Grow Asia

### Social Media

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/grow-asia-partnership/ Twitter - https://twitter.com/Grow\_Asia Flickr - https://www.flickr.com/photos/grow\_asia Youtube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJ5bdPyaNrJePi7d1lSQDOg/videos

## Summary

Grow Asia brings together South East Asia's smallholder farmers, governments, companies, NGOs and other stakeholders, to develop inclusive and sustainable value chains and initiatives.

It launches and supports locally-driven Country Partnerships, helping them define their strategy, engage new partners and develop innovative solutions. Grow Asia enables stakeholders from different disciplines to leverage each other's expertise, share insights and learn from regional experiences. Today, Grow Asia collaborates with over 500 partners across six Country Partnerships, reaching close to 1.8 million smallholders through their network.

Grow Asia was established by the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat, to convene, facilitate, and help scale action-focused partnerships. Grow Asia is accredited as an Entity Associated with ASEAN.

## Mission

At Grow Asia's core are three goals - to increase the productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability of smallholder agriculture across the region by helping them access knowledge, technology, finance and markets.

## Initiatives

#### COVID-19 Response

Grow Asia is bringing together representatives from the public, private, and producers sectors to map out sequenced and practical action plans along four regional Working Groups: Rural Logistics, Mobile Money, Digital Marketing and Digital Enablement.

These Working Groups will identify ways partners can come together to increase the resilience of the ASEAN food system and address the weaknesses COVID-19 has revealed. This includes near-term action on areas with the greatest long-term potential, and to “build back better” a food supply chain which is more inclusive and sustainable.

#### Digital Learning Series

This series provides trainings and insights on how digital solutions can be developed and scaled. In 2019, Grow Asia organized six events covering themes such as digital credit scoring, traceability, drones, and application development.

#### Grow Asia Innovation Challenge

Grow Asia has run Hackathons in Singapore, Indonesia and Thailand. The team invites entrepreneurs to build digital solutions to solve challenges in smallholder value chains. These events allow entrepreneurs to be exposed to specific smallholder digital challenge and to rapidly prototype a new solution.

#### Digital ASEAN

A start-up Accelerator, developed in partnership with Yara and MUFG bank, to equip start-up founders to scale their smallholder digital solution by providing them with learning and mentoring opportunities. In 2019, Grow Asia received over 100 submissions to the program, and 14 were shortlisted to join the selection boot camp in Singapore. Seven Seven startups were accepted into the first cohort of an eight-month mentorship program with Grow Asia's corporate partners, which ended with a Demo Day.

#### Grow Asia Digital Directory

A database of over 66 (and counting) agricultural digital solutions for smallholder value chains in ASEAN.

#### Human-Centered Design (HCD) Training

Grow Asia invited startup founders and corporate leaders on a three-day immersion in a rural location in Indonesia to meet with farmers and learn how adopting a HCD approach benefits value chains. The training provided participants with a toolkit to map smallholder challenges and build digital solutions that address actual needs in value chains.

#### Digital Guides and Reports

Grow Asia produces reports and guides on digital themes for business leaders. Examples include a Digital Credit Scoring Guide, and a Driving AgriTech Adoption report that provides insights from Southeast Asia’s farmers on how solution developers, corporates and the public sector can more effectively engage smallholders through digital tools.

#### Response to The Fall Armyworm

The fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) was first reported in Southeast Asia in late 2018 in Thailand and Myanmar. It has since rapidly spread, and its presence is now confirmed in almost all ASEAN countries. The pest can cause major damage, particularly to maize, with estimates indicating an annual USD884 million cost to the region. In 2019, ASEAN supported the development of a regionally coordinated response and requested that Grow Asia, with the ASEAN Secretariat and the Vietnamese Government, develop a regional FAW strategy. The ASEAN Action Plan on Fall Armyworm Control was subsequently approved as a regional action plan in August 2020. This Plan sets out the goals, objectives, and work programs to manage the pest over the next five years. Grow Asia is the secretariat of the Action Plan.

#### Grow Asia Learning Alliance

With the support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Grow Asia established the Grow Asia Learning Alliance (GALA) to help knowledge producers – such as research institutes, universities and think tanks – connect with agribusinesses, while providing them with tools to navigate partnerships with business.

#### Gender Mainstreaming

Grow Asia's work here includes actively brokering partnerships within their network, distilling and disseminating good practices across companies and sectors, embedding gender inclusive internal policies and practices, and supporting gender-responsive policymaking at national and regional levels

#### Promoting Responsible Investment

As a result of Grow Asia’s expertise in convening multi-stakeholder partnerships, the ASEAN Secretariat requested Grow Asia’s support in developing the ASEAN Guidelines on Promoting Responsible Investment on Food, Agriculture, and Forestry (ASEAN RAI). The ASEAN RAI was formally adopted by the ASEAN Ministers of Agriculture and Forestry in October 2018. It is a guidance framework that aims to ensure larger-scale agribusiness investments are socially, economically, and environmentally sustainable and inclusive, and contribute to regional economic development, food and nutrition security, food safety and the sustainable use of natural resources.

Grow Asia is now working to support the implementation of the ASEAN RAI, together with the Institute for International Development (IISD), the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), and with funding from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC). The team is also working to implement the ASEAN RAI through partnerships with ASEAN Member States (AMS), agribusinesses, financial institutions, farmer organizations and NGOs.

## Get in Touch

8A Craig Road

Singapore 089668

[6221 9528]

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1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Grow Asia LinkedIn Page. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.linkedin.com/company/grow-asia-partnership/
2. ↑ Grow Asia/ COVID-19. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/covid-19
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 Grow Asia/ Digital. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/digital
4. ↑ Grow Asia/ Fall Armyworm Control. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/fall-armyworm-control
5. ↑ Grow Asia/ Grow Asia Learning Alliance. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/gala
6. ↑ Grow Asia/ Gender. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/gender
7. ↑ Grow Asia/ RAI. Retrieved on 25 April 2021. https://www.growasia.org/rai