On April 7 to 13, 2013, AsiaDHRRA organized a project mission to Myanmar. The Asiadhrra Mission Team was composed of Marlene D. Ramirez, Asiadhrra Secretary General,  Florante Villas, Asiadhrra Market Access Manager,  Rev. Kya Moo and Lucrecia Naw Kyu Khin, focal points of Myandhrra in Yangon.
The political and economic transformation are taking place in Myanmar in the recent years. These changes have provided opportunities for greater development cooperation in the country and help address challenges of food security, poverty and achieve inclusive development in the coming years. Marlene Ramirez, AsiaDHRRA’s General Secretary was resource person to an EC Delegation seminar in Phnom Penh on Sustainable Agriculture and Food Security held last February 18-20, 2013.

In that meeting, AsiaDHRRA had the opportunity to inter-act with the EC Delegation on possibilities of cooperating to support farmers’ initiatives in country, following the presentation of the successful story of an agrarian reform beneficiary farmers’ cooperative in their  rice production and marketing to become the biggest single supplier of organic rice in the Philippines.  This, in the context of development agencies working in the country seeking for innovative models and technologies in the region that could possibly be relevant and be viable in Myanmar.  Asiadhrra took this as an opening, together with its CSO partners in Myanmar, to pursue its aspiration to contribute to the development transformation now taking place in the country, especially focused on empowering smallholder farmers/producers to reduce poverty in the countryside.

There are many rural development initiatives pursued by INGOs, local NGOs, community-based organizations and by the government but much more is needed, especially in the area of working with smallholder producers.  To impact on the lives of the marginalized rural poor, the opportunities have to be captured and faced together with the grassroots sectors in the country, with their support and partner institutions. As an agri-agency,  Asiadhrra aims to explore these opportunities in the context of the Farmers Fighting Poverty (FFP) programming framework of the AgriCord network (www.agricord.org). The mission was aimed at generating inputs  and feedback on a proposed cooperation and stakeholdership from potential partners in the country.

The team visited and had informative sharing and discussions with Oxfam GB, Gret, the Food Security Working Group (FWSG), Christians for Social Services and Development (CSSD) of the Myanmar Baptist Convention, the Episcopal Commission on Education of the Myanmar Catholic Bishops Conference (MCBC), the Karuna Myanmar Social Services (KMSS), Searsolin Alumni Association of Myanmar (SAAM), MyanDHRRA, the LIFT Program, and the Officials of the Department of Rural Development and of the Planning, Soil and Land Departments of the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation. The two government offices in Naypyidaw are the ASEAN SOM-RDPE and SOM-AMAF Focal Points which Asiadhrra is engaging on agriculture, food secuirty, and rural development issues in the region.