Regional Agro-industries Forum for Asia and the Pacific

In April 2008, FAO, UNIDO, IFAD and the Government of India organized the Global Agro-industries Forum (GAIF) with a view to raising awareness, exchanging information, considering strategies and promoting partnerships for future actions towards the development of competitive agro-industries with over 500 senior-level participants.

The Asia-Pacific regional workshop held during GAIF concluded that the diversity of development situations in the region required context-specific interventions and that action should be taken to resolve the following three challenges:

1. Promoting investments in physical and social infrastructure;
2. Creating an enabling environment for agro-industries; and
3. Integrating smallholder farmers into competitive agro-industries.

As a follow-up to the commitments made by the UN agencies during GAIF, FAO, IFAD and UNIDO convened a Regional Agro-Industries Forum for Asia and the Pacific (RAIF-AP), with the support of the Shaanxi Provincial People´s Government of China. The forum was held in Yangling, China, from 3 to 6 November 2009.

The aim of the Regional Agro-Industries Forum for Asia and the Pacific (RAIF-AP) was to assist governments of member countries in the Asia-Pacific region in creating an enabling environment that will allow industry stakeholders to develop competitive agro-industries that incorporate smallholders as significant stakeholders in agrifood supply chains.

The objectives of the RAIF-AP were:

•     To discuss best practices from the Asia-Pacific region for implementation at national and local levels of agro-industrial strategies of relevance to member countries;
•     To promote a dialogue among the private sector, governments and smallholders; and
•     To facilitate the emergence of multi-stakeholder programmes for agro-industries development based on concrete cases from member countries in the region.

For more information, please see GAIF website.