 |  |
APEC Digital Prosperity Award Winners Bring Immersive Experience to Agriculture
Issued by the APEC SecretariatBrunei Darussalam’s Agronect, an app that provides access to education and immersive training experiences for farmers and agri-food entrepreneurs, has won this year’s APEC Digital Prosperity Award.
The annual prize was announced at the APEC Ministerial Meeting, which was held on Thursday in Bangkok and co-chaired by Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Don Pramudwinai and Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawit.
“The APEC Digital Prosperity Award serves as a practical platform to take forward the work of APEC in advancing digitalization and spurring innovation to increase productivity, open up more opportunities and improve the livelihoods of people across APEC,” Deputy Prime Minister Don Pramudwinai said during the announcement.
Watch: The 2022 APEC Digital Prosperity Award Winner
This year, the much-anticipated special award is centered around sustainability. With Thailand championing the bio-circular-green economy concept, the theme focused on promoting sustainable growth among small and micro-agricultural farms as well as potential entrepreneurs of sustainable agri-food businesses in the region.
Developed by Sarinah Ziziumiza and Nursheila Ziziumiza of Brunei Darussalam, Agronect enables farmers and agri-food entrepreneurs’ access to production techniques through immersive and interactive virtual reality training experiences, shared knowledge on green practices, and connections to new market opportunities.
The app was selected from among other apps developed by 14 software developer teams participating in the 2022 APEC App Challenge held at the margins of the APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade in May.
Read also: An App for Reducing Food Waste Lands First Place at APEC App Challenge
“Our main goal is to empower people to learn sustainable techniques that help them grow their businesses, and, using virtual reality and augmented reality, make it that much easier and lower the cost,” Sarinah explained. “To grow the agri-food sector more sustainably, we need to attract more talents and provide the necessary skills so that the future of food in the region can be secured.”
“These young developers are precisely what we need in this time of recovery,” said Dr Rebecca Sta Maria, Executive Director of the APEC Secretariat. “The app developed by Sarinah and Nursheila rose to the challenge by addressing the fundamental issues of skills and capacity building and combining them with innovative technology that serves as value-added to the learning platform.”
Since its inception in 2017, the APEC Digital Prosperity Award has been recognizing new digital solutions that demonstrate the potential to increase prosperity and inclusive growth across economies in the Asia-Pacific region.
“Through the APEC Digital Prosperity Award, the region’s youth continue to highlight the importance of policies promoting greater innovation and addressing trade issues,” said Kim McQuay, Managing Director, Program Specialists Group at The Asia Foundation. “This year’s winning team, Agronect, offers not only an innovative platform for smarter farming techniques and wider participation in the supply chain, but also a concrete contribution to Thailand’s vision for a bio-circular-green economy.”
A joint initiative of APEC Thailand 2022, the APEC Secretariat, the Asia Foundation, and Google, this is the sixth Digital Prosperity Award to spotlight talent and innovative software developers and designers from across the region.
“This is the first time the APEC Digital Prosperity Award honors innovation in the field of sustainable agriculture, in particular food production,” said Scott Beaumont, President of Google Asia Pacific. “This is an important pillar for many economies in the region, and to ensure food security and safety. We’re thrilled to see how digital technologies are being applied in innovative and effective ways to support the agriculture sector.”
For further details, please contact:
Masyitha Baziad at +65 9751 2146 or mb@apec.org
Michael Chapnick at +65 9647 4847 or mc@apec.org
APEC Should Rise Above Differences: Minister
Issued by the APEC Ministerial Meeting
Ministers from the 21 APEC member economies convene in person in Bangkok for the first time since 2018 against the backdrop of increasing inflation, food and energy prices, inequality and climate change.
Together, ministers are aligning their ideas for advancing Asia-Pacific integration, trade and investment in the common pursuit of a sustained and inclusive recovery in a highly uncertain world.
The 2022 APEC Ministerial Meeting is co-chaired by Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Don Pramudwinai and Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Commerce Jurin Laksanawit.
Policy recommendations were shared by representatives of the APEC Business Advisory Council and APEC’s official observers—the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council and Pacific Island Forum.
“Our meeting today takes place at a pivotal juncture,” said Deputy Prime Minister Don in his opening remarks.
“The world is staring at hyperinflation married to recession, broken supply chain and scarcities, climate calamites, as well as the precariously outdated mode of production that seriously needs recalibration in light of technological innovation.”
“And making the matter worse, we see the increased cancel mentality that permeates every conversation and action, makes any compromise appear impossible,” said Deputy Prime Minister Don.
“That’s why APEC this year must rise above these challenges and deliver hope to the world at large that, collaboratively, there is room that we can prevail and prosper.”
Under Thailand’s theme of APEC 2022, Open. Connect. Balance., Ministers are exchanging views on the bio-circular-green (BCG) economy model and how it can help APEC members achieve a sustainable and inclusive recovery, as well as long-term growth.
“The fourth industrial revolution that has already made its irretrievable world entrance, calls upon us to rethink our growth strategy in terms of increased sustainability and inclusiveness, and, most fundamentally, more balanced,” he said.
