South Asia
About
Home to more than 1.8 billion people, South Asia has incredible diversity across climates, economies, and cultures. It holds the promise of exciting development opportunities while facing complex challenges. For more than five decades, South Asia has hosted some of CGIAR’s most treasured partnerships and has contributed significantly to the introduction, growth and scaling of new technological innovations. Farmers’ ambition to adopt innovations and policymakers’ support for scaling has increased household food security in the most densely populated region of the world. Now, climate change and nutrition security are challenging the region in new ways.
Effective engagement with partners is critical to ensuring a food secure future for all, and a coordinated strategy and regional presence facilitate robust collaboration and joint action with stakeholders. CGIAR helps determine advocacy priorities through the triangulation of demand, supply, and feasibility, helping inform global, regional and countries policies and investments, and provides services for partners.
In South Asia, CGIAR is a trusted independent party, providing a single point of entry as well as solutions for coordinated action across sectors. Its focus on capacity-sharing for development enables structured multi-directional spaces for co-learning and co-creation through collaborative research, training and other arrangements of mutual interest. CGIAR also brings private sector collaboration, through resources, capacities, and networks crucial to co-developing and deploying innovations and technologies that benefit people and the planet at scale.
Challenges and Opportunities
- South Asia is the world’s most poverty- and malnutrition-dense region.
- The region faces deep inequalities, major resource degradation, and is a global hotspot for climate change risk.
- There is immense diversity in the region, both within and across countries, with a wide range of agroecological zones that span mountains to polders, as well as in food traditions and traditional or heritage crops.
- Despite this, farming is heavily cereal-based and needs significant diversification.
Research and Action
CGIAR works to:
- Transform current food systems to become more sustainable and equitable and increase nutrition security across the region.
- Deliver an integrated approach to research that fills the gaps in current research-for-development work, and more acutely responds to national and local demands and expectations.
- Share scientific expertise more easily within the region and across other countries of the Global South.
Services for partners include:
- Discovery Hub: A place to explore opportunities for collaboration in formal and informal settings.
- Partner and Landscape Intelligence: Enabling partners to collect, analyze and share data and insights on trends, opportunities, and market demand.
- Advocacy for Impact (A4I): Services to strategize, plan and implement advocacy actions and campaigns.
- Private Partnerships for Impact (PP4I): Services to create new business opportunities that scale knowledge, research outcomes, and innovations, and facilitate technology-sharing and equitably monetize knowledge products and services that align with market and stakeholder demand.
- Innovation and MELIA Lab: for the co-creation, prototyping, piloting, and assessment of new partnerships models.
- Partnerships and Advocacy Lifecycle Hubs: Making available strategic guidance and operational support for the origination, implementation, and closure or renewal of partnerships and purposeful advocacy to maximize partnership benefits, mitigate risks, and reduce transaction costs.
Initiatives
Explore CGIAR Initiatives in South Asia
Innovations
Explore 50 years of CGIAR Innovations in South Asia
Partners
Advocacy yields true impact when it reflects the needs of people affected directly by issues and elevates their voice. Effective partnerships create opportunities to co-create solutions, leverage synergies, share assets and resources, and create spaces for new and diverse voices to emerge and exchange knowledge. Partnerships built on trust, shared visions, and common goals are vital to achieving planetary and human well-being that they are the foundations of, and integrated into, the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda. CGIAR works with partners to co-identify challenges, co-generate evidence, and co-deliver innovations.
Publications
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Navigating One Health in research-for-development: Reflections on the design and implementation of the CGIAR Initiative on One Health
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)25.03.24-
Health
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Nutrition, health & food security
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Knowledge and practices related to antibiotics among poultry producers and veterinarians in two Indian states
International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI)12.03.24-
Health
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Nutrition, health & food security
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Transforming towards sustainability: Experiences in food systems and healthy diets
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)31.12.23-
Nutrition, health & food security
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Solar Irrigation Pump (SIP) Sizing Tool: IPSR Innovation Profile
CGIAR Initiative on NEXUS Gains15.11.23-
Environmental health & biodiversity
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ThIRST: Targeted IRrigation Support Tool for sustainable coffee production
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)15.11.23 -
Price volatility across scales and farmer maneuvering in Lao cassava markets
The Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT)27.10.23-
Poverty reduction, livelihoods & jobs
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News
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The hidden crisis of disaster displacement and host community struggles in rural areas of Pakistan
CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration19.04.24-
Climate adaptation & mitigation
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Gender equality, youth & social inclusion
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Social inclusion
Two years after devastating floods submerged a third of the country, killing more than 1,700…
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CGIAR Climate Smart Governance Dashboard: turning the tables from climate-vulnerable to climate-resilient
CGIAR Initiative on Climate Resilience03.04.24-
Adaptation
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Climate adaptation & mitigation
By Giriraj Amarnath and Martina Mascarenhas, CGIAR Research Initiative on Climate Resilience (ClimBe…
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Delta Talks webinar highlights inclusive water governance in Bangladesh
CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas02.04.24-
Adaptation
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Climate adaptation & mitigation
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Gender equality, youth & social inclusion
For the eighth installment of Delta Talks, the CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas (AMD) and…
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CGIAR, through IAES, engages with IRRI, Asian Mega-Deltas Initiative and Asia-Pacific stakeholders to promote and strengthen evaluation practices and culture in the region
CGIAR Initiative on Asian Mega-Deltas28.03.24-
Adaptation
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Climate adaptation & mitigation
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Mitigation
CGIAR through the Independent Advisory and Evaluation Services emphasizes the crucial role of evalua…
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Scientists reflect on the design and implementation of the CGIAR One Health Initiative
CGIAR Initiative on One Health22.03.24-
Health
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Nutrition, health & food security
In a new research article published in the journal One Health (Mar 2024), the lead…
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Leveraging water for peace: Is water the ultimate peacemaker?
CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration22.03.24-
Climate adaptation & mitigation
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Gender equality, youth & social inclusion
Water is essential for all life on our planet. Explore how this precious resource can…
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