Abstract

Food export bans have increased in frequency amidst COVID-19, as well as the Ukraine War, including Russia’s withdrawal from the Black Sea Grain deal. Further contributing to food price increases, are the recent searing heat waves that have surfaced the risk of increased climate-induced variability in crop-growing conditions. Geopolitical challenges likewise continue to unravel, including logistics disruptions in the Red Sea that resulted from the Hamas-Israel conflict, as part of the larger ongoing Iran-Israel proxy conflict. The recent elections in Indonesia and India, as the two largest countries in Southeast and South Asia respectively, further create potential for significant change in the way these countries deal with their food security concerns. Is Southeast Asia’s food security at risk? This webinar discusses how the Asian region and the larger global community can better prepare for future risks which could escalate food export bans, building on multilateral approaches.

About the Speakers

David Laborde is the Director for Agrifood Economics division at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations since February 2023. In this role, he supervises a number of flagship publications, such as the State of Food Security and Nutrition (SOFI) or the State of Food and Agriculture (SOFA), and leads the division’s work on policy monitoring, policy reform, and realignment of incentives to support agrifood system transformation. He also provides leadership on two priority areas for the institution: resilience and bioeconomy.

Xianbin Yao is Senior Advisor to the Asian Development Bank on Agriculture, Food Security, Natural Capital and Rural Development, and in this capacity is leading the ADB’s review of the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserves (APTERR). He has been with the ADB for more than two decades, and was previously the Director General of ADB’s Pacific Department, and Director General for ADB’s Regional and Sustainable Development Department, leading and coordinating the ADB-wide sector and thematic operations including climate change, food security and social development. Dr. Yao received his doctoral degree in Agricultural Economics from the Michigan State University.

Jansinee Kankaew is the Head of Implementation at the ASEAN Plus Three Emergency Rice Reserves (APTERR) Secretariat. The APTERR is a regional cooperation which established Earmarked Emergency Rice Reserves and Stockpiled Emergency Rice Reserves contributed by each member country to aid victims in the time of adversity. It was established under the APTERR Agreement  signed by the Ministers of the Agriculture and Forestry of the ASEAN Plus Three at the 11th Meeting of the ASEAN Minister on Agriculture and Forestry Plus Three (AMAF+3) on 7 October 2011 in Jakarta, Indonesia.

About the Discussant

Denis Hew is Senior Research Fellow with the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Prior to taking up his current appointment, Dr Hew was Director of the APEC Policy Support Unit (PSU) from 2011 to 2022. PSU is the research arm of the APEC, which is a regional forum that promotes trade and investment in the Asia-Pacific region. In this position, he led a team of skilled professionals that provided high quality evidence-based research and technical support to APEC Senior Officials, Committees and Working Groups. Dr Hew is a financial economist by training and holds a Bachelors (Hons) in Economics from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom and Masters and Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Manchester, United Kingdom. He has published extensively on policy issues related to economic integration in ASEAN and the Asia-Pacific region.

About the Moderating Speaker

Jose Ma Luis Montesclaros is a Research Fellow with the Centre of Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre), S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Dr Montesclaros conducts policy analysis with dynamic models of food security and climate change, and has been involved in studies on digital technology futures in Southeast Asia and beyond. His Ph.D. dissertation in International Political Economy with RSIS, NTU, focused on “Institutions and Agricultural Transformation: A Study of Induced Innovation in the Philippine Rice Sector”. Previously, he obtained his Master’s in Public Policy with the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKYSPP), National University of Singapore as an ASEAN Scholar, and his BS Economics Degree with the University of the Philippines. He was one of the two “Leaders of Tomorrow” representing LKYSPP, NUS at the 44th Saint Gallen Wings of Excellence Awards in 2014 (Switzerland).