Ms. Mi Nguyen, Co-Chair of GACSA, and Mr. Marwan Ladki, Expert in Sustainable Agriculture at the GACSA Facilitation Unit, participated in the South-East Asia Regional Conference on Food Security “Let’s get to work.  Building a food secure future”, held on 22-23 March 2017 in Hanoi, Viet Nam, upon invitation of the Governments of Viet Nam and the Netherlands, two members of GACSA. 

This report details their contributions to this regional dialogue.

GACSA’s participation and support in this regional conference was part of its commitment to strengthen dialogue and linkages with regional stakeholders, especially regional CSA alliances and networks.

GACSA, jointly with the ASEAN Climate Resilient Network (ASEAN-CRN, regional CSA network in South-East Asia), supported in organizing the Working Group on CSA - one of the four key topics of the conference along with food losses, sustainable aquaculture, and food safety.  This working group, moderated by GACSA, included a panel of representatives from key partners of GACSA, namely FAO, CCAFS/IRRI, the Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agriculture & Rural Development (IPSARD) of Vietnam, and the Asian Farmers Association (AFA) through the Vietnam National Farmers’ Union (VNFU). 

Panel discussion stressed the need to improve coordination at all levels (global, regional, national, local), among diverse stakeholders (governments, farmers, research, CSOs, etc.), and across sectors (crop production, fishery and aquaculture, livestock) to improve coherence and avoid duplication in scaling up CSA. A series of “Food Security Deals” on CSA have also been developed by participants during, and after, the Working Group on CSA, from scientific cooperation to operational project implementation on the ground. 

The final communiqué of the conference is stressing, inter alia, "The need to support an inclusive and multi-stakeholder approach to CSA development in Asia, building on existing regional networks”. The final communiqué is available here.