Mr Chairman,
Dear Delegates,
I am very delighted to attend the Regional High-level Roundtable Meeting on Spearheading Subregional Programmes and Cooperation for Eradication of Poverty and Food Insecurity in Asia and the Pacific co-sponsored by the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific. This Roundtable Meeting will provide us with a good opportunity to understand better about the food situation in this region and programmes of each country for eradication of poverty as well as to further discuss the new areas and modalities for intensifying regional and subregional cooperation.
Mr Chairman,
Attaching great importance to agriculture and food security, the Chinese government has always put in the important position the development of food and agriculture, and food security and clothing of the Chinese people. With the arduous efforts in the past 50 years or more, particularly more than 20 years since reforms and opening-up, China has obtained achievements that have drawn the world’s attention in agriculture and rural economy. The production of grains, cotton, oil-seeds, fruits, meats, poultry and eggs, fishery products, etc. have been at the world’s top level for years, while the per capita production has either reached or exceeded the world average level. China has made the historic shift from chronic shortage of major farm products such as grains to the general balance between the total supply and demand with surplus in good harvest years. Since 1996, the Chinese Government has earnestly carried out its commitments it made to the World Food Summit by actively increasing its grain production. The grain production has achieved a record high level, reaching 512.3 million tons in 1998 from the 504.54 million tons in 1996. The production of the following two years stood at 500 million tons and it has maintained at the level of 450 million tons over the past few years.
China has also made great progress in poverty alleviation with the population of the poor still suffering inadequate food and clothing reduced from 250 million in 1978 to the current 28.20 million. In general, the Chinese people in both urban and rural areas are living a fairly comfortable life.
In spite of considerable progress achieved in food production and poverty reduction, China still faces severe challenges in agricultural development. In 2003, due to last year’s frequent natural disasters of various types, the impact of the sudden outbreak of SARS, food production fell below 450 million tons, for the first time in the past eight years, marking a lowest record since 1990. In addition, consumption in the year continued to exceed food production, enlarging the gap between demand and supply. With a view to realizing the long-term stability of food security in China, the Chinese Government adopted a series of policy measures to increase food production capacity. Detailed policy measures include: direct subsidy to grain producers, lowering agriculture tax rate, abolishing special agricultural taxes, subsidizing purchase of quality seeds and agricultural machinery, implementing quality grain projects.
The Chinese Government has always attached great importance to and actively participated in the international exchange and cooperation programmes in the field of food and agriculture. The Chinese Government, through multi- and bilateral channels including FAO’s South-South Cooperation Programme under the framework of the Special Programme of Food Security, has strengthened its cooperative relations with other developing countries by providing support within our capacities to help them achieve food security. With the parallel development of both economic globalization and regionalization in recent years, the Chinese Government has strengthened its cooperation and exchanges with regional and subregional economic organizations, and initiated full-range agricultural cooperation with ASEAN. China is going to establish a China-ASEAN Free Trade Zone by 2010 when 6 000 items of products will enjoy zero tariffs. In 2004, 600 items of products, mainly agricultural products, have enjoyed the “early harvest”. In addition, China engages itself in some activities by international, regional and subregional economic organizations, such as Greater Mekong Subregion (GSM) development programme of the Asia Development Bank, FAO’s projects on rice-cotton-vegetable IPM, transboundary animal disease surveillance and control, and other regional activities. Meanwhile, China also promotes bilateral cooperation and exchanges with friendly countries in the Asia and Pacific region, shares technology and resources and, by making joint efforts, makes its contribution to regional food security and poverty elimination.
In most developing countries, due to many constraints such as the shortage of capital and technology, weak capability of macro control, small-scale of agricultural and food production, and backward infrastructure, the vast majority of the poor population cannot be guaranteed with food security.
Therefore, we hope that developed countries and the international community will increase their assistance to agriculture growth in developing countries, transfer suitable agricultural technologies and help these countries get rid of economic difficulty so as to raise food productivity and improve food security. Meanwhile, developing countries shall continue to give priority to food production, maximize food supply and improve food security.
Mr Chairman and Delegates,
The Chinese Government will continue to honour its relevant commitments, adopt effective measures in accordance with the Summit’s Plan of Action to protect food production capacity, so as to build a solid foundation for economic development and social progress, and contribute to food security in the world.
As you all know, China will host the 27th FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific from May 17 to 21 in Beijing this year, and then the first Ministerial Workshop for Members of Asia Cooperation Dialogue will be held from May 22 to 23. I would like, on behalf of the Chinese Government, to extend our warm welcome to all participants present to come to Beijing in May. We will show our warm hospitality as a hosting country.
Thank you.
Mr Chairman,
It is indeed a great pleasure and privilege for me to address this August Assembly of distinguished Ministers and delegates from various countries in Asia and the Pacific, UN Agencies, SREOs, Financial Institutions and Civil Society Organizations on a subject of utmost relevance and concern to this part of the world. With Asia- Pacific still harbouring some of the most resistant pockets of poverty, this round of consultation has a special significance for accelerating the pace of sustainable agricultural and rural development.
It should also be a matter of great satisfaction for the organizers that the Millennium Development Goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in September 2000 had, as their necessary backward linkage, the Rome Declaration of the World Food Summit in 1996 in so far as Food Security and Poverty Alleviation are concerned. It is the firm belief of the Government of India that with the increasing integration of economies the concerns of the comity of nations and multilateral institutions have deepened in facing the challenges of poverty, food insecurity, poor public health and mass illiteracy. To the extent the problems of food security and poverty alleviations have, of late, become highly differentiated spatially, the case for their regional and subregional management becomes all the more pressing. In other words, geography clearly dictates a subregional approach in catering to these problems.
South Asia is home to more chronically food insecure people than any other region in the world. South Asians account for 22 percent of mankind, 44 percent of the world’s poor and 40 percent of all food insecure people in the developing world. The large segments of the population of this region are also vulnerable to recurrent natural disasters bringing their food insecurity under aggravated stress. Food insecurity, therefore, has become a multidimensional problem particularly in South Asia. Finding the means by which the people of this region can free themselves from the scourge of poverty and the consequent food insecurity therefore continues to be a pressing issue despite impressive strides made in tackling this scourge.
Mr Chairman,
Agriculture, contributing around 25 percent in GDP and 58 percent of the employment, remains the key to sustainable development in India. A defining feature of agriculture in India is the very low average holding size of hardly 1.5 hectare per farming family. Nevertheless, Indian agriculture has made impressive progress during the last five decades from a “ship to mouth” scenario in the early sixties when we depended substantially on imports. We have not only become self-reliant in food grains but have acquired sufficient resilience to tide over the adverse conditions in years of drought.
Our achievements on the “supply side” would not have made such a major difference had there not been a concomitant extension of a “Public Distribution System” right up to the interior-most village, ensuring availability of 35 kgs of food grains a month to the identified “below the poverty line” families at very affordable rates. Besides, this system also caters to the requirements of other sections of the population including supply of rice/wheat free of cost to those destitute who are not yet availing themselves of the benefits of the social security network. During the year ending 31 March 2003 more than 22 million tons of food grains were distributed through this network benefiting more than 300 million people living below or on the fringes of the poverty line. This network has made a sustainable dent in the food insecurity profile of the country.
Mention must also be made of the massive successful mitigation operations mounted during the drought of unprecedented severity that afflicted large parts of the country between July 2002 to June 2003 due to anomalies in the South West Monsoon. The drought resulted in loss of agricultural employment to the order of more than 1 000 million man-days, and left more than 1 800 million hectares unsown during the autumn or kharif crop of 2002. Massive “relief employment” operations were mounted providing temporary employment to more than 240 million small and marginal farmers and agricultural workers through a “food-for-work approach” which entailed payment of wages part in cash and part in food grains. The result was a transfer of more than 8 million tons of food grains to the most vulnerable victims of drought and generation of more than 1 430 million man-days which more than compensated for the loss of employment.
