The PAG, which serves as an advisory body to the Southeast Asia Rural Development Award (SEARDA), met for the first time in February 11, 2004 in Jakarta, Indonesia. It is composed of respected individuals from the NGO, academe, and the government sector. They discussed in detail the program design and the specific components of the SEARDA program.
With the role of the PAG affirmed, the members expressed their commitment and support to the Awards program.  They all viewed that SEARDA is very timely given the need to highlight good practices towards poverty alleviation and the importance of strengthening cooperation between CSOs and the ASEAN members.
The private sector will be engaged to support SEARDA and efforts to broaden its stakeholdership among regional CSOs will be pursued. The regional launching is tentatively planned alongside the 10th Asean Leaders Summit in Vientiane, Laos in November 2004.   The next PAG meeting will be in August 2004.  AsiaDHRRA provides the catalyzing and secretariat support to this new joint cooperation.