Cres Ian Lorenzo
LOS BAÑOS, Laguna — Seven countries in Southeast Asia presented country-specific assessments on policy coherence and financing for agrifood systems transformation, highlighting fragmented policies, weak local implementation and uneven funding.
The findings were discussed at the Regional Workshop on Policy Coherence and the Financing Landscapes for Agrifood Systems Transformation in Asean Countries held on Aug. 24 to 26.
The workshop was convened by the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (FAO-RAP) and the University of the Philippines Los Baños College of Human Ecology (UPLB-CHE).
Delegates from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Thailand, the Philippines, Timor-Leste and Vietnam presented their assessments, which examined how national policies align and how financial landscapes support transformation.
Searca Center Director Mercedita Sombilla said transformation should be judged by its results for people and food systems.
“Agrifood systems transformation will be measured not only by the frameworks being designed but also by the difference these make in the lives of farmers and communities; the resilience of food systems; and the availability of safe, nutritious, affordable and sustainable food,” Sombilla said.
UPLB Vice Chancellor for Research and Extension Nathaniel Bantayan, representing Chancellor Jose Camacho Jr., said collective action is required to address food insecurity.
“Ending food insecurity and all forms of malnutrition cannot be carried alone by any single country or institution. Rather, it requires the kind of collective action that the workshop embodies — shared evidence, shared frameworks and shared resolve,” Bantayan said.
Assistant FAO Representative for Program in the Philippines Dulce Carandang, on behalf of FAO Representative Lionel Dabaddie, said policy alignment and strategic financing are key drivers.
“Only through stronger policy alignment and more strategic financing can we accelerate the transformation of agri-food systems to become more efficient, inclusive, resilient and sustainable,” Carandang said.
FAO-RAP Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer Sridhar Dharmapuri said healthy diets must be viewed through a broader sustainability lens.
“We’re looking beyond simply saying that healthy diets are made up of optimal combinations of foods. We’re also thinking about where food groups are coming from, what their impact is on the climate, whether they’re resilient or not, whether they promote livelihoods, as well as what kind of socioeconomic impacts there are,” Dharmapuri said.
Fragmented implementation
The assessments found that while countries have policies on agriculture, nutrition, health and social protection, these were often developed separately, resulting in overlapping mandates and fragmented implementation, particularly at provincial and village levels.
Rathana Peou Norbert-Munns, Asia-Pacific focal point of the UN Food Systems Coordination Hub, said implementation and feedback are critical.
There is a need for “not only a coherence of want, but also a coherence of impact and feedback that informs the next future generation of policy,” she said.
UPLB CHE Dean Jennifer Amparo highlighted the role of frontline workers.
“Behind every number in this deck are the people who make coherence possible on the ground: local nutrition committees, civil society organizations and barangay nutrition scholars. Decentralization only works for nutrition when it is paired with people, budget and leadership — all at once,” Amparo said.
On financing, delegates cited fragmented and uneven public financing, limited access to domestic and external finance, and coordination gaps across sectors. Participants noted that nutrition-related spending is often untracked, making accountability difficult.
Tomoko Kato, Asian Development Bank senior food and nutrition specialist, said nutrition must be integrated directly into agricultural investments, noting that “around 70 million children are stunted [in Asia and the Pacific region], while at the same time, more than 1 billion adults are overweight or obese.”
The workshop concluded with four agreed priorities: strengthen and formalize cross-sectoral coordination and stakeholder engagement; establish results-based monitoring, evaluation and data systems; integrate nutrition into agriculture and food policies, and align financing with national priorities; and build subnational and local institutional capacity for delivery.
