Recognizing agriculture’s critical role in poverty alleviation and food security and responding to an increase in intra-ASEAN foreign direct investment in agriculture, ASEAN Member States have highlighted the pressing need for more responsible investments in this sector in the ASEAN Guidelines on Promoting Responsible Investment in Food, Agriculture and Forestry (ASEAN-RAI). Adopted in 2018, the ASEAN-RAI were adapted from the CFS Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems (CFS-RAI) and represent the first adoption of the CFS-RAI in a regional instrument.

As acknowledged in ASEAN-RAI guideline #3, women and youth play a critical role in agriculture and food systems. However, despite their significant contribution to the rural economy, women and youth face challenges to invest in and/or benefit from responsible investment opportunity in agriculture. Civil society organizations, farmers’ organizations and NGOs can support women and young farmers to engage better in RAI for instance through advocacy and capacity development activities.

In 2022, AsiaDHRRA and FAO have designed and rolled out a learning programme on RAI entitled “Empowering women and youth to engage in Responsible Agricultural Investment” targeting CSOs, FOs and NGOs in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Philippines. This learning programme aimed to support these actors in analysing the specific needs of women and youth to engage in RAI and formulating concrete recommendations to address them. These recommendations have been shared with other key stakeholders including representatives of the government and private sector during national dialogue events in the three ASEAN countries. 

During the capitalization workshop held in Vientiane, Lao PDR from 22^nd to 24^th March 2023, AsiaDHRRA and FAO gathered CamboDHRRA, LaoDHRRA and PhilDHRRA to capture the lessons learned of the RAI learning program piloted in their respective countries and refine their technical recommendations.

As a result, the RAI learning programme process (from the mapping and learning needs assessment to the national training and dialogue events) has been reviewed based on the national DHRRAs’ feedback from the pilots. The key success factors and lessons learned were captured to support the development of a Training Manual for any future replications of the RAI learning programme in other ASEAN countries.

In addition, through practical exercises, the national DHRRAs strengthened their capacity to analyse more in-depth the results of their national training and dialogue events in order to better understand the challenges and root causes faced by women and youth. From their in-depth analysis, the national DHRRAs refined their strategy paper with clear recommendations and concrete actions to be conducted to address women and youth’s main challenges and thus, empower them to engage better in RAI.

The discussions on some similar challenges for youth and/or women’s engagement in RAI observed in the three countries were fruitful and led to cross-pollination of ideas. For instance, some key challenges were highlighted as the lack of access to financial resources to own land and/or develop agribusinesses, the lack of platforms and/or processes for women and youth to actively participate in policy formulation, the lack of youth-led organizations to provide adequate services and goods for young agri-entrepreneurs etc.

To address these challenges, the national DHRRAs have recommended in their strategy paper for instance to raise awareness on women’s land rights through multiple channels (e.g. school, community radio) and mainstream gender in the new agriculture-related laws (in Lao PDR); establish a RAI technical working group on youth linked with existing government mechanisms and promote role models for young agri-entrepreneurs (in Cambodia); raise awareness on existing loans opportunities and strengthen women’s capacity to access them (Philippines) etc.

The DHRRAs also developed their own action plan defining the steps they will take along the year to contribute to the implementation of these recommendations. During the second half of the year, the DHRRAs, in coordination with AsiaDHRRA and FAO, will evaluate the outcomes of the RAI learning programme and monitor the progress on the implementation of some of the key recommendations to support women and youth to invest in and/or benefit from RAI in their respective countries.

Nouen Him, national coordinator, CamboDHRRA “It was a wonderful time for us to look back what were done in last year and to sharp and plan what will do in the upcoming phase.”