A Technical Conference on Knowledge, Tools and Lessons for Informing the Design and Implementation of Food Security Strategies in Asia

The “state of the art” technical conference on "Knowledge, Tools, and Lessons for Informing the Design and Implementation of Food Security Strategies in Asia" was held in Kathmandu November 14-16, 2011. The event was organized by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) and Nepal’s Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), and supported and funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Photo showing crop harvest

Day One | Day Two

Day One: Monday, November 14th, 2011

Welcome Remarks

Hon'ble Deependra Bahadur Kshetry, Vice-Chairman, National Planning Commission (NPC)
Fulgen Pradhan, Joint Secretary and Chief, Planning Division, MOAC, GON
Sheila Lutjens, USAID/Nepal Mission Director
Paul Dorosh, Division Director, Development Strategies and Governance Division, IFPRI
Mohan Man Sainju, Board Chairman, IIDS; Former Vice Chairman, NPC

Session 1: Improving Food Security Outcomes Through Agriculture – The State Of Knowledge

Overview of Workshop Objectives and Goals, Paul Dorosh, Division Director, Development Strategies and Governance (DSG) Division, IFPRI

Key Note Speaker: “Big picture overview of challenges and opportunities for achieving food security in Asia”, Sohail Malik, Chairman, Innovative Development Strategies (Pvt.) Ltd., Islamabad, Pakistan and Visiting Senior Research Fellow, IFPRI

Panel: “Regional perspectives on the unique challenges for food security in Central, South Asia, and Southeast Asia regions”

Alisher Tashmatov, Executive Secretary, Caucasus Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (CACAARI)
Wais Kabir, Executive Chairman, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council (BARC), and former Director of the Agriculture Center of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), 2002 – 2009.
Suriyan Vichitlekarn, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)

PARALLEL SESSIONS 1-A: Policy environment and rural-urban transformation – implications for availability and access to food

Enabling policy environment for ensuring rural income growth and food security: Overview of key policy challenges for creating an enabling environment for agricultural and rural transformation, food and nutrition security in the South and Central Asia region.

"Lessons and policy options for emergency preparedness in flood prone areas of Asia”, Sohail Malik and Paul Dorosh, IFPRI
"Food security policy challenges in central Asia – example of Tajikistan”, Kamiljon Akramov, IFPRI
“Agricultural Performance and Food Security in Nepal: Constraints and Challenges”, Bishnu Pant, IIDS, Nepal

Rural-urban links and access to markets (domestic and regional): Examining rural-urban links and access to markets for high value products, agribusiness links within and across countries, and potential implications for income and food security outcomes.

"Food market transformation and improving food security in Asia (within and across countries)”, Kevin Chen, IFPRI/Beijing
"Markets for high-value commodities in Indonesia ”, Wahida Maghraby, ICASEPS, MoA, Indonesia
“Role of the private sector in assuring ASEAN's food security: Building an agenda for dialogue and action”, David Dyer and Tim Moore, Nathan Associates Jakarta, Indonesia

PARALLEL SESSIONS 1-B：Science & Technology Solutions for increasing availability and access, including climate change adaptation and mitigation options

Food staples sectors: State of technology development for basic grain staples production.

“Conservation agriculture in Kazakhstan” Muratbek Karabayev, CIMMYT-Kazakhstan
“Land degradation and food security – example of work on watersheds”, S.P. Wani, ICRISAT
“Maize example-CIMMYT/Nepal or CSISA”, Andrew McDonald, CIMMYT/Nepal
“Fisheries sub-sector example” Michael Pido, Palawan State University, the Philippines

Mitigating and adapting to climate change: Policy and technology options for inputs and knowledge for mitigating and adapting to climate change.

“Assessing economy-wide effects of recent external shocks on Asian developing economies”, David Laborde, IFPRI
“Inter-linked impacts and policy options of climate change and water resources in South and SE Asia”, David Spielman, IFPRI
“State of socio-economic research on climate change and policy implications in the Philippines” Mercedita A. Sombilla, SEARCA
“Global Research Alliance for Agricultural Greenhouse Gasses”, Steve Shafer, USDA

PARALLEL SESSIONS 1-C: Integrating agriculture and nutrition interventions for adequate utilization & stability

Agriculture and nutrition linkages through cross-sector approaches: Exploring synergies between agriculture and nutrition, and importance of cross sector interventions

“Bangladesh’s experience with safety nets”, Akhter Ahmed, IFPRI/Dhaka
“Safe drinking water and clean hands: Essential nutrients!” Rochelle Rainey, USAID Global Health Bureau
“Cornell University and Sathguru Engagement in Agriculture Development In South Asia - 1994 - 2011” Chinnachamy Ramasamy and Damodaran Suresh, Cornell University.

Gender dimension: Gender dimensions for improved food security and nutrition outcomes through agriculture

“Dynamics of gender equity and household food security in rice-based farming systems” Kamala Gurung, IRRI-Bangladesh
“Understanding agricultural and nutrition linkages, is there a gender dimension?”, Suneetha Kadiyala, IFPRI-New Delhi
“Integrating Gender in Food Security Programming: The Feed the Future Initiative”, Sylvia Cabus, USAID, Washington, D.C.