We have come a long way in alleviation of poverty. The poverty ratio in the country has come down from 36 percent in 1993 to 27 percent in 2001. The battle against poverty, rural and urban, goes on relentlessly and our Tenth Five Year Plan envisages a total outlay of around US$30 billion to achieve this goal in a holistic manner by emphasising a total human development approach encompassing generation of incomes, public health including primary health care, universal education, shelter and infrastructure.
Mr Chairman, our Prime Minister has given a clarion call to synergise the partnership of Central Government, its constituent states and the non-governmental organizations to achieve the sacred mission of a hunger free India by 2007 which marks the 60th anniversary of our independence. It is worth emphasising that this goal is more ambitious than the one envisaged in the MDGs.
The goals set out by our Prime Minister and to which I have just alluded, would require considerable interventions of policies, programmes and resources in the sector of agriculture as it continues to sustain almost 70 percent of our billion plus population. The tasks before us are myriad and complex. We have embarked upon major initiatives to make agriculture a more remunerative proposition for our farmers through diversification of crops, market reforms, a more comprehensive and speedy risk coverage mechanism and, of course, enhancement in production through better transfer of frontier technologies.
It is increasingly being realised that, given the average holding size and the overwhelming dependence of our economy on agriculture, agriculture has to be viewed as the principal instrumentality for poverty eradication. To bring this approach into still sharper focus, a National Commission on Farmers has recently been set up to suggest ways and means of reorienting policies and programmes to improve farm incomes, particularly of the small and marginal farmers so that a real dent is made on the resistant pockets of poverty.
Mr Chairman,
From the foregoing, one can infer that eradication of poverty and food insecurity has come to the centre-stage of the public policy domain in India. While macro level successes and strides have been made, much remains to be done for achieving household level food and nutritional security. The path ahead would require much greater commitment of political will and resources as we enter the realm of the more resistant segments of poverty.
Mr Chairman,
In a market oriented system, the livelihood of the farmer depends on the income he generates out of his farm operations. In globalised agriculture, the domestic market prices for agricultural products are governed, to a large extent, by the prevailing prices in the international market. The distortion of international prices of almost all agricultural commodities, due in a large measure to the policies of domestic support by the developed countries, has a definite bearing on the agenda of the present forum. The inability of the developing countries to counter these distortional policies and to provide matching or even broadly comparable support needs no reiteration. Given the overwhelming dependence on agriculture and the very small average size of holdings in the developing countries, this aspect has a direct bearing on livelihood, poverty alleviation and food security. It is a matter of great concern that adequate cognizance has so far not been taken of the interests of the resource poor farmers of the countries of the Asia-Pacific countries which does not augur well for the future of sustainable agriculture on our planet. Any trade negotiations which do not take account of the concerns of small and marginal farmers is likely to lead to endangering the livelihood and food security of hundreds of millions of farmers in our countries.
I will now come to the core of the present deliberations viz. spearheading subregional programmes and cooperation. At the very outset it must be admitted that there is much unrealised potential and scope in this area. There is, at the same time, an imperative need to also recognise the inherent difficulties in forging cooperative and collaborative ventures transcending sovereign boundaries to address these issues in a programme mode. Our own experience of providing bilateral technical support under treaty arrangements with various countries and through the trilateral route under FAO’s Special Programme for Food Security to Low Income Developing Countries has provided us valuable insights on the subject. We realise the strengths and potential of such collaborative efforts. There is, therefore, a very strong case to deliberate at length on the specifics of such cooperative initiatives, particularly with reference to the relevant institutional framework.
It must also be recognised that the mainstay of any such cooperation is information and experience sharing in the policy and programme domains. We are convinced that the potential of organizations like FAO and ESCAP, etc. to act as Clearing Houses of such information has not yet been fully utilised. The crucial role which the flow of relevant information plays deserves to be highlighted. While this process of understanding the stateof- the-art in the national drive in the relevant fields has its limitations, particularly in case of countries needing more “hands-on” support, there is a very strong case of the “best” not becoming the enemy of the “good”.
In South Asia, an important established regional collaborative platform is the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). This institutional arrangement has proved very useful in engendering mutual support and cooperation between member countries viz. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives in diverse fields. We support the concept of cooperation through innovative approaches, mutual experience sharing, capacity building and systematic evaluation through the aegis of this organization. It will be in the fitness of things if FAO, other UN agencies and international financial institutions like ADB and the World Bank generate initiatives of inter-country subregional cooperation through such organizations.
We in India have a vast network of institutions exclusively concerned with capacity building and action-research in the fields of development; we will be very happy to share such capabilities and expertise within our subregion and beyond. We offer our success stories and experiences in the relevant field for documentation and pilot testing in other “trouble spots” through subregional economic organizations.
With these observations, let me once again place on record the appreciation of the Government of India to the organizers for organizing this most topical interface on a subject of crucial significance to our countries in the Asia Pacific region engaged in a relentless campaign against food insecurity and poverty. We have no manner of doubt that such interactions will result in greater conceptual clarity and in evolving specific, pragmatic mechanisms of collaboration in the relevant fields in geographically contiguous areas encompassing similarly situated countries with broadly similar problems.
Thank you Mr Chairman.
Mr Chairman, Honorable Ministers, Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen:
I would like to take the opportunity of this meeting to share with you a few of the major findings coming from the recent work done at the World Bank on the issues of agricultural and rural development, as outlined in a strategy document published last year - Reaching the Rural Poor.
At the global level, the World Bank has estimated that per capita income in constant prices will need to grow by more than twice the rate it is growing at today - 3.6 percent p.a. on average - in order to reduce the number of poor people living on less than $1/day from nearly 29 percent of the world’s population today to 15 percent by 2015. This compares with growth of 1.6 percent during the 1990s.
In this context, as has been stated my many of the speakers earlier this morning, agricultural growth is essential to income growth in most low income countries - indeed, agricultural development is at the confluence of the MDGs, hunger and social protection. Growth in agricultural GDP will need to accelerate significantly beyond the present average of 2.5 percent p.a., registered by the low income countries across the world during the 1990s.
The challenge we face today is that agricultural based growth strategies will be more difficult than in the past. In much of the developing world:
The limits to expanding the area under cultivation has been reached; and
New areas available to irrigation are extremely limited.
Consequently, increasing productivity from the use of land, labor, water and capital assets will be the key to boosting agricultural output as we look to the future. Achieving the necessary productivity gains will require: a green revolution for the drylands; and improved efficiency of water use, and better water management in irrigated areas.
Also, the sources of agricultural and rural growth will be different at least in the near term in most countries of our region - not the grain based growth which came from the green revolution of the past, but more from the diversification of agriculture, moving into higher value commodities; and from greater off-farm activities, in many cases associated with agro-processing and related activities. Both of these factors require Governments to take a closer look at rural development strategies - to find better and more efficient ways to deliver services to poor households, making institutions more accountable for overall good governance; and to improve the rural investment climate to encourage increased private sector investment.
At the same time, achieving sustainable agriculture will require close attention to a few critical areas, some of which have been alluded to by some of the earlier speakers. These include:
Land and water degradation
Nutrient management
Integrated pest management
Conservation farming practices
Policies and institutions that will engender better practices
Adapting to climatic variability
Achieving agricultural and rural income growth will require:
Improvements in agricultural technology, but that in itself cannot do the job on its own
Improvements in the operation of markets for agricultural products and inputs
Increased investments in rural infrastructure (including, among others, investments for irrigation and water resources management, drainage, rural water supply), rural health, education, energy, telecommunications, and finance, in conjunction with local communities and the private sector
An end to policies which discriminate against agriculture in the developing countries, and those which protect and subsidize agriculture in industrialized countries
Better governance and improved delivery of services by public institutions, during a period where many of the countries in our region are undergoing fundamental institutional reform associated with decentralization
And finally, it will require initiatives to improve the rural investment climate, to ensure the development of the non-farm rural economy - to provide for increased incomes and employment in the rural areas.
