RAP's Strategic Framework articulates priorities, goals, strategic elements, objectives and outputs aimed at achieving food security through sustainable agriculture and rural development. RAP shares its vision with member countries in the Asia and Pacific region. Realizing the vision will ultimately depend on actions taken by regional, national and local stakeholders and mobilization of considerable resources.
RAP will adopt a three-pronged approach aimed at mobilizing resources, creating an enabling environment for sustainable agriculture and rural development and improving cost-effective operational systems and methods.
Resource mobilization
Every effort will be directed at raising resources for implementing RAP's thematic programmes and in helping member countries increase investments in agriculture and food security from diverse sources. RAP can mobilize extrabudgetary resources as well as promote funding of FAO's Regular and Field Programmes from donor countries, intergovernmental banks, international funding agencies and even governments of beneficiary countries and private companies. For this purpose, RAP will:
Enhance collaboration with existing funding agencies such as international banks, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and other UN bodies and donor governments.
Establish financing linkages with potential and new contributors including public and private agencies of beneficiary countries, multinationals, international charity organizations and others.
Expand and strengthen South-South cooperation.
Develop procedures to facilitate contributions from all donors and collaborators.
Prepare a shelf of continuously updated project ideas in collaboration with beneficiary countries and actively promote it to funding agencies.
Promote in-kind contributions including experts, facilities and equipment.
Direct resources to the least-developed countries - thereby avoiding the spread of resources too thinly.
Enabling environment
In order to realize the vision of a food-secure Asia-Pacific, there must be an enabling environment. RAP's implementation strategy will assist in creating this enabling environment. Its building blocks are good governance, effective institutions and support services, pro-poor approaches and environmentally sound systems and practices.
Under the six thematic programme areas, RAP will:
Help in mobilizing the political commitment for and promotion of a policy environment conducive to an increase of investment by intergovernmental bodies, national and local governments, public and private sector agencies, and civil society groups as well as local communities and individual farmers in sustainable agriculture and rural development.
Enhance the application of service-oriented, applied and strategic research by strengthening linkages with educational and extension institutions.
Support knowledge sharing and the development and spread of information technologies to rapidly overcome the research-extension-farmer knowledge gap.
Base its activities, whenever appropriate, on traditional knowledge.
Facilitate a paradigm shift from exploitative agriculture to environmentally sound natural resource management and farming practices.
Promote awareness of the need by vulnerable groups to a diversified and nutritionally balanced diet.
Foster fair and responsible investment and trade in agriculture, paying attention to the special needs of the low-income food deficit countries, food quality and safety, and environmental standards.
Assist in decentralization and devolution of natural resource management and sustainable agriculture, and the provision of social services in rural development.
Help to expand broad-based partnership approaches and alliances with government agencies, academic institutions, the private sector, non-governmental and civil society organizations, donors and other interested partners.
Cost-effectiveness
RAP will act to improve the cost-effectiveness of operational systems and methods, as well as strengthen capacity. RAP will:
Strengthen the multidisciplinary approach and enhance cross-sectoral cooperation.
Develop a critical mass of technical experts able to respond to member countries' emerging needs.
Harness information and communications technologies to improve efficiency in programme development and implementation, and ensure effective knowledge and information dissemination.
Take a proactive approach in translating the strategic framework into action programmes in collaboration with member countries and other partners.
Promote a corporate culture and rapid response system through continuous review of management and communication practices.
RAP, working as a team with headquarters-based staff, draws strength from its pool of wide-ranging expertise in food, horticultural and industrial crops, plant protection, animal production and health, fisheries, forestry, institutional development, policy, commodities and trade, statistics, nutrition, irrigation and natural resource management. Its experts can provide a critical mass to address the technical, policy, social and economic aspects of agricultural development and natural resource management.
Over the years, RAP has established its credentials as a neutral forum. This encourages an objective and wide-ranging exchange of ideas and experiences on challenges to the region's development.
RAP is linked through its extensive networking with national and international partners including the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) Centres and donor communities. It can mobilize expertise and some financial resources from these partners to reinforce its own to bear on current as well as emerging development concerns. In addition, RAP is the base for many intergovernmental and interinstitutional networks, commissions and other groupings in which it participates or provides the secretariat. This facilitates technical collaboration.
