ALiSEA National General Assembly in Cambodia, 23 November 2022

ALiSEA National General Assembly in Cambodia, 23 November 2022

Phnom Penh, 23rd November 2022, National General Assembly Workshop for ALiSEA Cambodia took place at the Sunway Hotel.

The National General Assembly aims to present the key achievements of the network in 2022, to consult members on internal structuration and to set up the main action plan of the network in 2023. The event brought together 40 participants of the ALiSEA network, working in the field of agroecology across the country, such as local and international nongovernmental organizations, farmers organizations, networks, academic and government institutions.

The workshop was co-organized by GRET, Development and Partnership in Action (DPA), Cambodian Farmer Federation Association of Agricultural Producers (CFAP), DanChurchAid (DCA), ECOLAND Cambodia, and ActionAid Cambodia, as part of the ASSET project funded by the French Agency for Development (AFD), the European Union (EU), and the French Facility for Global Environment (FFEM).

The General Assembly is ALiSEA’s annual event through which it’s members can review the progress of the network and provide their feedback to ensure that the network is working in the right direction that would benefit each member. The national General Assembly is a crucial moment to gather all members in-person, to discuss strategy and priorities issues, to learn from each other and exchanges on the future of the network, said Lucie Reynaud, ALiSEA’s Regional Coordinator of the ALiSEA Network.

I/ Introduction Session

The network warmly welcomed the new National Secretariat, Mr. Thol Buntha from DPA, who took up this position on 1st November 2022 and the 8 new organizations that joined the network in 2022:

4 Local NGOs

1 International NGO

1 Private Sector

1 Academia

1 Governmental Agency

Presentation of the ALiSEA main achievements in 2022 and progress activities, Mr. Sok Sotha (CFAP)

II/ Small Grant Call 2022 Results and Next call

The regional and national results and lessons learned from the Small Grant call for proposal 2022 were presented by Ms Manivanh Aliyavong (GRET Laos).

For this call, we received 22 proposals in total allocated as follows: 9 proposals from Laos, 7 from Vietnam and 6 from Cambodia.

The ALiSEA network was pleased to announce the 2 members awarded in Cambodia for the 2022 call:

  1. Ecoland & Graduate School, Royal University of Agriculture (RUA): Multidimensional Evaluation of Agroecological Performance, Cambodia (MuLAgE)
  2. HEKS & Agri Smart Innovation & PDAFF of Kampong Thom Province: Research and demonstration of climate-resilient and agroecological cashew nuts production

Presentation of next year ALiSEA Small Grant call for proposal, Mr. Mey Veata (Uni4Coop)

III/ ALiSEA Internal Structure and Organization

Presentation and brainstorming on internal structure and potential scenarios, Ms Lucie Reynaud (GRET)

The majority of participants voted in favor of the following points:

  • Welcome individual people based on specific criteria and set up specific role;
  • Welcome specialized journalists/media organization as member;
  • Set up 2 status/roles for members;
  • Renew membership every 5 years.

IV/ ALiSEA Communication Strategy

Presentation of the main outlines of internal and external communication strategy, Mr. Hou Sorith (Ecoland)

V/ National Foresight and Theory of Change

Presentation of the results of the national foresight and theory of change workshop which was held in October 2022, Mr. Pat Sovann (GRET)

The majority of participants voted for the top 3 priority pathways:

  1. Strengthen knowledge sharing, capacity building, demonstration and document the experience of farmers and other stakeholders
  2. Support market access for Agroecological products to improve farmers’ living conditions (education, health, transport)
  3. Engage with other existing platforms (CASIC, Farmers Forum) to support policy incentives towards Agroecological farmers

For 2023, members highlighted the following main activities:

  1. Document agroecological initiatives (cases studies, videos);
  2. Organize training sessions and field visit for ALiSEA members (demo-farms, local & regional exchange visits, rotational exposer visits);
  3. Develop policy dialogue actions in strong linkages with the Farmers Forum and CASIC;
  4. Organize Agroecological Knowledge Fair to promote ALiSEA members actions and training materials;
  5. Define key communication messages on Agroecology for targeted audience notably students;
  6. Develop awareness communication tools to be provided and used by all members (Including producing quality agroecology’s video documentary (definition, practices, benefit);
  7. Organize events to raise awareness on agroecology products to consumers;
  8. Support small grants facility for ALiSEA members;
  9. Conduct joint study/research on marketing issues gap for agroecology products;
  10. Continue knowledge and experience sharing among ALiSEA members (farmers, private sector, research institutions/universities, PDAFF);
  11. Support Agroecology Best Practice Award Challenge.

Conclusion

The national General Assembly has been rich and fruitful paving the way for the internal structuring and governance of the network, taking decisions on the priority issues to be addressed by the network and main activities to be implemented in 2023.

As a way forward (i) at national level, the ALiSEA Board Members will develop a detailed action plan for the network building upon the discussions and outcomes of the General Assembly and (ii) at regional level, the first Regional General Assembly workshop will be organized in 2023 to take decision on the structuration and organization.

You can access the full report of the workshop by clicking here.

Please find below articles and video made by journalists on the General Assembly in Cambodia

Photos in the workshop

About ALiSEA teams