For the world community, the challenge is to:
Raise the profile of rural development in national policy, with governments to prepare rural development strategies which guide both poverty reduction strategies and public expenditure programmes
Significantly expand investments for supporting rural development - in recent years these have been declining significantly - responding to the nationally prepared rural development strategies
Donors need to work collaboratively together, improving the quality and impact of their operations - and in many of the low income countries do much better in building local institutional capacity to manage agricultural policy and investments.
And finally, we need to create a rural alliance of interested donors, NGOs and the private sector to help coordinate international efforts - the champions of rural development have grown weak in recent years.
Excellencies,
Distinguished Delegates, Ladies and
Gentleman,
At the very outset, I would like to express my pleasure and honour being accorded this opportunity to participate today at this high-level roundtable meeting to address issues on poverty, food insecurity, sustainable economic growth and rural development. The Meeting, and its topic, could not have been timelier as we in ASEAN and indeed all around the Asia-Pacific try to find ways and means to build fruitful partnerships in the region to help countries meet their commitments to address the Millennium Development Goals and World Food Summit Declarations.
The World Food Summit: five years later was convened on 10-13 June 2002 to recommit governments, the international community and civil society to the Goals of the Summit. The Summit was also a call for an international alliance to accelerate action beyond the broad commitments and work towards the stepping up of time-bound actions to reduce world hunger.
The ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry (AMAF) and their counterpart agriculture Ministers of the Plus Three Member Countries, namely China, Japan and Korea, emphasised, at their second joint meeting in 2002 in Vientiane, to collectively and continuously exert themselves in narrowing the gap between member countries and to reduce hunger in the region, as deliberated at the World Food Summit, held in Rome, Italy. They also reaffirmed the importance of actively undertaking regional cooperation through international organizations including FAO.
Important and integral to the implementation of the World Food Summit Plan of Action is the mobilisation of partnerships between governments, international organizations and financial institutions to improve performance and strengthen cooperation. We hope to explore the possibilities of how strategic regional partnerships can identify regional priorities and help build local ownerships of development initiatives.
ASEAN PRIORITIES FOR POVERTY REDUCTION, FOOD SECURITY AND SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN TANDEM WITH ECONOMIC GROWTH
ASEAN was founded in 1967, with the aim to “accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region” and “to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields.” Based on this fundamental mandate, regional commitments made for social progress and development have called for “the elimination of poverty, hunger, disease and illiteracy” and “improvement of living standards” - in the Bali Concord I, 1976; bringing “shared prosperity to all” by “providing greater access to social services, poverty reduction, strengthening the family as the foundation for a strong, caring and cohesive society, capable of meeting new challenges arising from rapid social and economic changes” - in the Fifth Summit Declaration, 1995.
Founded on the above recognition that people are at the core of development processes, the region’s overall strategy to ensure that economic and social progress advance hand-in-hand is best captured in the ASEAN Vision 2020 statement adopted at the 2nd ASEAN Informal Summit in 1997: ASEAN’s leaders envisioned the entire region to be, by 2020, a community of caring societies, “... a socially cohesive and caring ASEAN where hunger, malnutrition, deprivation and poverty are no longer basic problems...”, in a partnership of dynamic development, “... a stable, prosperous and highly competitive ASEAN Economic region in which there is a free flow of goods, services and investments, a freer flow of capital, equitable economic development and reduced poverty and socio-economic disparities.”
The rapidity with which the 1997 financial crisis swept through the region, affecting all countries, highlighted that the fate of the ASEAN countries were more seamlessly interwoven than ever. Taking advantage of this reality, ASEAN’s principal response to the crisis was to accelerate regional integration and strengthen regional cooperation. The Hanoi Plan of Action (HPA) priorities adopted in 1998 were devised to implement this regional response.
Through the HPA process, ASEAN committed itself to faster and deeper regional economic cooperation and liberalisation, closer financial cooperation, and addressing the social impact of the crisis. At the same time, priorities were also highlighted for focused social and human resource development to improve the region’s capacity in preparing for future economic downturns, as well as to already put into place measures that would facilitate efforts to manage the impact of closer economic integration and help narrow the gap between the levels of development of ASEAN Members.
Such measures in the area of rural development and poverty eradication, and in food security can be found in the form of forward looking (or proactive) strategic Plans of Action. With relevance to the topic we are discussing today are Plans of Action for Rural Development and Poverty Eradication and on Food, Agriculture and Forestry.
ADDRESSING POVERTY
ASEAN cooperation in rural development and poverty eradication was first put on the regional agenda through the convening of the Inaugural Meeting of ASEAN Ministers on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication (AMRDPE) in Kuala Lumpur in October 1997. The Ministers signed a Ministerial Understanding on ASEAN Cooperation in Rural Development and Poverty Eradication and adopted a Framework for the ASEAN Plan of Action on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication. The vision, as stated in the Framework, is “towards eradicating poverty, with particular emphasis on promoting the development of progressive, prosperous and self-reliant rural communities, and thus contribute towards creating a caring society in the ASEAN Member Countries.”
Looking ahead beyond the Framework Action Plan’s initial time frame of five years (1997-2003), ASEAN Ministers on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication in December 2002 called for a comprehensive review of ASEAN cooperation on rural development and poverty eradication, to identify “new priorities for ASEAN cooperation in rural development and poverty eradication, particularly with regard to effectively responding to the challenges arising from globalisation, trade liberalisation and regional integration.” A new framework plan for the next six years (2004-2010) has been prepared, addressing emerging priorities such as globalisation, narrowing the digital divide, and encouraging local participation in sustainable rural development.
ENSURING FOOD SECURITY
Agriculture remains an important sector and contributor to the economies of most ASEAN countries. It has profound socio-economic bearings on each of the Member Countries because the livelihood of 45 percent of the population of ASEAN still depends on agriculture. This suggests that agricultural growth in ASEAN is imperative for generating employment, increasing exports, enhancing food security and vitalising domestic economies.
Towards this end, ASEAN cooperation in Food, Agriculture & Forestry has focused its programmes and activities on enhancing food security, increasing the competitiveness of ASEAN’s food, agriculture and forestry products, promoting sustainable utilisation and conservation of natural resources, encouraging private sector involvement and joint approaches on international and regional issues.
In particular, ensuring food security is a major concern in ASEAN and has always been the fundamental goal of ASEAN cooperation as reflected in all major declarations, resolutions and action plans. Generally, the concept of national food security for the ASEAN countries varies from one of self-sufficiency in absolute terms to a more flexible concept of self-reliance, which encourages imports during shortages and bases agricultural production on the principle of comparative advantage.
The enhancement of regional food security over the recent past has posed a great challenge to ASEAN. Internationally, steeply increasing demand for food against stable, and in some cases, declining production and supplies in recent times caused by natural disasters have given good lessons to ASEAN on the need to strongly support food production. Within ASEAN, rapid industrialisation and growth of the non-agricultural sector has severely affected the performance of the rice and other food industries, with its implication on food availability, stability and accessibility in Member Countries.
ASEAN cooperative efforts in food security have recently strengthened with the ASEAN Plus Three initiatives of the Pilot Project of the East Asia Emergency Rice Reserve and the ASEAN Food Security Information System. The Pilot Project aims to improve existing ASEAN coordinating and monitoring systems and to expand cooperation activities with China, Japan and Korea with a view to strengthening food security in the East Asia region. The Information System sets out to develop a network among ASEAN and China, Japan and Korea to facilitate a more effective planning of food production and trade within the region.