This extensive structure includes, among others, regional commissions on plant protection, animal production and health, forestry, fisheries and statistics. The Organization sponsors networks on credit, marketing, nutrition and agricultural research, among others.
RAP also draws technical, managerial and organizational support from FAO's special programmes on integrated pest management, food security, conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources for food and agriculture and others.
Initiatives like the Emergency Prevention Service for Transboundary Animal and Plant Pest and Diseases as well as the Livestock Environment and Development Programme and the Asia-Pacific Food Insecurity and Vulnerability Information and Mapping Systems address specific concerns.
The FAO Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific and other policy-level meetings have adopted policy guidelines and various declarations dealing with common problems affecting member countries. These can provide clear insights and directions when governments formulate policies and programmes.
RAP's strength lies also in its field programme development and implementation, with a rich portfolio of projects spanning a wide spectrum including agriculture, fisheries, forestry, nutrition and food security. The experience gained in implementing these projects, with an annual budget of over US$30 million, can serve countries well.
The WFS for the first time set a common development target - halving the world's hungry by 2015. The formulation of policies and programmes, as well as the monitoring and evaluation of their implementation, provides a major opportunity for RAP to work with member countries.
Swift communication and increasing interdependence of countries have heightened alertness and awareness of the consequences of complex emergencies, like water scarcity, cross-border infestation of pests and diseases, multiyear drought, financial crises and others. Countries are likely to turn to RAP with its vast expertise in multiple disciplines to promote regional cooperation.
Governments and the private sector appreciate the potential of sharing benefits. Wider sharing of research findings, especially in water use, forestry and fisheries, prompt governments to respond and international donors to provide support for an increasing number of international initiatives. These cover information systems, biosafety, hybrid rice, conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic resources and others. RAP can have a useful, enlarged role to play in providing technical support and services in the development of these defining technologies.
The present thrust towards empowerment of the rural poor presents another opportunity for RAP to strengthen its role and make its work more relevant. There is much that RAP can do in the areas of decentralization and devolution of sustainable development, farmers' organizations, rural credit and finance, land reform, marketing and others.
Globalization and dynamic regional groupings represent both challenges and opportunities in the region. In many developing countries, especially small island developing states, the enabling environment required to support sustainable development does not exist yet. Macroeconomic stability, open markets, basic physical and institutional infrastructures and even civil order are often inadequate.
Natural processes cannot be hurried. In forestry or natural resources management, for example, progress and benefits are often incremental. They require time frames that extend beyond political cycles or budget deadlines of both governments and international agencies.
Unless a full-blown crisis emerges, member countries sometimes delay needed policy changes, revamping of institutions or adjustment of budget allocations.
Effective responses to complex problems require actions by many stakeholders. Often, interventions by only one ministry result in the weak commitment and contribution of other players.
Conflicting interests affect most development efforts. This can be among countries, like the conflict between exporters and importers in the rice-trade liberalization question. It can also be among different groups within countries, such as on issues of public distribution systems, pricing, export-import controls and others.
Quality of governance and enforcement systems can undercut support for policy and institutional changes called for. "Diplomatic discretion" can replace willingness to challenge members on potentially acrimonious issues.
Obviously these factors, as they change with time, need to be fully analyzed and taken into consideration when transforming the Regional Strategy into action programmes.
As an integral part of the overall FAO Medium Term Plan, the monitoring and evaluation of the RAP Regional Strategic Framework will be periodically conducted within existing Programme of Work and Budget processes.
Exceptional thematic evaluation may be undertaken for specific purposes such as advocacy and raising awareness or resources. For purposes of tracking the Framework's progress in the context of regional specificity, information will be systematically collated for reporting under existing Programme of Work and Budget mechanisms.
Desired outcome indicators as outlined in the thematic programme areas will be periodically evaluated within the framework of the Medium Term Plan and the Regional Strategic Framework. Outcomes will be fed back for reformulation of action programmes.
The Regional Strategic Framework will be reviewed and revised if necessary, taking into consideration the changing conditions and needs of the Asia-Pacific region and the recommendations and priorities of member countries.
