Asia and the Pacific region is characterized by high economic growth, increasing per capita income, and high agricultural production and productivity. Notwithstanding the success many countries in Asia and the Pacific have achieved in reducing poverty and improving food security and the overall welfare of the people, the region remains home to the majority of the world’s poor and hungry. Out of approximately 1.2 billion people in the world who are estimated to be living under a dollar a day consumption level, roughly two-thirds of them live in Asia and the Pacific, particularly in South Asia.
To address poverty and food insecurity, Asia-Pacific countries have been implementing several national initiatives with their own resources as well as in collaboration with the United Nations System, including the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), international financing institutions (IFIs) and multiand bilateral donors.
The region still faces several challenges and constraints to sustainable agricultural development. These are mainly related to sustainable management of natural resources, the spreading of plant pests and animal diseases, consumer concerns about food safety and inadequate food marketing systems. Furthermore, globalization and the international and regional trade and economic environments impose additional challenges, which call for collaboration at regional and subregional levels to attain sustainable poverty reduction and food security.
With a view to addressing these issues, the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, UNESCAP and ADB jointly organized a Regional High-level Roundtable Meeting to discuss how Asia and the Pacific can meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and World Food Summit Declaration through opportunities offered by subregional and regional collaboration, derive lessons learned and formulate a future course of action.
The discussions and the deliberations in the Roundtable rightly concluded that for certain aspects of food security, poverty eradication and the promotion of agricultural and rural development, regional collaboration can provide a critical and indispensable contribution and that Regional Economic Organizations (REOs) have a significant role to play in this regard.
Such a development is helped by strong political commitment to policy harmonization among the REO’s, which is critical to fostering economic growth, employment and the income earning capacities of the poor and thereby increasing their access to food. Continued reduction of trade barriers to intraregional trade, the establishment of common phytosanitary regulations and common standards, the harmonization of tariff nomenclature, customs valuations and customs procedures and so forth are still necessary if we are to achieve the MDGs.
The Roundtable provided a high-level forum to discuss the political commitment and building of fruitful partnerships within and amongst the subregional bodies in Asia and the Pacific and co-ordination of their respective initiatives and programmes related to agriculture and rural development with a focus on eradication of poverty and food insecurity. It urged leaders and decision-makers of countries in the Asia-Pacific region to put the fight against hunger and poverty at the forefront of national priorities and to urgently strengthen their political commitment towards this objective. This Report is thus useful and timely, as there is a need to design a separate package of policy targets, strategies and programmes that are directly designed to address poverty issues and problems for specific poverty groups in the various subsectors of the economy.
This Report is based on the cooperative work done by the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, UNESCAP and ADB. The contributions of UNESCAP and ADB are greatly acknowledged and appreciated.
HE CHANGCHUI
Assistant Director-General and
FAO
Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific
