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A roving workshop in Cambodia will facilitate cross-learning among local leaders in Southeast Asia and prepare for the upscaling of climate-smart practices.

Making communities climate-smart involves not only just increasing communities’ awareness of climate change. Local leaders and communities should also know the specifics of each practice and how these could help in their own contexts.

The CGIAR Research Program on Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security in Southeast Asia (CCAFS SEA) is organizing a third roving workshop for local and farmer leaders from the Climate-Smart Villages (CSVs) in SEA. This is currently being held in Cambodia from 14-18 August 2017.

Aside from enhancing the participants’ knowledge on climate-smart agriculture (CSA), the workshop will also facilitate cross-learning between communities and prepare them for bringing appropriate practices to scale.

In this roving workshop, we are engaging local leaders beyond the CSVs as possible advocates for upscaling. The workshop would expose them to different options for making their communities climate-smart,” says Dr Leocadio Sebastian, regional program leader of CCAFS SEA.

Organizers are expecting 26 local leaders from the CSVs (Ma, My Loi and Tra Hat in Vietnam; Phailom and Ekxang in Laos; Rohal Suong in Cambodia; and Guinayangan in the Philippines), communes and districts where the CSVs are located. Also included are interpreters for the Vietnamese and Laotian participants, and researchers from CCAFS SEA and WorldFish, the lead center for the Cambodian CSV.

Participants will be visiting the Rohal Suong CSV and other project areas for CSA, where they can interact with people from the communities and other implementers of climate-smart practices. After these field visits, the participants will also have synthesis and reflection sessions to process their learnings. Their respective best practices and updates on the outcomes of previous workshops will be shared then.

Two other roving workshops have already been held in the Philippines and Vietnam. Farmers from Southeast Asian CSVs first visited the municipality of Guinayangan, Philippines last 08-17 September 2015. The second workshop was held from 22 to 28 May 2016 in Vietnam.

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Amy Cruz is the junior communications specialist for the World Agroforestry Centre Philippines. She is also a communication consultant with the CCAFS SEA program.