The APTERR Secretariat led by Dr. Choomjet Karnjanakesorn, General Manager of the APTERR Secretariat, was invited by the Centre on Integrated Rural Development for Asia and the Pacific (CIRDAP) led by Dr. Cherdsak Virapat, Director General of CIRDAP to attend the 37th Technical Committee Meeting (TC-37) co-hosted by the CIRDAP and the Bureau of Foreign Agricultural Affair (BOFAA), National FAO Committee, Ministry of Agricultural and Cooperatives of Thailand during 9 – 12 September 2022 in Bangkok, Thailand.
In this occasion, Dr. Karnjanakesorn, as the head of delegates from the APTERR Secretariat who was accompanied with Mr. Prakorn Lorsiriwong and Ms. Passawee Sumalu, Administrative staff, delivered a statement to the participants about the issue on food security, poverty alleviation and malnourishment eradication during the emergency through APTERR’s mechanism along with the impressive successful outcomes of APTERR activities in the last 11 years of operation. Dr. Karnjanakesorn also stated that the APTERR Secretariat has been willing to cooperating with the CIRDAP to explore potential opportunities between the organisations to achieve the mutual humanitarian purposes and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
The 4-day meeting focused on discussing CIRDAP activities and accomplishments on the last fiscal year and the plans for the future projects, including the election of the new chairperson. In this regard, Thailand was elected to be the new chairperson, represented by Mr. Krit Hansawat, representative from the Bureau of Foreign Agricultural Affair (BOFAA), National FAO Committee, Ministry of Agricultural and Cooperatives of Thailand. During the last fiscal year, the CIRDAP conducted and pushed forward many projects which emphasised the significance of Integrated Rural Development Model (IRDM). Furthermore, the CIRDAP has been supporting gender equality and proposed the practical procedures for empowering women along with improving a rural development, agriculture and food security in Women, Youth and Development programme. The CIRDAP also encouraged the member countries as well as the observers to participate in the discussion and provide comments or statement in order to achieve the fruitful outcomes of the meeting.
In addition, there are 15 member countries of the CIRDAP in which 7 countries are also the APTERR members, consisting of Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Vietnam and Thailand.
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