Building on the strength of partnerships among ASEAN countries and its dialogue partners, ASEAN has also established a working partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In this context a draft Regional Programme for Food Security in ASEAN is under preparation to complement national food security initiatives and take advantage of synergies and complementarities at the regional level.
Thus, the emphasis hitherto placed on social recovery in the wake of the economic crisis has gradually taken on the form of proactive preparedness in anticipation of the changes to be brought about in the region as a result of larger global and regional trends such as the realisation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and the respective transitions of the region’s economies into regional and global markets, and the “social” impact of globalisation.
As such, ASEAN cooperation to address rural development and poverty reduction and to ensure food security now has a focus on preparing for and managing changes brought about by global and regional economic integration and trade liberalisation, The element of continuity in change is still present in the overall direction provided by the Hanoi Plan of Action priorities; however, the work undertaken by ASEAN bodies dealing in these areas have gained a new dynamism in managing the process of change. Refocused commitments for ASEAN cooperation in rural development and poverty eradication, among other priorities, stand testimony to ASEAN’s recognition of the need to integrate economic and social objectives in preparing for the challenges and opportunities that a globalizing ASEAN region will bring. In fact, recent mandates set by our leaders have highlighted the importance of an integrated approach to achieving regional peace and prosperity.
THE 9TH ASEAN BALI SUMMIT
The 9th ASEAN Summit held in Bali, Indonesia in October 2003 “pledged to achieve an ASEAN Community by the year 2020 which would rest on the three pillars of ASEAN Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community.” The essence of these three pillars are embodied in the Declaration of ASEAN Concord (or Bali Concord II) adopted at the 9th ASEAN Summit. The Bali Concord II essentially reaffirms ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, bonded together in partnership, in dynamic development and in a community of caring societies, as envisioned in ASEAN Vision 2020.
All ten ASEAN member states mutually share the belief that the goal of social and economic prosperity in the region can be achieved only with regional peace and stability and reinforces ASEAN’s conviction that development of the region encompasses many aspects of civics, economics and politics which cannot be separate from each other because they are fundamentally interconnected.
Based on this shared belief, the realization of an ASEAN Security Community is anchored in accomplishing economic and social progress in the region. To achieve economic progress, the ASEAN Economic Community recognizes that “the realisation of a fully integrated economic community requires implementation of both liberalisation and cooperation measures” and that “there is a need to enhance cooperation and integration activities in other areas” such as “human resources development and capacity building” among others. With this as a link between social and economic development, the creation of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community highlights the development and enhancement of human resources as a key strategy for employment generation, alleviating poverty and socio-economic disparities, and ensuring economic growth with equity.
Future strategies and actions to be undertaken in addressing poverty and food security challenges will thus draw from the priorities outlined for achieving the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, in particular to “foster cooperation in social development aimed at raising the standard of living of disadvantaged groups and the rural population, and shall seek the active involvement of all sectors of society, in particular women, youth and local communities.” These strategies will be spelled out in the Vientiane Action Plan - now under preparation for adoption by the 10th ASEAN Summit later this year - to be implemented over the next six years (2004-2010).
As a regional organization, ASEAN is working to address the numerous challenges and strives to undertake cooperation activities that are of interest to all Member Countries. As a dynamic organisation, the process of how ASEAN conducts its business is continually evolving. Periodic reviews of activities in the various sectors are undertaken for the purpose of finding ways and means to improve the current structure and modalities of cooperation. The review is also to determine which activities are consistent with prevailing ASEAN priorities and international concerns. Previous reviews have revealed that due to the region’s increasing integration and cohesiveness, collaborative efforts among the Member Countries and with the international community have escalated.
As this trend is expected to continue, the overlap in the scope of activities covered by ASEAN and the international movements require strengthening in the coordination and working relation among the concerned bodies in addressing certain cross-border or inter-related issues. This will definitely call for more orderly organization and greater responsibility from each of the Members. As ASEAN becomes progressively more active in the international arena, the number of issues that Member Countries will tackle will undoubtedly also increase. Strengthening partnerships beyond ASEAN will streamline the utilisation of resources and provide for broader support of the activities undertaken and better achievement of the international goals.
There is congruence in what ASEAN is trying to achieve in 2020 and what the Millennium Development Goals sets out in 2015. Both engage in efforts to alleviate poverty and to enhance food security through achieving overall sustainable socio-economic development. ASEAN has carried out activities that address concerns raised and objectives set forth at the World Food Summit. Although not all aspects have been addressed because of limitations in resources and capacity, the breadth and scope of the activities have expanded and intensified as Member Countries become more experienced and capable.
BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS IN THE REGION
The issues of globalisation, sustainable development and trade disparities have become more pronounced and dominate the agendas of international fora. ASEAN therefore looks to comprehensive approaches to implement steps taken at the international, regional and national levels in order to work more positively in addressing these issues. In this connection, partnerships in ASEAN are of both internal and external in nature.
I am certain that delegates here can agree that development cooperation activities must invite broad participation to increase support and success especially when the issues concern all countries in the Asia-Pacific and even more so when it is about food security in the region.
I would highly recommend that expanding partnerships by way of enhancing participation of regional organizations be encouraged over establishing new institutions. This is for the simple reason that by utilising existing forums and mechanisms, priority issues and activities can be immediately addressed.
The ASEAN Secretariat can play a role in harnessing the commitment, consensus and communication of information in order to reach the Member Countries. However, the role of the Secretariat is not only to work with their respective Members, but also to enhance cooperation among other Secretariats in the region. This would provide for the exchange of valuable information and experiences.
Very recently, H.E. Mr Q.A.M.A. Rahim, Secretary-General of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Secretariat visited the ASEAN Secretariat to explore closer working relations between the two Secretariats. We welcomed and are encouraged by such interest as it will surely bring the two organizations closer and help facilitate relations between the ASEAN and SAARC countries. As we also look forward to establishing relations with the PIF-FIC Secretariat, I would also like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to H.E. Mr Noel Levi to visit the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta.
In conclusion, the ASEAN Secretariat welcomes the initiative by the ADB, FAO and UNESCAP to establish a dialogue as well as greater cooperation and partnerships among the regional organizations to address hunger and poverty in the region. The cooperation envisaged at this Roundtable Meeting is one that should inspire full support from the partners. We believe the outcome of such partnerships is a mechanism of development cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region that is long-term oriented and sustainable. As such, regional organizations have been identified as significant contributors to the development of the cooperation. We therefore stand ready to assist and participate in the process and activities that need implementation. Thank you.
Mr Chairman,
Honourable
Ministers,
Distinguished colleagues & delegates,
At the outset, let me express my thanks to FAO, ESCAP and ADB for organizing this Roundtable on Spearheading Subregional Programmes and Cooperation for Eradication of Poverty and Food Insecurity in Asia and the Pacific, which is attended, among others, by Honourable Ministers of Agriculture from the SAARC Region. Food Security and poverty alleviation remain priority areas for cooperation under SAARC. Successive SAARC Summits emphasized cooperative efforts to enhance food production and to alleviate poverty in the region.
As early as in 1995, SAARC Agriculture Ministers formulated a common SAARC position for placing before the World Food Summit in Rome. The Ministers also met in 2002 in Kathmandu to formulate a common SAARC position for the WFS: fyl in Rome in the same year. This demonstrates the importance attached to the issues before us by SAARC and its leadership. This Roundtable will afford us with an opportunity to learn from other regions within Asia in our efforts to deal with the common issues of hunger, food security and poverty.
