From paper to practice: How a simple idea is transforming food systems across the Mekong
On March 18, 2026, researchers from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT took the stage at the Asian Development Bank's Asia and Pacific Food Systems Forum in Manila to make a pointed argument to national policymakers and development finance officials: the world does not have a policy problem. It has an implementation problem.
- food systems
- Vietnam
From paper to practice: How a simple idea is transforming food systems across the Mekong
On March 18, 2026, researchers from the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT took the stage at the Asian Development Bank's Asia and Pacific Food Systems Forum in Manila to make a pointed argument to national policymakers and development finance officials: the world does not have a policy problem. It has an implementation problem.
Imagine you are a health official in Son La, a mountainous province in northern Vietnam. Your job is to improve nutrition. Down the corridor, an agriculture colleague is helping farmers grow more diverse vegetables. A few floors up, someone from the education department is running school feeding programs. You have never met. Your budgets are separate. Your targets are different. And your work is happening in entirely different villages.
This is not hypothetical. When the team sat down with provincial officials in Son La, they found 45 ongoing activities all touching on food systems but with few comprehensive exchanges across sectors.
The result? Scarce public resources scattered across the landscape, with limited ability to connect the dots between better farming, healthier diets, and stronger communities.