The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations is hosting the second Meeting of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Ad Hoc Task Force on Development of Vision, Objectives and Goals for ASEAN Cooperation in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (ATF-FAF) towards 2020 on 18 July 2014 in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Meeting is being organized in the context of FAO’s technical assistance to ASEAN in developing ASEAN’s vision, objectives and goals of the ASEAN Cooperation in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) sectors towards 2020.

“The objective of this activity is to produce a comprehensive, strategic document to promote regional cooperation and integration in food, agriculture and forestry sectors among ASEAN countries,” said Hiroyuki Konuma, FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific.

ASEAN Leaders at their 22nd ASEAN Summit held in April 2013 in Brunei Darussalam, tasked all ASEAN Community Councils to begin work on a post-2015 vision, including consideration of what should form the next stages of ASEAN’s integration efforts across the three pillars of the ASEAN Community (ASEAN Political Security Community, ASEAN Economic Community, and ASEAN Socio Cultural Community), as well strategic ideas on how ASEAN can maintain its relevance in the evolving regional architecture. The Special Meeting of the Senior Officials of 34th AMAF (ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry) provided further guidance on the approach and timeframe for carrying out this task.

Towards achieving this objective, the major outputs will comprise (i) stock-taking of the progress and achievements in regional cooperation and integration in FAF sectors, including the major issues and challenges, (ii) identification of priorities for cooperation in FAF sectors among ASEAN countries during 2016-2020, (iii) ASEAN coordination mechanism for cross-cutting issues such as food security and climate change and (iv) recommendations and guidance to ASWGs as well as relevant stakeholders and Dialogue/Development Partners on how to enhance their contributions in support FAF and collaboration with other sectors beyond 2015.

In this process, this meeting in Bangkok will review the progress in the preparation of the ASEAN’s vision, objectives and goals of the ASEAN Cooperation in FAF sectors towards 2020 and discuss a preliminary draft of the overall document prepared by an FAO consultant and provide its comments and suggestions for its improvement. It’s anticipated that the final document will be completed and approved by AMAF in October 2015.

The meeting will be attended by delegates from ten ASEAN Member States, Chairs of the five ASEAN Sector Working Groups on Food, Agriculture and Forestry (ASWG-FAF), FAO, the German development agency GIZ and the consultants who are involved in the development of Vision, Objectives and Goals for ASEAN Cooperation FAF towards 2020. FAO is collaborating with GIZ in providing this technical assistance to ASEAN.