The Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA), in partnership with the Asian Farmers' Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), will host a regional policy forum titled Developing Public Policies for Family Farming: Reaching Out to the Grassroots through Participatory Policy Making on 27 April 2021, 8:00 a.m.–12:00 n.n. ICT, via Zoom. The forum will be conducted as part of the initiatives for the United Nations Decade of Family Farming (UNDFF). It aims to provide a venue to identify and analyze the enabling factors and constraints to participatory policy making, and how such a bottom-up approach can help ensure policy objectives are met and translated into equitable and sustainable benefits for its intended beneficiaries, primarily those at the grassroots level.
The forum will have four main sessions: (1) Participatory Policy Making in the context of Family Farming in Southeast Asia; (2) Participatory Policy Making in Southeast Asia: Selected Country Cases; (3) Development of the UNDFF National Action Plans: Lessons, Gaps, and Bottlenecks; and (4) Breakout Session. Invited experts and stakeholders from farmers and civil society organizations, the academe, as well as research and development institutions are expected to participate in the forum.
The event likewise seeks to elicit relevant information and insights from the participants on participatory policy making, particularly in the context of family farming, and produce a publication highlighting country-specific experiences as well as recommendations on how to further strengthen the participation of farmers and farming families in the development of public policies for family farming.
SEARCA, through its partnership with AFA and FAO, strives to contribute to the betterment of farmers and farming families in the region, and towards achieving food security and poverty reduction in support of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). This is in line with SEARCA's 11th Five Year Plan (FYP), with its overarching theme Accelerating Transformation Through Agricultural Innovation (ATTAIN), which aims to realign the Center's direction towards transformation of the agriculture industry focusing on policy, institutional, social, and technological innovations.
