The courtesy meeting between top leaders of Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) and One-CGIAR South East Asia and Pacific took place on 15th November 2021. Minister Le Minh Hoan remarked that the discussion in this meeting would be insightful for the Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development Strategy to 2030 and Vision to 2050 which was in development.
Minister Le Minh Hoan, Former Minister Cao Duc Phat, and MARD counterparts warmly welcomed Dr. Jean Balie, Director of One-CGIAR Southeast Asia and Pacific, and his colleagues from CGIAR centers to share the vision of One-CGIAR and discuss potential collaboration areas. In his brief introduction about One-CGIAR, Dr. Jean Balie highlighted the upcoming initiatives in the region and Vietnam and emphasized the new cooperation structure including regional integrated initiatives such as “Securing the Asian Mega-Deltas” with the aim of strong partnership building and scaling support. Together with other projects, One-CGIAR’s initiatives would aim to support human prosperity and support to address the urging challenges in the region with pragmatic and feasible approaches.
Potential Areas of Collaboration: One CGIAR and Vietnam
On behalf of One-CGIAR, Dr. Balie raised potential areas of support to Vietnam on across three areas: Recovery, Resilience, and Transformation. With strong presence in the region, One-CGIAR offered to develop tailored solutions on the ground through effective and proven scaling work and enhance Vietnam’s engagement in regional and global networks for cross-border collaboration to address common challenges. To elaborate, potential areas of collaboration between One-CGIAR and Vietnam include: innovation and technology, gender and social inclusion, environmental protection including climate change mitigation and adaptation, and agriculture value chains.
MARD leaders shared that Vietnam had committed to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, and One-CGIAR’s support would be valued in this agenda. It was highlighted that technological advancement would be the key engine of agricultural development in the coming time. MARD also expressed Vietnam’s support for the proposal for a multi-year ASEAN – One-CGIAR collaboration program. MARD offered full support to One-CGIAR’s future initiatives in Vietnam.
The meeting came to the agreement to develop a collective action program between One-CGIAR and MARD to engage all stakeholders (i.e., farmers, agricultural enterprises, state management at all level, associations, alliances, and non-governmental organizations, etc.) to address the shared targets of multiple sectors/areas. Minister Hoan emphasized that no individual country could address non-traditional issues such as climate change and COVID pandemic, thus collaboration and mutual support was key.
In the coming months, One-CGIAR will continue dialogue with Vietnam and other nations in the region to fully harness the opportunity and collaboration domains.