Final Announcement

 

Background
 

On March 21, 2003, the 3rd World Water Forum, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF) of Japan and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) co-organized the Ministerial Meeting on Water for Food and Agriculture. The meeting adopted the Ministerial Recommendation that addressed the three challenges, "Food security and poverty alleviation", "Sustainable water use" and "Partnership.”

In order to establish an international consortium which addresses the above three challenges, MAFF of Japan has proposed to set up an International Network for Water and Ecosystem in Paddy Fields (INWEPF), and the Informal Preparatory Meeting for the establishment of INWEPF was held in February 2004 in Tokyo. Finally, the 1st INWEPF Steering Meeting was held in Tokyo, Japan, in November 2004 and followed by the 2nd meeting in Seoul, Korea. In both the meetings, TOR (Terms of Reference) and Action Plan 2004-2006 had been established. At the 3rd INWEPF Steering Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, September 2006,  the membership was extended to a larger number of countries and an Action Plan for 2006-2007 was adopted together with the creation of three working groups led respectively by Malaysia, Japan and the Republic of Korea.

Activities
 

The INWEPF will provide an open platform for promoting dialogue, exchanging information and experiences, creating synergy among existing forums, strengthening capacity building, developing good practices and formulating ideas for innovative policy and management options in the field of sustainable paddy water use, conservation of environment and better governance. The strengthening of the network’s activity with the creation of three thematic working groups will increase the analytical capacity of the network as well as its production of tangible products such as guidelines and methodologies. During the symposium, the three working groups will finalize their Terms of Reference and elaborate their programmes of work.

The INWEPF steering meeting will discuss and make decisions on the organization’s administration and summarize the activities for the year 2007-2008, as well as the action plan. Among the agendas to be discussed in this 4th INWEPF Steering Meeting are as the following:    

Proposed Outputs
 



• Towards Development and Formulation of Good and Common Paddy Agriculture Practices based on common understanding and experiences amongst member countries.
• Identifying challenges and obstacles contributing towards achieving increased paddy yield production combined with continual environment enhancement.
• To produce standard practices (An Asian Standard Manual for Paddy Agriculture).
• To identify areas for Research and Development in Paddy Agriculture.
• To produce a User Friendly Manual/Guidelines (created to suit member countries condition or status) for paddy farmers to implement the standard practices formed.
• To assist and make available the necessary ways to obtain Infrastructures, Financial and Consultation for Paddy Agriculture farmers.
• To initiate and dynamize the three thematic groups of the network.

The Steering Meeting is a managing body to make decisions on the organization’s administration and to summarize the INWEPF activities and in principal will be held once a year. For more active communication, a Virtual Meeting (VM) was open on Internet, and there will be A VM in the coming months of March to June 2007. The results of the discussion at the VM will be reported to the 4th Steering Meeting.    

Working Groups (WG) were set up to discuss a specific theme, and are voluntarily organized by representatives from governments and experts. The first ad-hoc WG for Conference on water for food and Ecosystem, held in the Netherlands in February 2005, prepared a paper and contributed to the conference.  The ad-hoc WG was called out for WWF 4, scheduled to in Mexico, March 2006. At the 3rd Workshop and Steering Meeting, the following working groups were created:

-     WG 1: Multiple roles of Paddy Fields (Lead: INWEPF Malaysia; members: Malaysia, Korea, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Japan, Egypt, India, Myanmar, FAO)
-     WG 2: Vision, Policy and Information Dissemination on INWEPF activities and programs (Lead: INWEPF Korea; members: Korea, Japan. Myanmar, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, FAO)
-     WG 3: Monetary Assessment and Value Adding in the Multifunctional Roles of Paddy fields (Lead: INWEPF Japan; member: Pakistan, Japan, Korea, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, FAO)
Each WG will manage a parallel session on the second day of the Symposium

Symposium

Objectives

1. To strengthen international network for water management and ecosystem in paddy fields
2. To publicize technical papers and to exchange the other knowledge and capacity building
3. To promote and support technical role in the international forums