On World Food Day, Grow Asia brought together members and partners for its Annual General Meeting in Singapore. The event featured high-level discussions focused on advancing sustainable food systems, with participation from public, private, and civil society partners.
Over the past year, Grow Asia has worked through its country chapters in Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and Viet Nam to implement projects that have reached nearly 4 million farmers. This progress was made possible through the support of partners dedicated to driving measurable and scalable impact in the region.
The event also highlighted plans for 2025, with a key focus on addressing the climate financing gap threatening Southeast Asia's food security and the livelihoods of 70 million small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and smallholder farmers. The GrowBeyond blended-finance model was spotlighted as a crucial strategy in this effort.
Several impactful projects were showcased, including:
GrowHer: Kakao – empowering women in agriculture.
The Grow Asia Innovation Challenge – promoting sustainable rice farming.
Agricultural economic growth corridors in Papua New Guinea.
Panel discussions featured insights from sectoral and industry leaders, such as María Ángeles León López of Global Social Impact Investments, Marie Cheong of Wavemaker Impact, and Niall O’Connor of the Stockholm Environment Institute. They shared perspectives on mobilizing climate finance for smallholder agriculture.
Global partners also contributed to the dialogue. Tania Strauss from the World Economic Forum emphasized the need to connect demand and supply-side initiatives for agri-SMEs, while Thule Lenneiye from AGRA called for stronger South-South collaboration between Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Grow Asia, alongside its 700+ partners, remains committed to pursuing scalable and transformative agricultural solutions in the months ahead.