Mr Chairman,
Hunger is not only debilitating but it is also destabilizing with serious implications for peace and orderly progress of national societies. Thus it is a threat to the stability of the international community. I believe it should be a top priority at this High-level Roundtable so that this challenge is addressed in all its ramifications. There should also be a conscious endeavour on the part of all concerned here to devise ways and means to expedite all our efforts so that targets and goals, including the Millennium Development Goals, could be realized within the stipulated time frame. Over the past decade, the total number of chronically undernourished in the developing world has fallen by 40 million, but the average rate of decline has continued to slow, reaching only 6 million a year. Consequently, the annual reduction required to reach the target of halving the number of hungry people by 2015 has grown from 20 million to 22 million. Hence the gap between reductions realized and reductions needed is widening. Continuing at the current rate, it would take more than 60 years to reach the target of MDG. Therefore, there should not be any doubt in our minds that we would need to redouble our efforts through strengthening of cooperation among nations and organizations concerned to face this formidable task.
Mr Chairman,
AARC would like to invite attention to the complex nature of the continued threat posed by food insecurity of a sizeable segment of our populations. The international community at large and the national governments in particular can face this challenge only through sustained increase in agricultural production. This will require, inter alia, improvement of soil fertility, and arresting and reversing of agricultural land degradation and water loss. These objectives cannot be attained without substantial investment, sharing and optimal utilization of appropriate technology and massive efforts to develop human resources. The problems of the SAARC region in the agricultural sector, though different in magnitude, are broadly similar to those of other developing countries. This Meeting can specify the important parameters within which future efforts of the international community in these key areas should be made. We also look forward to learning from our sister organizations about their various initiatives and priorities in the areas of poverty, food security, agriculture and rural development. It is worth mentioning that under the auspices of UNESCAP, subregional organizations of the Asia-Pacific region have been meeting regularly for the last few years to discuss various issues and strategies. Poverty and hunger have been included in the agenda of these meetings in recent years.
Mr Chairman,
As is well known, poverty, exacerbated by rapid population growth, has proved to be a daunting element of our food problems and food insecurity. It is, therefore, imperative that any strategy for rapid growth in our food grain production should be accompanied by comprehensive plans and programmes to address the key concern of poverty eradication. Realizing this, the SAARC countries recommitted themselves during the recently concluded Twelfth SAARC Summit in Islamabad to the eradication of poverty from South Asia. The Leaders recognized poverty alleviation as the greatest challenge facing the peoples of South Asia and declared poverty alleviation as the overarching goal of all SAARC activities. The signing of the SAARC Social Charter at the Twelfth Summit is also a watershed development to ensure quality-life for the peoples of South Asia. The South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA), establishment of which was decided upon during the same Summit, will also open up new possibilities and opportunities for all sections of the society, including the farming communities of the region. In addition, there are four major regional initiatives in the area of poverty alleviation. First, the reconstituted Independent South Asian Commission on Poverty Alleviation (ISACPA) in its Report set the goals and strategies for accelerated reduction of poverty in South Asia. Second, a Plan of Action on Poverty Alleviation recommended by the Finance/Planning Ministers was endorsed by the Islamabad Summit. Third, SAARC has undertaken preparation of a Regional Poverty Profile (RPP). RPP 2003 had already been submitted at the Twelfth Summit. Work on RPP 2004 is now underway. Fourth, a process is underway to identify suitable regional poverty alleviation priority projects that can be implemented regionally to supplement efforts at the national level to reduce the incidence and severity of poverty.
Mr Chairman,
It is worth mentioning that as a follow-up of the WFS: fyl, FAO has proposed collaboration with SAARC in the development of regional food security programmes. The proposal is currently under the consideration of SAARC Member States. We hope the next Meeting of the SAARC Technical Committee on Agriculture and Rural Development in May this year will have an opportunity to discuss a Concept Paper on the subject. The SAARC Leaders also directed to make the existing SAARC Food Security Reserve more effective. As you may be aware, the Reserve has not so far proved useful during past occasions of emergencies due to the complexity of its procedures. The last Summit recommended establishment of a Regional Food Bank for which a concept paper is being prepared. This paper will be considered by an Inter-governmental Expert Group. At the recommendation of the SAARC Council of Ministers, the Islamabad Summit proclaimed “Freedom from hunger in the region as an article of faith.” With such steadfast commitment from the highest quarters, we are looking ahead towards a more productive and meaningful regional cooperation in these critical areas in the coming years.
Mr Chairman,
All our national governments have initiated comprehensive programmes to make significant progress to enhance food production and eradicate hunger and poverty. I am convinced that there is a need to create an enabling international environment supportive of our national poverty eradication and food security programmes. We must be mindful of the relevant MDGs in this context. This urgently calls for, among others, a greater flow of development assistance to the developing countries, transfer of technology on preferential and concessional terms to boost agricultural production, significant debt relief, an appropriate reorientation of the economic policies of the major industrialized countries to safeguard the interests of the developing countries, and removal of trade distorting subsidies and other impediments to make agricultural products from developing countries more competitive.
Mr Chairman,
Food Security in our countries also requires urgent action to increase the purchasing power of the vulnerable groups to ensure their access to food. For this to happen, income generation through job creation is of critical importance. Actions are also needed to stabilize food prices by minimizing risks and maximizing opportunities of trade based supply. We must also not forget that although chronic hunger should receive most of our attention, food insecurity due to emergencies like natural disasters, to which the SAARC region is particularly prone, should not also go unnoticed. We must be well prepared to face these emergencies through building up of adequate food reserves, development of infrastructure and provision of resources for necessary food imports in times of need. In cases of such emergencies as at other times, the global community must be particularly mindful of the needs of the vulnerable groups. Adequate food assistance and steps to maintain a cost-effective and targeted public distribution system should be a high priority of our national governments, regional and multilateral organizations and our development partners.
Mr Chairman,
We must place food - the first and fundamental requirement for life - at the top of our agenda for peace and stability in the world. This Roundtable provides an opportunity to governments, subregional organizations, United Nations agencies, international organizations and our development partners to join the global coalition to eliminate hunger from our planet. I am confident this Roundtable will send a clear message to the international community on the actions required to address the challenges of poverty and food security.
Thank you.
1. INTRODUCTION
The need to fast-track elimination of hunger and undernourishment in the world has been at the top of the global agenda in recent years. At the 1996 World Food Summit (WFS), the nations of the world committed themselves to making substantial progress in this area. The world leaders reaffirmed their commitment at the 2002 World Food Summit: five years later, to reduce by half the number of hungry and undernourished people in the world. They also recognised that sustainable progress in poverty eradication is critical to improve access to food. Particular consideration was given to Small Island Developing States (SIDS), which include most of the Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs).
One of FAO’s first follow-up actions to the 1996 WFS was the preparation of documents on National Strategies for Agricultural Development and Food Security (NSADFS): Horizon 2010 (since updated to 2015). By 2004, with the exception of Nauru, each of the FAO member countries in the Pacific - Samoa, Fiji, Tonga, Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Niue, Kiribati, Palau and Federated States of Micronesia and Tuvalu - has produced a NSAFS document.
Although Pacific Island governments have endorsed their NSAFS documents, evidence is mixed regarding whether the strategies are influencing prioritisation of agriculture and rural development in the allocation of domestic or donor resources. Furthermore, more recent developments in the international arena need to be considered. Pacific Island Countries and Territories (PICTs) are now formulating strategies and policies to fulfill their Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which constitute the leading framework for development actions and form the benchmark for measuring development progress. The Millennium Declaration identified the reduction of poverty and hunger as primary development goals for the new millennium. Among the strategies are those aimed at achieving food security.
For the above reasons, FAO has indicated its intention to mount an initiative aimed at co-operating with countries to review and update national strategies for agricultural development and food security. The initiative intends to make use of recent developments that have changed the context in which agriculture operates, such as the World Summit on Sustainable Development and the WFS: fyl renewal of commitment.
