21 March 2022 via Zoom – The Asian Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (AsiaDHRRA) organized the launching of 11 projects under the EU-IFAD program, with support from AgriCord, entitled: Strengthening Farmers Organizations for Asia (FO4A). The 11 Farmers Organization partners of FO4A project are: 1) Coalition of Municipal Fishers Associations of Zamboanga Sibugay (COMFAS); 2) Matulala Agrarian Reform Community Cooperative (MARCCO); 3) Island of Samar & Leyte Agriculture Cooperative (ISLACO); 4) Philippine Family Farmers’ Agriculture Fishery Forestry Cooperatives Federation (AgriCOOPh); 5) Ang Giang Farmers Union (AGFU); 6) Viet Nam Farmers Union (VNFU); 7) Phuc Thanh Beekeeping Cooperative (PTBC); 8) Ngudi Mulyo 9) Salassae Rural Swabina Community (KSPS); 10) Farmer and Nature Net Association (FNN); and 11) Indonesian Peasant Alliance (API).
The event was attended by 41 participants from farmers’ organizations (FO), CSOs, development partners, and intergovernmental bodies including the ASEAN Secretariat for agriculture and forestry, and rural development and poverty eradication.
The event primarily aimed at gathering rural and agricultural development stakeholders and providing an overview of farmer organizations in Southeast Asia and the services provided to them by the AsiaDHRRA network and its partners.
Dr. Hồng Nguyễn Xuân, Chairperson of AsiaDHRRA, delivered his welcome and opening remarks and expressed his gratitude to the farmer organizations for their strong cooperation with AsiaDHRRA and their ability to provide good services to their members to help increase their income and contribute to the advocacy work at the local and national levels. In addition, he gave thanks to the member DHRRAs for their continuous commitment to empowering rural people’s organizations (RPOs) by improving their capacities through technical and advisory services suited to their plans and demands. Lastly, for partner RPOs to create agri-enterprises using the principle of agroecology while improving their livelihood and strengthening their position in the value chains.
Marlene Ramirez, Secretary-General of AsiaDHRRA, extended her appreciation to all attendees during her closing
remarks. She specified that AsiaDHRRA will continue to strengthen its lens in Farmers Fighting Poverty (FFP) with commitments related to the UNDFF global action plans, the localization of SDGs, and the cross-cutting building blocks such as agroecology, climate resiliency, gender, and youth, mainstreaming, and digital agriculture in the territorial approach.
FO4A is a follow-up program of the previous cooperation with EU and IFAD on the program Asian Farmer’s Organizations Support Program (AFOSP) – FFP in the ASEAN region (FFP-ASEAN).
