Representatives from farmer organizations, international partners such as IFAD, EU and SDC, as well as national and regional inter-government ad civil society and organizations in Asia Pacific will gather in Thalat, Vientiane, Lao PDR on June 6-8 for the “2nd Expanded MTCP2 Regional Steering Committee Meeting.”
The Medium Term Cooperation Program Phase 2 (MTCP2), a five year program which builds on the gains of the first phase, is already half-way of its implementation. For the past two years (2014-2015) the program has been significantly managed by Farmers’ organization at all levels-national, sub-regional and regional. It has expanded to more countries and has covered more Farmers organization. The program was implemented amidst various challenges (major typhoons, earthquakes including political instabilities in some areas) as well as opportunities (international year of family farming, advent of the Sustainable Development Goals, etc. Given all these, the farmers organization (FOs) together with its partner hopes to reflect on the challenges, celebrate the gains and address bottlenecks/weaknesses to ensure achievement of its program objective of strengthening small-scale farmers’ organization towards improving their services to its member to increase their income and ensure food sovereignty/security in Asia-Pacific Region.
The expanded 2nd RSC meeting hopes to achieve the following output:
- Deepen understanding and appreciation of the major accomplishment as well as key learnings and recommendations based on the Mid-Term Review (MTR) mission.
- Agreements on key issues and concerns related to MTCP2 program implementation based on the MTR mission and feedback from partners.
- Identify joint actions, common training needs, research agenda in support of key policy agenda at various levels (national, sub-regional, regional) including needs for external technical assistance
- Develop parameters for 2017 AWPB including indicative target for 2018
- Dialogue with donor partners and other development partners on areas for cooperation
- Enhance solidarity among farmers and partners through discussions/ interaction and sharing of experiences and views
The regular member of the Regional Steering Committee is composed of the regional FOs (AFA and LVC) plus one representative from each sub-region. However, since the RSC meeting will be coinciding with the MTR mission, the RSC shall be expanded to include two representatives from each country (1 NIA and 1 Chairperson of the National Steering Committee ) from Southeast Asia and South Asia. Due to budget constraint, Pacific shall be represented by 4 delegates (2 NIA, 2 from SRIA). Key donor partners including IFAD, SDC, EU and other development partners (ASEAN Foundation, Agricord, SEARICE, etc) shall also be invited as observers. Representatives from regional bodies (ASEAN, SAARC, SPC) shall likewise be invited.
The meeting is organized by AFA and LVC, hosted by LFN and supported by IFAD, EU and SDC.
Comments are closed