East & South-East Asia region program 2022–23 

Partner country	No. projects
Cambodia	17
Indonesia	20
Laos	19
Myanmar	3
Philippines	11
Timor-Leste	5
Vietnam	24

 

^{Note that a project may be conducted in several countries, therefore the total number of projects in this table will be greater than the number of projects in the region.}

 

Collectively, the countries of East and South-East Asia are the most populous in the world and an economic powerhouse. Ten of these countries are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and engage closely in terms of trade and investment with east Asian countries, including China and South Korea.

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, ASEAN economies were forecast to have some of the highest growth rates in the world over the next 5 years. The IMF and OECD had forecast an average of 5% growth per annum, a higher rate than some of the more developed economies of Europe and North America. The ASEAN economy has consistently outperformed the global economy and is the fifth largest economy in the world, with a combined GDP of A$4.8 trillion in 2018.

As a result of the pandemic, 4.7 million people in South-East Asia were living in extreme poverty in 2021. According to a new Asian Development Bank report presented at the Southeast Asia Development Symposium, 9.3 million jobs disappeared, the region’s GDP shrank by 3.3% and foreign direct investment inflows declined by 33.2%.

Throughout 2020, the number of cases and death rate due to COVID-19 were relatively low in ASEAN countries. However, during 2021, the region experienced substantially higher rates of COVID-19 infection, hindering recovery and economic growth. With only 59% of the region’s population fully vaccinated (as of February 2022), there remains a major risk of widespread unemployment, worsening inequality, and rising poverty levels, especially among women, youth and the elderly, in South-East Asia.

With more than 100 million hectares of agricultural land, the ASEAN countries collectively are a major producer, supplier and exporter of various crops, grains (including rice) and livestock products. Although agriculture only contributes around 10% of total ASEAN GDP, it is the main sector for employment in most member states, accounting for approximately one-third of total ASEAN employment. Given its significant role, the development of the food, agriculture and forestry sectors in ASEAN countries is vital to ensuring equitable and inclusive growth in the region.

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of food supply chains in the region, prompting calls for the region to become food resilient and sustainable by shortening existing food supply chains and strengthening food systems. The pandemic also heightened the pressure on countries to reverse the trend of underinvesting in the food and agriculture sector. This includes investing in rural logistics, upskilling, research and development, in addition to harnessing the use of digital technology to benefit the farming community.

Food security, food safety and better nutrition remain priority concerns within the region. These priorities align with ASEAN’s goals of agricultural cooperation. Support for women’s economic empowerment, which has become a prominent approach to addressing gender gaps in economic spheres, including agriculture, continues to grow.

 

Drivers of regional collaboration

The principal driver of regional collaboration in the East and South-East Asia region is the ASEAN, which for more than 50 years has addressed shared challenges and engaged trade and development partners, including Australia and China. Recently, regional collaboration has been driven by critical factors such as the COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitics, and transboundary concerns.

Trade and investment are the major drivers of economic growth in the region, aided by overseas development assistance. The ASEAN-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement came into force in January 2022 and is expected to help strengthen regional economic integration and provide access to a larger market, which will assist the post-pandemic recovery of the ASEAN economies.

In the agricultural research sector, ACIAR is supporting regional collaboration through support to Asia–Pacific Association of Agricultural Research Institutions (APAARI). Cross-border challenges such as plant and animal biosecurity remain prominent and also drive regional integration. In the Mekong region, plant diseases have recently spread across borders, destroying crops of cassava and banana. African swine fever has taken a tremendous economic toll on countries such as Vietnam, the Philippines, Laos and Cambodia. The COVID-19 pandemic has raised biosecurity and One Health (the interface between human, animal and environmental health) as priorities in the region.

Shared concerns about imminent and increasing threats posed by climate change have resulted in ASEAN creating a ‘framework of ASEAN community building, with strategies and actions to enhance regional and international cooperation in supporting adaptation’. In the field of agricultural research and development, regional cooperation plays a significant role, particularly regarding increasing resilience and adaptation to climate change, natural disasters and other shocks.

The South-East Asia region is one of the most natural disaster-prone in the world. Natural disasters threaten food security and rural livelihoods and have economic consequences for the whole region, so disaster mitigation is a common interest among neighbouring countries. The ASEAN Declaration on ‘One ASEAN, One Response’ aims to increase the speed, scale and solidarity of disaster response in the region.

 

ACIAR East and South-East Asia region program

Our program in East and South-East Asia remains the largest across the 4 regions in which ACIAR operates. The nature of our engagement within the region is strongly bilateral, based on robust partnerships with national research systems, long-standing diplomatic connections, and sustained development collaboration with Australia. However, there is a growing trend towards regional collaboration between countries facing shared challenges. This is consistent with the research partnerships under ASEAN, which acknowledge that collaboration among member states is a sensible path towards addressing common challenges in the region.

The ASEAN drive towards regional economic integration and connectivity will increase demand from individual countries and regional bodies for research support that harmonises approaches to some agricultural issues across countries, including biosecurity, food safety and climate resilience. We contribute to this by funding regional research collaboration and through our support and chairing of APAARI.

Among our newer regional collaborations in the East and South-East Asia region are efforts to identify efficient biosecurity risk-management systems in the region to respond to prominent outbreaks affecting plant and animal health. For example, Indonesia, the Philippines and Laos are involved in regional research focusing on an integrated system to manage Fusarium wilt (Panama disease) in banana crops with components of biosecurity and disease management.

Another research collaboration focusing on plant biosecurity engages the whole of the Mekong region and China. The research will address serious diseases of cassava through a multipronged strategy involving breeding, surveillance, agronomy and seed systems interventions, coupled with engagement with government institutions and agribusiness.

The incursion of African swine fever to the region in 2019 also provided a strong context for regional collaboration in One Health. An ACIAR regional research collaboration that involves Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos seeks to understand how veterinary service markets might be better managed and governed by agents of government interested in human health, in cooperation with agents interested in agriculture and animal health.

During 2022–23, a series of project will be implemented throughout the region under the ACIAR–IDRC Research Program on One Health (AIRPOH). Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, The Philippines and Timor-Leste will host a portfolio of interconnected projects supporting research that aims to promote new ideas and thinking on the relationship and management of human, animal and environmental health.

Trilateral collaboration and new partnership models are emerging for ACIAR in the East and South-East Asia region. Driving these new partnership models are greater capacities that can be achieved when resources are pooled. This is translating into substantial co-investment from partners such as Vietnam, Indonesia and the Philippines. While bilateral relationships remain the predominant model for development cooperation in the region, trilateral collaboration is increasingly possible and desired by partner countries.

Opportunities for trilateral research collaboration with Australia in the region include varietal development to manage devastating new diseases in banana, cassava and citrus; machinery innovation for conservation agriculture among smallholder farmers; and research to develop perennial rice varieties.