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| Regional Priorities |
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Agriculture restructuring under changing market and trade conditions
Goal: a supportive and responsive policy and institutional environment that enables the agriculture and rural sector to empower the poor under changing market and trade conditions.
Impressive social gains have been accompanied by economic and agricultural growth in Asia and the Pacific over the past three decades. Population growth has declined in many developing countries thereby facilitating economic adjustments, but future progress will depend largely on how policies, agricultural technologies and institutions respond to changing market and trade conditions as well as to social and political factors. Progress will only come about if a level playing field for fair trade and equitable distribution of costs and benefits are adopted.
Despite the region's economic growth, persistent pockets of food insecurity and chronic poverty remain. Globalization and external instability pose formidable challenges, particularly for vulnerable groups lacking safety nets. Migration outflows have left behind the elderly and women, leading to the greying of rural communities and feminization of agriculture. Continuing deprivation of women, marginal farmers, and ethnic and social minorities erode the capacity of rural human resources. As agriculture adjusts to improve its competitiveness, the rural sector faces economic risks and shocks in the transition to sustainable and broad-based growth.
FAO assists in the formulation, implementation and monitoring of policies that are pro-poor and gender equitable. Specific objectives are to:
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strengthen institutions to be responsive to rural development needs; |
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develop appropriate (technical/process) messages for changing rural systems; |
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promote investment opportunities for poverty alleviation; and |
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build the capacity of stakeholders. |
For more information on the six thematic programme areas guiding FAO's work in the region in its mission to help member countries halve the region's undernourished by 2015 see RAP Publication 2004/06 Towards a food-secure Asia and Pacific. Regional Strategic Framework for Asia and Pacific, second edition.
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