Agricultural and nutrition linkages through bio-fortification: Improving food and nutrition security through bio-fortification alternatives: lessons in Asia

“Bio-fortification options/success story - wheat”, Arun Kumar Joshi, CIMMYT
“Other Bio-fortification example – High Zinc Rice” Munirul Islam, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDRB), Dhaka
“Dietary changes – example from India, Bangladesh and Pakistan” P. K. Joshi and Praduman Kumar, IFPRI-New Delhi

Day Two: Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

SESSION 2: TRANSLATING KNOWLEDGE INTO ACTION – LESSONS, EXPERIENCE AND PRACTICAL TOOLS

Panel: “Reflections and experience with country processes for bringing evidence into the design and implementation of agricultural and food security strategies”

Governments of Nepal, Cambodia and Bangladesh
- Cambodia: Srun Darith, Council for Agricultural and Rural Development (CARD)
- Nepal: Fulgen Pradhan, Planning Division, Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives (MOAC)
- Bangladesh: M. A. Sattar Mandal, Member, Planning Commission
Research and/or Donor group
- Cambodia: Nou Keosothea, Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI)
- Bangladesh: Wais Kabir, Executive Chairman, BARC
- Nepal: Gayatri Acharya, World Bank

PARALLEL SESSIONS 2-A: Review of experience and lessons of program design and implementation

Raising agricultural productivity: Review of lessons and experience with agricultural interventions to raise agricultural productivity all along the value chain for ensuring food security, including NRM and sustainable intensification technologies – examples to be represented from three sub-regions

“Nepal example”, Rave Aulakh, USAID/Nepal
“India example” , M.S. Rao, CSISA
“Biotechnology’s Contributions to Increased the Philippines Food Security”, Randy Hautea, Global Coordinator, ISAAA

Improving access to markets, services, and income generating opportunities: Review of lessons and experience with agricultural interventions for improving access to markets, services, and income generating opportunities – examples represented from three sub-regions

“Oasis Agro and KAED example from Kyrgyzstan”, Sung Jung and Alisher Kasymov, IFDC, Kyrgyzstan
“Dairy Enhancement in Eastern Province of Sri-Lanka”, U.L. Jaufer, Land O’ Lakes, Sri Lanka
“High value agriculture and market linkages in India” Pratap S. Birthal, National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP) and P. K. Joshi, IFPRI

Pro-nutrition interventions –integrating agriculture with other sector interventions: Review of experience and lessons for successful integration of agricultural interventions with other sector inventions – examples represented from three sub-regions

“NRM and GCC – Cambodia example”, Sambath Sak and Kimberley Lucas, USAID-Cambodia
“Water User Association and Governance: The Example of Tajikistan” Fakhriddin Kuziboev, Development Alternative International
“Enhanced Homestead Food Production (E-HFP) to improve household food security and nutrition” Pooja Pandey, Hellen Keller International-Nepal

PLENARY SESSION: Review of approaches, tools, and data systems for M&E

Panel of Speakers:

“Ex-post project impact evaluation methods” Akhter Ahmed, IFPRI/Dhaka
“Designing baseline surveys for impact analysis and evaluation of progress” Kristin Penn, USAID/BFS
“Beyond Experiments: General Equilibrium Simulation Methods for Impact Evaluation" Xinshen Diao, IFPRI and Edward Taylor, University of California
“Reflections on challenges for program design and implementation” Sanath Reddy, USAID-Indonesia

PARALLEL SESSIONS 2-C: Knowledge system tools and approaches for bringing evidence into policy action

“Monitoring progress of agriculture, food security and nutrition outcomes at regional level”: Review of methods and tools for monitoring key indicators across countries.

“Monitoring key indicators across countries for food security in Asia – experience of the Asia food security information system (AFSIS)”, Suriyan Vichitlekarn, Senior Officer, Agriculture and Natural Resources Division, ASEAN
“Monitoring and mapping incidences of food insecurity and vulnerability”, Michael Sheinkman, WFP, Bangkok
“FAO's products, databases and tools on food security” Purushottan Mudbhary, FAO, Bangkok

“Web-based knowledge management systems and tools for agriculture and food security”: Review of lessons and experiences with web-based knowledge management and information systems/tools for agriculture and food security in Asia region.

“Knowledge Center on Climate Change Adaptation in Agriculture and Natural Resource Management in Southeast Asia (KC3)” , Mercedita A. Sombilla, SEARCA
“Experience and lessons of the Rice Information Portal in Asia – bringing information to farmers and influencing policies”, Piedad Moya, IRRI
“Illustration of a proposed ReSAKSS-Asia website tool”, Michael Johnson and Bingxin Yu, IFPRI

“Lessons, approaches and capacities for linking evidence with policy”: Review of approaches, tools and capacities for translating evidence into policy action.

“Monitoring MDGs and influencing policy – practical approaches and experience in Asia” Yanhong Zhang, UN ESCAP
“The experience of the Biotech Coalition in the Philippines?” Abraham Manalo, Biotech Coalition of the Philippines (BCP)
“State of capacities and needs for greater evidence-based policy making in developing Asian countries” Suresh Babu, IFPRI

A TECHNICAL CONFERENCE ON KNOWLEDGE, TOOLS AND LESSONS FOR INFORMING THE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION OF FOOD SECURITY STRATEGIES IN ASIA