Day: February 28, 2022

During a visit to Vientiane to celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Australia and Laos, I announced new initiatives to deepen our cooperation to support a secure, prosperous and resilient region.

Australia will support a second phase of the Basic Education Quality and Access in Laos programme to help the Ministry of Education and Sports complete a national roll-out of the curriculum for the full five grades of primary education.

A stronger basic education system will help Laos develop a more skilled and productive workforce, which will equip the country to better resist challenges, escape poverty and contribute to stable economic growth.

As Minister for Women, as well as Minister for Foreign Affairs, I am pleased that this funding will support girls’ education. Quality education is critical to women and girls’ empowerment and social equality and provides critical support for national economic growth.

We will extend funding for the Laos-Australia Institute (LAI) – a partnership between our countries that has supported Laos’ economic and social development since 2014 – through a US$16 million investment to continue our support for the delivery of highly skilled professionals into the Lao labour market.

Australia is committed to supporting growth and sustainability across the Mekong as a whole.

Under the Mekong-Australia Partnership (MAP) – announced by Prime Minister Morrison at the 2020 ASEAN-Australia Summit – Australia will provide US$10 million to support the Lao Government’s public financial management reform efforts.

Building capacity in this area will equip decision-makers to make timely policy decisions that will impact Laos’ long-term prosperity.

Australia will also work in partnership with Laos to strengthen environmental resilience through MAP, providing more than US$15 million to support improved water resources management, and to strengthen food security and climate change resilience for communities.

As part of Australia’s commitment to quality infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific, we will also allocate at least US$10 million through Partnerships for Infrastructure as Laos improves domestic and regional transport connectivity.

This will include support to upgrade cross-border facilities at the Thai and Vietnamese ends of Laos’ National Road 2 – an important east-west route and one of ASEAN’s Initial Pipeline Projects.

Australia sees ASEAN at the heart of the Indo-Pacific – the US$154 million ASEAN-Australia Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP) underscores our strong commitment to ASEAN centrality and the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo Pacific.

Australia will work closely with Laos as our ASEAN Country Coordinator to implement the ASEAN-Australia CSP.

This includes providing one hundred Australia for ASEAN scholarships to support emerging ASEAN leaders to study in fields that advance the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, including 10 for scholars from Laos.

Australia is also committed to supporting Laos as it prepares for its 2024 ASEAN Chair year – over the next two years, we will support placements by 24 emerging diplomats at Laos’ Permanent Mission to ASEAN in Jakarta, giving them invaluable skills and experience working at the regional level.

These investments build on Australia’s strong support for Laos’ health and economic recovery from COVID-19 – including through the delivery of over one million vaccines to Laos and our broader support for vaccine delivery and training for Ministry of Health staff.

Australia’s Minister for Foreign Affairs and Minister for Women Marise Payne

Source: Lao News Agency

The current nutrition situation in Asia and the Pacific is difficult in many areas across the region. About 40 per cent of its inhabitants cannot afford a healthy diet, and in some areas the fight against hunger has seen reversals rather than advances.

Progress toward meeting the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of defeating both poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2) has been thrown off track amid the COVID-19 pandemic, which has devastated both lives and livelihoods.

Luckily, the picture is not all bleak and there are signs of optimism and dynamism. Advances in the region’s agrifood systems are changing the ways in which food is sustainably produced, marketed and consumed. This transformation reflects a greater awareness by Asia-Pacific producers and a growing demand from consumers for healthier, more nutritious foods.

Crop and livestock farmers, fishers, pastoralists, other producers and retailers – large and small – are successfully turning to innovative ideas and digital technologies. These improvements in production and sustainable resource management keeps more money in their pockets, while also helping to reverse environmental degradation.

All this is helping to create a paradigm shift that is taking shape in other parts of the world too. In Asia and the Pacific, there is a clear and growing movement toward innovation and digitalization along the entire agrifood value chain.

Retail grocery and food shopping is an important example. This is not only a phenomenon of well-developed economies, with four out of five sales of online food and grocery purchases taking place in the Asia-Pacific region.

This is just one aspect of the agrifood systems overhaul that is reshaping countries rapidly across Asia and the Pacific, from West Asia, all across South Asia, Southeast Asia and East Asia to the Pacific island countries.

In the Pacific’s Small Island Developing States (SIDS), grassroots entrepreneurs are increasingly stepping forward. Their innovative smart phone apps help producers and consumers to make informed, nutritious choices.

The private and development sectors are also leveraging increasingly available data to make the supply chain of agricultural commodities to markets more efficient and timely, and to map areas vulnerable to extreme weather events. Several of these innovations were showcased at the ‘SIDS Solutions Forum’, the first of an event to be held biennially, co-convened in August 2021 by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and the Government of Fiji.

There are still some challenges in accessing data on demand and without interruption, as we saw when Tonga’s undersea communications cable was severed during the eruption of the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha?apai volcano. But these setbacks will bring forth the new ideas needed to overcome them!

At FAO, we are working with our Members across Asia and the Pacific region to transform agrifood systems to be MORE efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable – to the benefit of all. Through the Hand-in-Hand Initiative, we are assisting policy makers in their plans to further leverage data, technology and innovation to meet the SDGs targets by 2030.

We are proactively identifying and supporting digital villages across the region as part of FAO’s 1,000 Digital Villages Initiative. We are continuing to nurture and promote country-led SIDS solutions and Hand-in-Hand partnerships, which includes advising on climate event mitigation and adaptation, and helping to overcome the damage caused to lives and livelihoods by the pandemic and the climate crisis.

These are among the topics that will be discussed at the 36th Session of the FAO Asia and the Pacific Regional Conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, from 8 to 11 March. FAO Members from the region – 46 in total – will come together to build on the transformational agenda and actions under the FAO Strategic Framework 2022-31, along with the recommendations of the UN Food Systems Summit 2021.

FAO is leading in hosting the recently established Coordination Hub for the follow up of the Summit, which will support countries in further developing and implementing national pathways towards agrifood systems transformation in line with national priorities.

Working with our Members in Asia and the Pacific, we will create even stronger partnerships with academic and research institutions, civil society organizations, cooperatives, parliamentarians and the private sector, with the inclusion of women and youth, as part of our commitment to the global efforts to build back better.

FAO is supporting the region to think big and act concretely. We are providing a constructive hand, but we need many more hands to reach our collective goals. For a better world with a better future for our children, we need better production, better nutrition, a better environment and a better life for all – leaving no one behind.

For this, we need strong political will and efficient, effective and coherent multilateral actions.

Source: Lao News Agency