In this new context, member countries need to revisit their strategies and policies in order to embody the MDGs and take into account new developments in the international arena. It is at this stage that the involvement of relevant Pacific SREOs/Cs could marshal a broader front of support for PICTs in their effort to implement the policies. Furthermore, their involvement can encourage those that provide policy formulation advice to PICTs to assist PICTs that have yet to formulate such policies.
Most PICTs have reported anecdotal evidence of poverty and food insecurity among certain sectors of their societies. Malnutrition has been growing along with increasing incidences of non-communicable diseases. Employment in the rural sector has been declining and social disturbances increasing. However, relevant Subregional Organizations and PICTs have not agreed on indicators of poverty in the context of the Pacific Islands subregion. Suitable indicators have yet to be identified, elaborated and surveyed. Such indicators, when available, would guide Regional and Subregional Organizations in targeting assistance to the more vulnerable groups of their memberships.
FAO is presently working with member PICTs using the Food Insecurity and Vulnerability and Information Mapping System (FIVIMS) to help identify food insecure sections and vulnerable members of the population. The South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission is nearing completion of its work to develop a vulnerability index ranking system for countries of the subregion. Concurrently, the Secretariat of the Pacific Community is developing a Geographic Information System that would help map groups affected by poverty and food insecurity at the country level. However, to be of significant use for policy makers of PICTs and for Regional and Subregional Organizations in targeting interventions towards combating poverty and food insecurity, the capacity of national planning and statistics agencies need to be considerably strengthened to regularly gather reliable data and information.
International, Regional and Subregional Organizations have therefore not been in a position to specifically target poverty and food insecurity directly where they occur. However, the majority of programmes and projects of the Subregional Organizations involved in assisting rural development and in developing agriculture, forestry and fisheries do help reduce poverty and food insecurity.
2. PACIFIC SUBREGIONAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS AND COMMUNITIES
Seven inter-governmental organizations have programmes and initiatives supporting rural development and the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors in PICTs. They include the Pacific Forum Secretariat (PIFS), Secretariat of the Pacific Community (SPC),[2] the University of the South Pacific (USP)/School of Agriculture (SOA) and Institute for Research, Education and Training in Agriculture (IRETA), Forum Fisheries Agency (FFA), South Pacific Geoscience Commission (SOPAC), South Pacific Regional Environment Programme (SPREP) and the Agriculture Development in the American Pacific (ADAP). FAO, with its Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands (SAPA), is the main international player that provides technical and other assistances to PICTs in the sectors.
The Pacific Forum, comprising the Heads of the sixteen self-governing Pacific Island nations, New Zealand and Australia, established the Forum Secretariat (PIFS) as its administrative arm. PIFS undertakes programmes and activities that support and implement decisions of the Forum leaders. In 1995, the Pacific Forum streamlined the role of PIFS into policy advice, programme coordination and advocacy services on development and economic policy, political/international affairs and trade and investment.
The Secretariat of the Pacific Community is the subregion’s leading technical development agency. SPC work programmes aim to develop the technical, professional, scientific, research, planning and management capability of Pacific Island people. Its programmes are delivered via three major divisions - Land Resources, Marine Resources and Social Resources.
The University of the South Pacific has three campuses in the subregion and a USP Centre in each member country. The USP has, among others, an Institute of Marine Resources and an Institute for Research, Education and Training in Agriculture (IRETA), which conducts short-term training courses, workshops, seminars, modular training courses in targeted areas and postgraduate research.
The Forum Fisheries Agency is concerned with the provision of policy advisory services to its membership on the sustainable management and development of tuna resources in the western and central Pacific Ocean. The FFA staff has a range of technical competencies relevant to the tuna fishery, including national and regional fisheries management planning; economics and marketing; legal services; monitoring, control and surveillance; multilateral treaty management; and information technology and communication.
Activities of the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission directly relating to rural and agriculture development involve water resources use and natural disaster mitigation.
The core function of the South Pacific Environment Programme is to provide assistance to protect and improve PICTs’ environment and to promote sustainability of development. SPREP’s activities that focus on the agriculture sector relate to the impact of agricultural chemical use on the environment. It has technical expertise that assists member countries in dealing with invasive weed species.
The Agriculture Development in the American Pacific project serves as a mechanism for the Pacific Land Grant Institutes (universities and colleges) to share and focus resources on priority and common concerns in the “American Pacific” subregion. The Land Grant Institutes include community colleges in American Samoa, Marshall Islands, CMI, Federated States of Micronesia, the Universities of Guam and the University of Hawaii.
3. COORDINATION OF/AND COLLABORATION AMONG SREOs
The differences in membership amongst the Pacific subregional organizations - some comprising independent island states only and others including non-independent territories and administrations - create potential for duplication and overlap of activities within the mandates of the subregional organizations. The
Pacific Forum established the South Pacific Organization for Coordination and Cooperation (SPOCC), now known as the Council of Regional Organizations in the Pacific (CROP) in 1998 to mitigate such problems and in recognition of opportunities that could be achieved through sharing of the region’s resources and of collaboration. CROP has an advisory function on policy and operational issues of importance to the region and regional organizations.
PIFS is the secretariat of CROP and the PIFS Secretary-General, the Chair. CROP comprises eight intergovernmental organizations: FFA, PIFS, PIDP, SOPAC, SPC, SPREP, South Pacific Tourism Organization (SPTO), and USP. The South Pacific Board for Education Assessment (SPBEA) and Fiji School of Medicine (FSM) are observers. CROP meets annually to discuss its business and reports to the Pacific Island Forum Officials Committee and to respective governing bodies of members.
The Land Resources Working Group established by CROP met in 1998 to: determine areas of complementarity and overlap and potential gaps in coverage of existing and proposed regional activities and initiatives in the agriculture sector; recommend procedures for enhancing coordination and cooperation; and review, clarify and advise on development priorities in the agriculture sector. The Land Resources Working Group included the PIF, SPC, USP/SOA and IRETA, SOPAC, ADAP. The FAO Subregional Office for the Pacific Islands is an observer.
The Land Resources Working Group, in setting guidelines for delineation of activities of the inter-governmental organizations involved in agriculture and forestry research and development, identified lead agencies for specific thematic areas. PIFS was identified as the lead agency for policy and matters relating to trade. USP and IRETA were to lead particularly in the area of education and SPC was to lead in the other areas and particularly in: plant protection; crop production and diversification; animal health and production; soils; and farming systems.
4. PROGRAMMES OF PACIFIC SUBREGIONAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS
New initiatives
Two new initiatives directly target interventions at rural communities in PICTs and assist in reducing poverty and food insecurity. They are briefly described below.
Development of Sustainable Agriculture in the Pacific (DSAP)
SPC Land Resources Division (LRD) began implementing this EU funded 6.2 million euro project in November 2003. The overall objective is to improve food security and contribute to developing sustainable agriculture for farm families in participating countries. Initially, participation was limited to the eight Pacific ACP countries of the Lome era (Fiji, Kiribati, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Tuvalu), together with two French territories, French Polynesia and Wallis and Futuna. Recently, the EU made available additional funds to include the six new members (Federated States of Micronesia, Cook Islands, Niue, Marshall Islands, Palau and Nauru) of the ACP group that have become signatories to the Cotonou Agreement.
The project’s purpose is to increase sustainable agricultural production for farm families in participating countries. The purpose would be achieved through activities in four major result areas: establishing improved systems to identify farmers’ production problems and solutions; identifying appropriate technologies through on-farm demonstrations; upgrading farmer participatory extension methods and technical skills of NARES and NGOs; and promoting and enhancing capacity in extension communications.
