Participants, organizers, and resource persons at the Bali technical workshop

The transition economies of Cambodia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) are already addressing climatic risks particularly those focused on water resources. These countries are integrating vulnerability assessment in planning, implementing adaptation measures, and already have in place or are developing policy frameworks and programs for climate change.

These are the main observations from a technical workshop that convened eight researchers and policy advisers or staff from CLMV in Bali, Indonesia on 6-7 August 2010 to learn about and plan their research on “Vulnerability and Risk Assessment in Climate Change: Toward Strengthening Agriculture and Food Security in Southeast Asia”.

The Technical Workshop was organized by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) Research and Development Department, with support from the Korea FAO Association (KFA) and hosted by the Brighten Institute based in Bogor, Indonesia.

Dr. Rodel D. Lasco, Coordinator of the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) Philippine Program, served as key resource person. He reviewed the evidences that climate is changing using data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) of which he is a member. He later presented a menu of modeling tools for climate change scenario building in support of policymaking and program planning. Meanwhile, participants presented on the scope and extent of responses of their respective countries to changing climate and on their watershed resource management initiatives. Prof. Dr. Ir. Hermanto Serigar, Director of the Brighten Institute and Vice Rector for Resources and Development at Institut Pertanian Bogor, also shared on Indonesia’s elaborate climate change adaptation and mitigation plan that includes increasing capacity for adaptation and mitigation, alternative funding, emission reduction, efforts to increase adaptive capacity, and polices and legislation.

The presentations affirmed the high risks of floods and drought that can drastically reduce agricultural production and food security in Southeast Asia and in the four transition countries in particular.

Participants highly appreciated the menu of user-friendly softwares presented by Dr. Lasco for general circulation models (GCM), regional climate models (RCM), and local scenario building, respectively, that when applied could inform climate change adaptation policy and planning in CLMV. These softwares included MAGICCSENGEN, Country Specific Model for Intertemporal Climate (COSMIC 2), SEA-BASINS Model, Dynamic Routing Model for river networks, and Community-based Risk Screening Tool: Adaptation and Livelihoods (CRiSTAL). Participants then prepared and presented concept notes for doable and fundable research on climate change adaptation policy and planning for submission to SEARCA’s Seed Fund for Research and Training. Resource persons, organizers, and fellow participants critiqued the concept notes.

The training workshop was the third in a series coming out of eight policy roundtables for CLMV that SEARCA has organized since 2004. Aside from the eight CMLV participants, twelve organizers and resource persons were also present in the workshop.