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ISEA President submits the GTP WEE in AVCs at 8th APFSD for their consideration so that no one is truly left behind amidst the pandemic

ISEA President Marie Lisa Dacanay, representing the Social and Community Enterprise Constituency of the Asia Pacific Regional Civil Society Mechanism (APRCEM-SCEC), submits for consideration the Guidelines for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains to the 8th Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development on 23 March 2018. 

The guidelines are set of proposed policies, programs and incentives that enable the practice of the Benchmarks for Transformational Partnership and Women’s Economic Empowerment. This is being promoted by Women’s Empowerment, Livelihood and Food in Agricultural Value Chains or WE LIVE FOOD Platform. The most advanced among the 5-multistakeholder platform for inclusive recovery and building back fairer that was launched in September 2020 with the support of UNESCAP, Oxfam, Embassy of Sweden in Bangkok, Japan Foundation Asia Center, APRCEM and ISEA. The key elements of which are: 

  1. Innovative agricultural value chain (AVC) development support programs that create food secure, resilient and empowered small producer communities;
  2. Investments that expand and enable women’s economic empowerment spanning all AVC functions and organizations engaged in AVC development, management and governance;
  3. Investments in Sustainable Consumption and Production systems that enable women and men small producers as stakeholders in achieving a climate resilient and green economy;
  4. Recognition and investment in support programs including hybrid financing for Social Enterprises and Inclusive Businesses as key enablers of women and men small producers in AVCs; and 
  5. Support for cross-sectoral and multi-stakeholder platforms that mainstream sustainable agriculture, transformational partnerships and women’s economic empowerment in AVCs towards measurable social impact and accelerating the SDGs.
Dacanay shared, “Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, we united as a sector to co-convene with UN ESCAP in September 2020 the Social Enterprise Advocacy and Leveraging Asia Conference where we launched 5 multi-stakeholder platforms for inclusive recovery and building back fairer.  Our most advanced platform is the Women’s Empowerment, Livelihood and Food in Agricultural Value Chains or WE LIVE FOOD. WE LIVE FOOD promotes a set of Benchmarks for Transformational Partnerships and Women’s Economic Empowerment in Agricultural Value Chains that have been translated into scorecards to assist not only social enterprises but also SMEs, agribusinesses and AVC program holders to contribute more to the achievement of 13 out of the 17 SDGs.”

She urged governments in Asia and the Pacific to recognize and enable social and community enterprises as critical partners in inclusive recovery efforts so no one is left behind and pave the way towards accelerating the SDGs during this crucial Decade of Action. 

Read the FULL STATEMENT in this link: Statement of the Social and Community Enterprise Constituency during the Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) 2021

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