DSAP takes an innovative approach to rural development assistance by subregional organizations at the national level. The project adopts a “process approach” leaving specific activities to be formulated through a participatory process involving representation from all stakeholders in national groups to guide project activities in each of the participating countries. Each participating country has a DSAP Research/Extension Assistant (some undertaking formal graduate studies) to spearhead project work. Each country establishes a steering committee that develops, in a participatory manner, a logical framework matrix for national project activities and identifies sites of the interventions. Centrally, a Project Team Leader manages and a Participatory Extension Specialist and Extension/Communication Specialist provide technical support guided by a Regional Steering Committee.
Regional Programme for Food Security in the Pacific Islands (RPFS)
This initiative in support of poverty reduction and food security of FAO member countries in the subregion has been planned and implementation is about to start. The project is funded by a contribution of the Italian Government of about US$4.5 million to the FAO Trust Fund. The project has two components.
The major component of the RPFS is Enhancing Food Production and Security, activities to be implemented in member countries particularly at the community level, on supply side activities identified by them as of highest priority in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors, are to reduce food insecurity. This approach of applying direct development assistance to farmers and communities reflects the wish of PICT governments, expressed in the Communiqué issued by Pacific Ministers of Agriculture at their Fiji meeting in 2003 and by their officials at various meetings convened during the planning of the project.
The second component is Strengthening Agricultural Trade and Policy, which focuses on building institutional capacity in trade facilitation related to the establishment of sanitary and phytosanitary standards for agricultural exports. Establishing linkages between relevant regional CROP academic and research/development institutions and specific counterpart institutions in the donor country and involving them in joint implementation will be actively pursued by the project.
DSAP project participation of PICTs (and thus their enhanced ownership of activities) in RPFS will be facilitated by involvement of national steering committees in the planning and implementation of national interventions. A regional steering committee will guide project management. Furthermore the project will benefit significantly from technical assistance provided to participating countries under FAO administered South-South Cooperation (SSC) initiative.
The rationale for, and mode of operation of, these two projects are closely related. In addition, the same fourteen PICTs participate in the two projects (French Polynesia and Wallis & Futuna participate in DSAP but not in RPFS, Nauru participates in RPFS but not in DSAP). There are therefore many areas where collaboration between SPC and FAO would add value to, and facilitate implementation of, the two initiatives. Furthermore, the current strength of SPC LRD in Plant Protection makes LRD’s collaboration in the second component of RPFS of mutual benefit to the outcomes of both projects. In 2003 the two implementing agencies, FAO and SPC, signed a Memorandum of Understanding to guide collaboration.
Other programmes assisting PICTs in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors are as follows.
Agriculture Programmes
Plant Protection: LRD has always provided major support (more recently with AusAID and EU funding assistance) to PICTs in this area. Currently, the LRD Plant Protection Service (PPS) is active in five areas: Entomology; Plant Pathology; Weed Management (collaborating in some activities with SPREP); Information and Extension with special small groups for fruit fly control and taro beetle management. There are also two regional plant protection groups - a separate one for, and with two staff based in Federated States of Micronesia to serve the northern island countries of Micronesia and another takes care of the New Zealand affiliated nations (Cook Islands, Niue and Tokelau). Funds for the PPS have been provided mainly by AusAID, EU, NZAID, ACIAR and SPC core funds.
Plant pathology activities include: diagnostic support for PICTs aiming to establish at least one “enabled” technician in each country; pest surveys - information gathered facilitate trade; assistance with establishment and operation of plant pathology laboratories in four PICTs; integrated disease management focusing on working with communities on farmer-driven solutions. Entomology activities include: pest surveys to develop pest lists for trade/potential trade commodities; management of major Pacific pests, fruit flies, taro beetle and whitefly; home garden IPM, taro mite control, pheromone control of rhinoceros beetle, and assistance with trading countries in developing pest risk analysis protocols. The Weed management function develops regional and national strategies for control of agricultural and invasive (forestry, environmental) weeds; develops national weed databases and prioritisation for their control. Fruit fly management (formerly supported by UNDP and FAO) is one of PPS’s best-known and most successful projects. Current activities include: back-up support for production and use of fruit fly baits; fruit fly eradication has been attempted in the Cook Islands and French Polynesia. Through development of HTFA (High temperature forced air) disinfestations protocols, export constraints have been removed for several key crops - Samoa (papaw, breadfruit), Vanuatu (grapefruit), Fiji (chilli), New Caledonia (papaw and lime).
The PPS has a dedicated information service. The major current project is the development of a pest list database for the Pacific. The PPS also puts the information on CD and provides ICT training and equipment for national quarantine staff. A Publications service produces a monthly newsletter, information on new incursions and leaflets on specific pests and diseases. New areas of emphasis include development of country - specific quarantine awareness materials and pest/weed extension manuals. A plant protection curriculum has been developed for high schools as a way of getting messages through to parents. The Extension group has started the move to participatory extension work, including the identification and management of diseases from the farmers’ perspective. The shift has been to carrying out a participatory rural appraisal to establish needs before commencing IPM training.
FAO provides technical support and advice to national plant protection and quarantine services of member countries. The FAO regular programme provides support and advice on: the International Plant Protection Convention (IPPC); Integrated Pest Management (IPM); Pesticide Management, also promoting the use of Bio Agents and Bio-pesticides in the region; and EMPRESS, focusing on migratory pests.
Crop Improvement: The LRD Crop Improvement Service undertakes development work on planting materials for the most important crops in the Pacific. Collection, conservation and multiplication of banana, taro, coconut and yam planting materials are key activities. The AusAID funded Taro Genetic Resources Conservation and Utilisation (TaroGen) project is implemented by LRD and there are related ACIAR and NZAID funded projects to support development and exchange of disease-resistant taro germplasm. The Regional Germplasm Centre (RGC) provides training on tissue culture methods to scientists in PICTs, as well as distributing upon request tissue-culture germplasm. Duplication of the collection at the USP Alafua campus, Samoa for security purposes is being implemented.
Animal Health and Production: LRD’s service in this area is small relative to its services in other areas. There are no trained veterinarians in 11 Pacific countries. LRD’s Regional Animal Health and Production Service (RAHPS) therefore provides direct veterinary advice and clinical support services to the smaller countries and has initiated a NZAID-funded Para-vet training programme. This latter programme aims to have a number of modular distance-learning units and they have collaborated with USP in trialing its delivery. Other activities of the RAHPS include: animal quarantine; drafting regulations and import protocols; developing animal health databases; disease surveillance activities; and disposal of animal waste. There is a general shift from disease surveillance work to public health. Zoonotic diseases, such as Leptospirosis are the highest priority.
Agriculture Policy: FAO provides support to its member countries in their ongoing effort to establish achievable agriculture policies. Key activities have been the development of documents on National Strategy for Agricultural Development and Food Security: Horizon 2015 for member states; convening roundtable meetings on WTO Agreement Provisions, in collaboration with other donors; and providing policy advice to members when requested.
Farming Systems and Marketing: An FAO SAPA based Farming Systems Development and Marketing Officer implements regular programme activities to improve farming systems and marketing in support of sustainable livelihoods of farm households in member countries. Within the framework of UNDP projects and FAO TCP projects, advisory and supervisory services (ATS/STS) have been provided to selected countries.
Food and Nutrition: The FAO Food and Nutrition regular programme activities cover Food Safety and Quality, Codex Alimentarius, Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems (FIVIMS) and Nutrition Policy. The Food and Nutrition Officer also provides supervisory technical services (STS) and technical advice to member countries on FAO TCP projects.
Forestry Programmes
The SPC LRD Regional Forests and Trees Programme provides a focal point for collaboration, coordination and implementation, working together with other regional initiatives, towards strengthening national capacity in promoting sustainable land-use, forest management and utilisation in the region.
