To maximise our effectiveness as an agricultural research-for-development agency, ACIAR builds and maintains partnerships with in-country agencies and organisations.
ACIAR has 10 Country Offices throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Staff located throughout the region make up the ACIAR Country Network, which develops and maintains the strategic directions of our investments with in-country partner agencies. The network also manages relationships, communication, coordination and administration of activities within the countries in which our offices are located, and in neighbouring countries where we have no representative office.
The Country Network also supports partner research institutions to develop, establish and administer activity related to research collaboration and capacity building. Our Country Network is a vital link between Australian and international researchers and the relevant in-country research agencies.
Many of our country partnerships are undergoing rapid change as local research capacity grows. At the same time, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the ability of our partner agencies to participate in research collaboration. Both of these circumstances have created an imperative for our Country Network to renegotiate relationships for when our partner agencies emerge from the pandemic crisis. Throughout 2021–22, and for the duration of the pandemic, the network will continue to monitor and manage 3 distinct phases in our relationships with partner countries and in-country agencies:
- response
- re-engagement
- recovery.
Our partner countries are moving through these phases at very different rates and with highly variable degrees of control and management of risk. The pandemic is surging through second, third and fourth waves in some countries. Our Country Network has upskilled in partnership brokering and knowledge management so that, when our partner agencies are ready to re-engage, we will have the necessary skills, tools and plans in place so that re-engagement can happen as quickly as possible.
At a broader scale, Australia’s development support to the Indo-Pacific has pivoted to address the urgent and emerging challenges of COVID-19. DFAT’s Partnerships for recovery: Australia’s COVID-19 development response outlines 3 areas of core action:
- health security
- stability
- economic recovery.
The work of ACIAR falls primarily into the third action area. During 2020, we examined food systems in the Indo-Pacific region to identify vulnerabilities that were exposed or amplified by the COVID-19 shock. Our findings were reported in COVID-19 and food systems in the Indo-Pacific: An assessment of vulnerabilities, impacts and opportunities for action (ACIAR Technical Report 96). Food systems assessments were undertaken at 5 locations: Pacific island countries, Papua New Guinea, Timor-Leste, Indonesia and the Philippines. The information will be used to inform future research and development to support food systems resilience in the Indo-Pacific region.
Depending on ongoing restrictions and responsibilities of partner agencies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, during 2021–22 we plan to confirm new long-term partnership strategies with Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Timor-Leste, Laos and Pakistan.
ACIAR Country Offices
ACIAR Country Network staff are located in the offices of Australian high commissions or embassies in the following countries:
- Pacific
- Fiji (regional office)
- Papua New Guinea
- East and South-East Asia
- Laos (regional office)
- China
- Indonesia
- Myanmar*
- Philippines
- Vietnam
- South Asia
- India (regional office)
- Pakistan
- Eastern and Southern Africa
* ACIAR staff are located in Myanmar but the location is a remote site of the regional office in Laos, not an ACIAR Country Office.
