Jakarta. ASEAN’s recent meeting with its dialogue partner Australia ended with the Southeast Asian bloc getting financial support worth millions of Aussie dollars to help protect its animals and plants from pests and diseases.

Indonesia last week hosted a gathering of ASEAN foreign ministers and their counterparts from the bloc’s external partners. Australia appointed its top diplomat Penny Wong to take part in the ASEAN talks. Food security was on the agenda in a special session between ASEAN and Australia, with the latter announcing a series of financial support.

“ASEAN’s post-ministerial conference [PMC] session with Australia saw the announcement of [an additional investment of] A$ 1.4 million [$954,520] for the Bio-Protection Research Alliance,” ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn said in a briefing in Jakarta on Tuesday.

ASEAN chair Indonesia had previously mentioned Australia’s additional investment for the research alliance in a chairman’s statement issued after the PMC talks. 

According to the document, the Bio-Protection Research Alliance is an ASEAN-Australian partnership that seeks to strengthen ASEAN’s capacity to control pests and diseases. Both parties agreed to issue a joint leaders’ statement for better food security cooperation this September.

Kao Kim Hourn also told Tuesday’s forum that Australia agreed to “provide A$ 2.2 million to support the ASEAN-CGIAR Innovate for Food Regional Program.” 

As the name suggests, this initiative aims to scale up integrated innovations for ASEAN’s agri-food systems, including addressing transboundary pests and diseases. The CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future.