AusAID/NZAID Forests and Trees Project: This project covers all 22 PICTs. The Project closely collaborates with the South Pacific Regional Initiatives on Forest Genetic Resources (SPRIG 2) and the Regional Forests Health Surveillance Project. Other collaborators include USDA Forest Service, CIRADForest, USDA Natural Resource Conservation Service and FAO SAPA. This project contributes to planning regionally and assists countries in drafting relevant regulations. It provides training workshops on agroforestry, non-timber forestry products, forest management and watershed management in various member countries.
GTZ Pacific German Regional Forestry programme: This project involves a set of different participatory development activities in defined districts in each of five partner countries - Fiji, Samoa, Vanuatu, Niue and Cook Islands - with Tonga, Solomon Islands and PNG joining in 2004. In Fiji, the emphasis is on sustainable forest management in one district and agroforestry elsewhere. In the Cook Islands, the focus is on community management of agroforestry tree resources. In Niue, it is on management of indigenous forests. In Samoa, the focus is on sustainable management of indigenous forests in one district. In Vanuatu, the project works with landowners on managing forestry resources in one island.
FAO’s effort in forestry concentrates on supporting member countries in their national forest programmes (NFPs). The FAO SAPA Forestry Officer disseminates technical information, advises on specific forestry related development issues and assists in developing projects to strengthen forestry programmes.
Fisheries Programmes
Oceanic and Coastal Fisheries Programmes: The Oceanic Fisheries Programme of SPC provides a scientific advisory service to PICTs on the status of highly migratory species, primarily the tuna stocks and the pelagic ecosystems that support the major offshore fisheries operating in the region. The programme also provides a broad range of services to assist PICTs in the establishment of sustainable local-based fishing enterprises. The programme has recently been broadened with the addition of a regional aquaculture focal point with AusAID support, and a major subregional enhancement of its reef fisheries assessment capacity through EU support.
The focus of FAO assistance in fisheries in the subregion is on conservation, development and management of the subregion’s fisheries and aquaculture resources in a sustainable manner. Recent activities have included improvement and consolidation of fisheries statistics, the distribution of publications and in particular, the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries.
SUBREGIONAL PRIORITIES AND GAP AREAS IN SUBREGIONAL SUPPORT
Priority areas for development at the Pacific subregional level in the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sectors are periodically reviewed and gap areas identified in the biennial meetings of Ministers of Agriculture, the Permanent Heads of Agriculture and Livestock Services (PHALS) and other technical forums.
In all PICTs, agriculture plays an important role to varying degrees, in food security and in export trade. In the bigger countries - Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu, Fiji, Tonga and Samoa - agriculture is the backbone of their economies, providing significant foreign exchange earnings and the predominant preoccupation of the rural populations. In the smaller island and atoll countries - for example, American Samoa, CMI, Cook Islands, FSM, French Polynesia, Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Palau, Tuvalu and Wallis and Futuna - agriculture mainly provides for food security through production at the subsistence and semi-subsistence levels.
Similarly, the economic relevance of forestry on the larger high island states - Fiji, New Caledonia, PNG, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu - is substantial. In the smaller high island states and territories - American Samoa, CMI, Cook Islands, FSM, French Polynesia, Guam, Palau, Nauru, Niue, Samoa, Tonga, Wallis and Futuna - although economic importance is much less forestry is very important for the population’s quality of life through providing construction material, fire wood, food, medicine, raw material for handicraft, erosion control, protection from wind etc. In the atoll countries - Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Tokelau and Tuvalu - the importance of forests and trees for life quality is even higher, although significantly underrated in macroeconomic indicators than in the other groups.
The priority needs in larger countries include, in Plant Protection, strengthening the biosecurity situation and the facilitation of trade (export and import) through harmonising in-country procedures and standards (quarantine, food quality and safety etc.) with those that are internationally accepted. In smaller countries, priority needs are in the prevention of entry of exotic pests and in the control, preferably through organic, IPM or bio-control, of pests that damage food crops.
For the larger countries, priority areas in crop production include identifying new crops that have good export market potentials, improving existing genetic material and upgrading the ability to rapidly multiply planting material of selected crops. Priority needs of smaller island countries lie primarily in encouraging the populations to engage in local food crop production followed by the need to identify potential export crops/markets and to build capacity to multiply selected genetic material.
Reflecting the lack of veterinary capacity in PICTs, the priority needs across countries and territories lie in improving the general health of animals. Implementing animal pest surveys to establish national animal health status is of special interest to PICTs that export animal products (Vanuatu and PNG). Building country capacity through training of para veterinary workers is considered of utmost importance by most PICTs. All countries and territories place relatively high priority on animal production, with the larger countries targeting local production of animal feed as a priority development need. In many countries, animal welfare, in particular relating to control of dog populations, is high in the national priority listing.
In terms of improved management of soils, the needs of the larger countries are in the development of operations whereby specific fertilisation regimes can be established to improve input/output outcomes of commercial and semi-subsistence systems. For smaller and atoll island countries, the needs encompass sustainability of natural resources and protection of the environment.
Given the ever-changing environment of international trade brought about by the creation of the WTO, associated loss of price stabilisation and support schemes for sugar and other commodities by the bigger PICTs, as well as the fragility of many natural resources in all PICTs, comprehensive agricultural policy and strategy development is high in the priority lists of the majority of PICTs. In order to formulate achievable policy and strategy, PICTs need to have access to reliable agricultural statistics and information.
Three PICTs (Fiji, PNG and Solomon Islands) are members of WTO, three (Samoa, Tonga and Vanuatu) are in the process of acceding and a number of countries are considering applying to be members. All PICTs are members of the Pacific Island Country Trade Agreement (PICTA). To take advantage of opportunities offered by these trading agreements, PICTs need to identify good opportunities for export trade, and develop capability in complying with the provisions of relevant agreements. Pre-harvest, there are important needs in the areas of identifying new commodities for new and established markets and technologies to improve productivity. Kava and Noni are emerging high-value crops that can play important roles in diversifying the agricultural base. Identifying niche markets, research and establishment of organic crop production and markets are thus priority areas. Equally important are priority needs, expressed in various subregional meetings, in developing value-adding, post-harvest technologies.
An important need of atoll island states relates to the lack of interest by the younger people in actively participating in the agro-forestry farming system on which food security of these nations had depended for generations. Furthermore, these countries have expressed in regional meetings the need to improve their atoll farming systems in order to be more productive while remaining friendly to the environment.
In forestry, the gradual loss and degradation of forests, forestlands and trees to timber production, agriculture, fuel wood and other local uses are causing serious concern to all PICTs. Concerns include the sustainability both of economically valuable forest and tree resources and of fundamental life support systems such as agricultural land, watershed and habitable terrestrial environments.
A recent review of the SPC LRD identified the following as main gap areas:
· Agricultural and natural resource policy research and advice. This is a critical area given the entry to WTO and loss of price stabilisation support schemes for sugar and tree crops by many Pacific economies, along with the fragility of many natural resources in the Pacific. There are opportunities to collaborate with USP Suva economists on agriculture, with F AO bilateral activities and with PIPS on trade. SPC’s role could be on agriculture-specific inputs and information dissemination and cross cutting linkages with biosecurity.
· Agricultural statistics. Good statistics underlie sound policy formulation. Support provided should have the primary purpose of building the capacity for collection, analysis and use of agricultural statistics in PICTs.
· Agricultural marketing (complementary to PIFS trade related activities and closely coordinated with the FAO market and farming systems development work) - emphasising value-adding technologies and opportunities and post-harvest technologies research to underpin development of export markets.
· The current focus of crop improvement programmes is on staple root crops and bananas. But these crops have a comparatively minor role in exports of PICTs. Greater focus could be provided on marketing and tissue culture work relating to agricultural diversification and emerging, high-value crops (squash, vanilla, ginger, melons, Indian vegetables, spices and tropical fruits) that are likely to be important in niche export markets.
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[1] Director, Land Resources,
Secretariat of the Pacific Community. [2] Formerly known as South Pacific Commission. |
