Marking its first collaborative endeavor, Mekong Institute (MI) partnered with Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to implement a project on “Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture Technologies and Innovations in Lower Mekong Countries”. The project is expected to contribute to enhancing the resilience of agricultural value chains in Cambodia, Lao PDR, Vietnam and Thailand (CLVT) through context-specific CSA approaches, enhanced capacity of technical manpower to support adoption, and increased collaboration among key stakeholders.

Held at the MI Training Center, a planning workshop between MI and DFAT was conducted on August 10 to align strategic approaches in implementing the project. The activity served as the initial step forward in a series of actions planned to develop the human resource capacity of national agencies and academic institutions in delivering CSA technical support to farmers and food producers for the effective adoption of technologies. The project also hopes to increase regional cooperation in promoting environmentally-conscious agricultural value chains and conducive policies for better economic incentives to small farmers and food producers.

Supported through the Mekong-Australia Partnership-Water Energy Climate (MAP-WEC) portfolio of DFAT, this one-year joint initiative is mounted to build the environmental resilience of the Mekong Subregion by taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change.