex, interrelated issues in their agricultural sectors, including climate change, food safety and nutrition, resource scarcity, and poverty. The program includes eight intervention packages (IPs), or activities relating to bolstering agricultural sustainability and food security across the region. Since the program’s launch in 2023, the interventions have been implemented in ten countries, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and Myanmar.

As CGIAR Science Week proceeded onto its second day, part of the focus of the day’s plenary session was on ‘Building Bridges,’ as was illustrated in the joint program between CGIAR and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).

The ASEAN region is home to multiple climates and commodities, which are distributed through a single-market production base through its integration with the global economy.

Pinto points out that this was the entry point for the ASEAN-CGIAR program, for CGIAR has a “tremendous opportunity to play a significant role that is about delivering against the needs.”

“It unlocks opportunities to look at commodities in the region, interest, markets, and capacity building, and it is really built and co-created by the countries in question. So it is central to the CGIAR regional plan,” said Pinto.

While the program has the backing of global research alliances like CGIAR and its partners and funders, including Australia, the Netherlands, and Japan, it has been built and co-created by the countries where the programs were implemented. This would indicate an emphasis on relying on expert local knowledge on the issues and on empowering local agricultural communities to have a hand in the solution.

As an ASEAN member state and one of the countries where the ASEAN-CGIAR regional program has been implemented, Vietnam, through To Viet Chau, the Deputy Director General, International Cooperation Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, shared that the Vietnamese government recognizes the impact of climate on their agricultural sector. He proposed that adopting integrative strategies that link local stakeholders with the private sector would help to increase access to sustainable farming technologies and build the capacity for farmers.

The panel discussion highlighted the significance of South-South collaboration and the need for countries in the Global South to actively share resources and knowledge to address their issues. In the agricultural sector, ASEAN’s model for development follows a bottom-up approach that takes initiative at the community level and centers their needs when formulating policies and programs.

For the African continent, there is an opportunity to learn from the ASEAN-CGIAR program, observed Bongiwe Njobe, Board Chairperson, Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA). The regions face similar challenges, including human capital constraints, rapid urbanization, climate change, production system challenges, and nutritional issues.

Recently, increasing political will towards sustainable development has opened up the countries towards joint cooperation. “Working through the African Union, I think the continent is increasingly finding a structure that is multilayered that allows for continental conversations and initiatives, regional—we call them subregional organizations and linkages—and country participation through the AU. And then an organization like FARA, which is positioned as a technical arm recognized by the AU as a technical arm, coordinates the scientific arms across the same structures in the regions,” said Niobe.

While the tenets for programs similar to ASEAN-CGIAR are present in the African continent, Niobe remarked that challenges remain, such as strengthening the effectiveness of the systems, the strength of relational capital between countries, and ensuring that the goals set out can be achieved.

The need for collaboration is evident through the multiple stakeholders in this sector. Government support is critical in facilitating agricultural and food production projects and in identifying areas that would benefit from the intervention. The private sector can also play its part through financial backing. It was even said that civil society has a part to play in advancing development in agriculture and food production at the local level.

Groups such as the Philippine Rice Research Institute are in a position to connect organizations and people together. “We broker, and we see that the work becomes faster and we don’t have to be the center of everything,” said Executive Director John de Leon.

“I think the time is now for the South to exert its leadership in how it wishes to address its own problems, and I say that from the perspective of another girl from the South.”

In a video message, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN for ASEAN Economic Community, Satvinder Singh, shared that collaboration was at the root of the success for the region. For ASEAN, it was important for all stakeholders in this sector, including government, public, and private partners, to come together and have a stake in “shaping a more sustainable future.”

“We recognize that no single country can address these challenges alone,” said Singh. “We know that by leveraging regional cooperation, we can definitely accelerate and adopt climate-smart agricultural technologies, we can come together to explore strengthening our value chains, and also we can come together to build a much more resilient and sustainable food system. This is why the ASEAN-CGIAR regional program is very significant for us. It serves as a platform to unite global experience and cutting-edge research and the practical solutions tailored to our region’s needs.”

IPS UN Bureau Report,