From Nairobi to the rice paddies of Vietnam, a quiet revolution is underway. The Global South is rewriting the rules of agricultural resilience —through homegrown innovation, deep regional partnerships, and the power of South-South collaboration.
South-South collaboration is evolving beyond diplomacy—it’s becoming a force for transformation. At CGIAR Science Week (April 7–12), this shift was on full display, as farmers, funders, researchers, and policymakers came together in a powerful show of solidarity and science, united by one mission: to reimagine the future of food and agriculture.
Over 13,600 participants from around the world converged at the United Nations Complex in Nairobi, Kenya at the inaugural Science Week.
The week-long event wasn’t just another conference. It was a declaration—South-South collaboration is no longer just a diplomatic phrase; it is becoming the lifeblood of a new, locally-driven agricultural transformation.
One of the standout moments was the ASEAN-CGIAR plenary session, which spotlighted the Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security Regional Programme. This bold initiative, launched in 2023, is a strategic partnership between CGIAR and ten ASEAN member states. Backed by global allies like Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands, it focuses on eight key intervention areas, from climate-resilient crops to food safety, all designed in close collaboration with the very countries they serve.
It is the rising as the lifeblood of a new kind of agricultural transformation sweeping countries where climate change, . erratic weather patterns, resource-poor smallholder farmers, shrinking biodiversity, scarcity, malnutrition are impacting across Asia, Africa, Latin America.
The ASEAN-CGIAR Innovate for Food and Nutrition Security Regional Programme is one such initiative redefining what agricultural development looks like on the face of the growing challenges with the rising population and climate change.
Launched in 2023, this partnership between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and CGIAR—a global agricultural research alliance—aims to tackle shared agricultural challenges like climate change, food safety, malnutrition, resource scarcity, and poverty across Southeast Asia. To bolster agricultural sustainability and food security across the region, the program incorporates eight intervention packages (IPs), which encompass various activities.
Backed by global partners such as Australia, Japan, and the Netherlands, but co-created by the very countries it serves, the program now operates in ten ASEAN member states, including Vietnam, Myanmar, and Thailand. Its interventions cover eight critical focus areas—from climate-resilient crops to food safety and nutrition.
“This unlocks opportunities to look at regional commodities, markets, and capacity building,” says Dr. Yvonne Pinto, Director General of the International Rice Research Institute, underscoring the program’s regional relevance and global potential.
This quiet revolution is not driven by the usual “developed” North, but by the Global South itself—through a bold new wave of South-South collaboration.
A parallel example in South Asia is the CGIAR Research Initiative on Transforming Agrifood Systems in South Asia (TAFSSA). In 2023 alone, TAFSSA worked across India, Bangladesh, and Nepal, engaging over 189 partners—government agencies, private stakeholders, and civil society—to co-develop scientific innovations for climate resilience and nutrition.
Agri-food systems—spanning everything from cultivating crops and rearing livestock to processing, distribution, and consumption—are being reimagined through locally-rooted innovation. For decades, solutions were imported from the Global North, but these often lacked the nuance needed to succeed in the diverse climates and socio-economic conditions of the South. Today, nations are increasingly looking to one another, recognizing that their shared experiences may hold the key to collective resilience.
Take for example a Vietnamese farmer teaching water-efficient rice farming to peers in drought-stricken Indonesia. Or researchers in Brazil sharing drought-tolerant seeds with arid regions of Africa.
Vietnam, one of the participating countries, is already seeing results. According to To Viet Chau, Deputy Director General at Vietnam’s Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the government acknowledges the urgent need to adapt to climate stress. “Strategies that link local communities with the private sector can increase access to sustainable farming technologies and build farmer capacity,” he said.
The ASEAN-CGIAR model emphasizes a bottom-up, community-first approach—one that empowers local stakeholders and champions traditional knowledge alongside cutting-edge science.
That ethos was echoed across regions at the recent CGIAR Science Week in Nairobi, where Bongiwe Njobe, Chairperson of the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA), called for Africa to draw inspiration from ASEAN. “We face the same problems—urbanization, climate change, and food insecurity,” she said. “We now have the political will and structures to collaborate. It’s time to strengthen our systems and deepen our relational capital.”
TAFSSA led participatory crop diversification trials with 1,700 Indian farmers, tested sociotechnical bundles with 640 Bangladeshi farmers, and reached nearly 11,000 households through field days. In coastal Bangladesh, over 10,000 farmers protected their mung bean crops from weather shocks using bundled climate advisories.
The program also developed the first integrated agrifood system assessment in the region, collecting data from 4,000 households and 246 food markets, and publishing 40 research notes with evidence-based policy recommendations.
Whether it’s agroforestry—where trees are integrated with crops to restore soil and diversify incomes—or pest surveillance networks spanning borders, South-South cooperation accelerates impact through shared experience. It also fosters ownership and pride in homegrown solutions.
As civil society and research institutions join forces, even intermediaries like the Philippine Rice Research Institute are stepping in as “connectors.” “We broker. That way, work happens faster, and we don’t need to be the centre of everything,” says Executive Director John de Leon.
This decentralized, collaborative model is proving vital in a world where no single country can tackle food system challenges alone. “By leveraging regional cooperation, we can scale climate-smart agriculture, strengthen value chains, and build a more resilient food system,” said Satvinder Singh, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN.
Dr. Himanshu Pathak, Director General of the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), stressed the urgency of innovation. He shed light on the growing challenges of rural poverty and hunger across the Global South—and emphasized what it will truly take to build resilient and sustainable agricultural systems.
“Changing climate, increasing temperature, and increasing pollution are going to intensify the problem of degradation of its land, water, and air. To solve these problems, we strongly believe that new science and new technology will be very useful to address those challenges. New science means developing new varieties that are resistant or tolerant to climatic changes,” says Dr Pathak.
