Third Joint Project Steering Committee Meeting of the FAO-China-Netherlands Triangular Cooperation Project

25-26 May 2023 Rome/Amsterdam/Beijing—The third annual Joint Project Steering Committee (JPSC) meeting: “Up-scaling the FAO-China South-South Cooperation Programme through triangular cooperation with the government of the Netherlands (Part I)” was held in Rome, Italy from 25 to 26 May 2023, in hybrid format.

Anping Ye, Director of the South-South and Triangular Cooperation Division (PST) of FAO, thanked the governments of the China and the Netherlands for their commitment and support to the triangular cooperation project. He noted how this triangular cooperation project was initiated in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic, and has been exemplary in adopting a learning-by-doing approach on how to combine the efforts, knowledge and expertise of partners for greater impact.  

In his remarks, Hans Brand, Policy Coordinator (FAO and Multilateral Cooperation) of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (MANF) of the Netherlands, joined the meeting in person. He noted the remarkable progress made in project implementation over the past year, underscored the need to accelerate the preparations for the second part of the project and to identify concrete opportunities for the pilot project on sustainable aquaculture value chain development.

On behalf of Ni Hongxing, Counsel of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs (MARA) of China, Dong Moli from the Department of International Cooperation of MARA, in her opening speech, noted that this is one of the flagship projects for MARA. She expressed hope that such triangular cooperation projects can generate more resource and partnerships for delivering better agricultural cooperation initiatives in developing countries.

During the two-day meeting, the JPSC representatives from FAO, China and Netherlands reviewed the project implementation progress, challenges, and financial delivery for 2022/2023 and approved the work plan for 2023/2024. FAO and the implementing partners from the Foreign Economic Cooperation Center (FECC) of MARA, Freshwater Fisheries Research Center of China (FFRC) and Wageningen University and Research Centre (WUR) shared reflections on key achievements, lessons learnt and measures to strengthen documentation and dissemination of project results and knowledge.

Athifa Ali, FAO Project Coordinator, also presented the scoping study for the aquaculture pilot project, to be designed during the second phase of the triangular cooperation initiative.

Aquaculture experts from FFRC and Wageningen and FAO’s Fisheries and Aquaculture Division (NFI), including NFI Deputy Director Yuan Xinhua, had in-depth discussions on key factors to be considered when designing the pilot project.  The experts emphasized the importance of country ownership and engagement and proposed key criteria’s to follow when selecting a pilot country, such as (i) differential development impact of the project; (ii) ownership and engagement of the country; (iii) priority country for both China, Netherlands, and FAO; (iv) technical feasibility of the project and finally (v) strong business case and a viable PPP opportunity.

The JPSC agreed on the proposed selection criteria and committed to provide guidance on three priority countries for the pilot project in June 2023. The members reiterated the need for the country ownership and requested the implementing partners to undertake field scoping missions to the shortlisted countries to assess their interest and project feasibility, before making a final decision.

At the concluding discussions, all parties expressed their satisfaction with the results achieved during the meeting, acknowledged the need for in-person exchanges and dialogues and noted that the triangular cooperation project should not be seen merely as a project, but also as a process of collaboration and learning, with a view to creating a shared vision and approach for future partnerships.