On March 24^th, the ALiSEA team, GRET and CIRAD organized an online information session about the ASEAN policy guidelines on agroecology transitions, and the roles of national policy dialogue platforms and processes related to agroecology from Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. In total, 70 participants (29 women) across 4 countries: Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, have joined this session.

Following the endorsement of the ASEAN Policy Guidelines on agroecology transitions during the 46th meeting of the ASEAN Ministers on Agriculture and Forestry AMAF in October 2024 and its official launch by the Lao government during the multi-stakeholder workshop organized by DALaM, with the support from the ASSET project and AFD on 17th/18th March 2024 in Laos, the ALiSEA team with CIRAD and GRET invited all the ALiSEA members as well as AsiaDHRRA to learn more about and reflect on how to pursue and strengthen its contribution to the broadening of the participatory and multi-stakeholders’ engagement towards AE transitions.

Important milestone in achieving:  

• Enhanced knowledge and understanding among ALiSEA and AsiaDHRRA members of the ongoing broad based political dynamics in favour of agroecology transitions in the region
• Identified opportunities and mechanisms to contribute to national and regional political areas
• A collective commitment to contribute to implementing the Policy Guidelines on agroecology transitions and achieve policy changes at country and ASEAN level (key orientations for roadmaps & action plan).

The ASEAN policy guidelines on AET provides a common framework based on 7 areas of action (leverage points) to support policy changes. A dedicated wed platform has been created to provide an interactive access to these ASEAN Guidelines and to repository of case studies, experiences and models.

https://www.aseanaetguidelines.org/

Presentations:

• ASEAN Policy Guidelines on Agroecology Transition, Dr. Estelle Biénabe, CIRAD
• 10 Things you can do to promoting the new agroecology guidelines, Mr. Andrew Bartlett, Consultant
• Cambodia Policy Dialogue Platform: Conservation Agriculture and Sustainable Intensification Consortium (CASIC), H.E Dr. Chan Saruth, MAFF
• Vietnam Policy Dialogue Platform: National Action Plan for Food System Transformations Partnership (NAP FST Partnership), Dr. Dao The Anh, VAAS
• Laos Policy Dialogue Platform: Agroecology Sub-Sector Working Group (AE-SSWG), Mr. Thisadee Chounlamountry (DALaM) and Mr. Somsamay Vongthilath (DoPC)

Main points discussed:

1. From the points of view of policy makers, what are the top priorities and most-welcome AE activities across different countries?

• There is a gap on how to develop policy framework on integrated systems rather than separated and specific policies on crops, livestock, forest etc.;
• Vietnam committed to reduce by 30% the use of chemical pesticides by 2023
• Soil health, how to restore highly degraded areas
• Biodiversity is crucial and linked to agroecology, such as the diversity and access to good quality seed for farmers (there are still need for improved legal recognition of local farmers’ exchanges of seeds e.g in Vietnam).
• How to finance agroecology implementation, potential initiative with carbon markets
• Agroecology and nutrition are priority topic to ensure healthy and diversified diets

2. How can AE systems and practices be better integrated into technical training courses to ensure their dissemination and implementation?

• Agroecology concepts and practices could be integrated into food system training courses
• Important to have tailored resources in national languages available
• University curriculum dedicated to agroecology already exist in Cambodia and in Vietnam
• Within CASIC, there is a working group to address and discuss this question

3. What are the interactions between ASEAN and national levels to introduce the guidelines to national policy or relevant ministries?

• LICA, as an inter-governmental mechanism, is the Agroecology reference group for the ASEAN to carry this dynamic in the region and in each country through their national focal point (DALaM in Laos, GDA in Cambodia, ISPAE in Vietnam).
• In Cambodia, CASIC intends to organize CASIC Connect Days in July to gather stakeholders to share and learn from each other to plan the guidelines implementation.
• In Laos, the government intends to identify key priorities, develop a 5 year-action plan based on the ASEAN guidelines on AET and set up a task force to lead the action plan.
• In Vietnam, the government has developed a detailed national action plan for the Food System Transformations (NAP-FST) and established Partnership, which includes a Technical Working Group on agroecology and it has identified two 2 provinces (Dong Thap and Son La) as pilots to implement this NAP FST.

Key takeaway messages:

• The ASEAN guidelines on AET define 7 leverages, i.e. areas of policy changes to better support AET, and under these, strategic recommendations as well as concrete possible policy actions for consideration to be adapted to different needs and strategies for integration into the existing national policy framework and towards better ensuring policy implementation (addressing the gap between policy formulation and policy realization),
• All agroecology stakeholders have a practical role to play to implement these new guidelines,
• Collective efforts and exchanges between ASEAN countries are crucial to take ownership of the guidelines and harness the possibilities provided by the guidelines to support policy changes, as there are not compulsory guidelines but meant for voluntary implementation on the part of the government
• ASEAN Guidelines need to be adapted and tailored to national contexts by building on and learning from experiences from the different countries and testing implementation at local level
• There is a critical need to further document and gather field-evidence on each areas of actions to feed the national and regional policy discussions, and achieve significant policy changes
• In line with the 13 principles of Agroecology on which the ASEAN guidelines are building, agroecology mainstreaming is be further embedded into food system transformations action framework as well as climate action and biodiversity framework​

Next steps:

• Communication/ socialization:
  • Dissemination to all ASEAN Member States and relevant organizations – mass media communication
  • Translation of the ASEAN Guidelines into national languages

• Some new workshops and milestones to be held in 2025:
  • National face to face workshop for ALiSEA members (in June, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam) to identify priorities, gaps, leverage points that the network should address
  • Regional Tarasa2025 conference in November in Laos, to broaden and strengthen the multistakeholder alliances at ASEAN level and further identify key orientations for roadmaps & action plans