Deputy Prime Minister Don further explained that rapid technological innovation, environmental degradation and climate change, coupled with the frightening gap in inequality, require leaders of APEC member economies “to ponder the way we can and must do better and cooperate more.”
“The way we do trade requires new tactical and strategic adjustments, and more importantly a new mindset to make these needed adjustments possible,” Deputy Prime Minister Don said. “To maintain status quo is not an option.”
Deputy Prime Minister Don highlighted the positive progress of the Bangkok Goals on the BCG Economy, which will be presented to APEC leaders. The objectives are aimed at advancing and integrating APEC’s sustainability agenda into the mainstream.
In his remarks, Deputy Prime Minister Jurin, who was also the chair of the 2022 APEC Ministers Responsible for Trade Meeting in May, highlighted the progress made on the multi-year workplan on the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific, noting that deepening the region’s integration is key to addressing economic uncertainties.
Ministers are also focused this year on the next steps to reconnect the region, develop safe passage and build resilience, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic forced many economies to impose strict policies in movement and cross-border travel.
Drawing on the lessons from the last two years, ministers deliberated on measures to improve coordination between their health policies to ensure that travel in the region will remain open and safe in the face of future pandemics and shocks.
The decisions ministers make today will inform the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting on Friday and Saturday.
For further details, please contact:
Masyitha Baziad +65 9751 2146 at mb@apec.org
Michael Chapnick +65 9647 4847 at mc@apec.org
Securing a Green Future for the Asia-Pacific
By Rebecca Sta Maria
APEC’s Bangkok Goals for a bio-circular-green Asia-Pacific economy will set the region on a path of prosperity and sustainability
With November’s cluster of multilateral meetings—G20, COP27 and the APEC Economic Leaders’ Meeting, for instance—there is some good news: we don’t have to create high carbon emissions to produce economic growth.
Consider the growing number of high-to-middle-income economies that have maintained growth while cutting emissions. It’s welcome news in 2022—a year of renewed vigor and live gatherings once again after the gloom of the COVID-19 pandemic. Its effects on the health, social fabric and economic well-being of the world have been severe, its damage incalculable.
The pandemic has made one thing clear: global crises can only be dealt with by many governments working together towards a single goal.
Right now, there is nothing more important than climate change.
To be sure, it is a global threat, but its effects are disproportionately felt in the Asia-Pacific region, where APEC’s 21 member economies are situated. Consider the following: since APEC’s inception in 1989, the region has been buffeted by 36 percent of the world’s natural disasters. Disaster-related losses in APEC, most of them weather-related, have topped a whopping USD 111 billion annually.
To compound matters, the World Bank estimates a 7.3 percent loss of GDP across APEC by year 2100. Much of the loss will be experienced by developing economies nearer the equator due to coastal flooding.
As if by karmic circumstance, APEC member economies produce greenhouse emissions at disproportionately higher rates than their share of output or population. Between 1990 and 2018, the region’s greenhouse gas emissions grew 1.9 percent annually, higher than the world’s average of 1.1 percent.
In crisis there is opportunity. Indeed, there’s never been a more opportune moment for APEC to confront the climate challenge than now, more so due to the convergence of certain factors.
For one thing, the massive post-COVID stimuli deployed by governments to accelerate recovery could—or should—be used, in part, to further integrate environmental sustainability with growth. Also, this year’s host economy and next year’s are both supportive of accelerating sustainability.
The US is set to host in 2023 and we can expect priorities focused on environmental resilience and climate change. Indeed, the last APEC year hosted by the US, in 2011, saw members agreeing to reduce energy intensity in the Asia-Pacific by 45 percent by 2035—up from a previous commitment of 25 percent by 2030.
More germane to the present is the commitment of Thailand, the host of 2022, to sustainability. The theme this year—"Open, Connect, and Balance”—reflects Thailand’s prioritization of an inclusive and sustainable post-pandemic recovery. As APEC chair, its goal is to spread the use of its flagship environmental initiative, the bio-circular-green economy model, throughout APEC.
The BCG concept is a catch-all approach to achieving sustainability. It ropes three forms of an environment-friendly-economy together: the bioeconomy which concerns renewable resources and bio-based materials;
the circular economy, which deals with regenerative production-consumption systems, eliminating waste, reusing, recycling, composting, and the like;
the green economy, or leveraging ecosystem processes for human benefit without jeopardizing sustainability.
We hope the BCG economic model will be used as a post-pandemic growth strategy, a framework for addressing long-term economic issues.
Many challenges lie ahead with climate change. Its solutions must therefore be interconnected and collaborative, where science and technology, academic research and policy, and public and private sectors join to promote the optimum use of resources.
Embedding the BCG economic model into APEC’s workstreams will mean turning it into a roadmap. Thailand’s lodestar document will be called the Bangkok Goals, after similar geographically tagged initiatives in the APEC scripture. Examples include the Bogor Goals, the Putrajaya Vision and the La Serena Roadmap.
“The Bangkok Goals will advance APEC’s sustainability and inclusion objectives in a bold, comprehensive and ambitious manner,” according to Thani Thongphakdi, Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs and the 2022 Chair of APEC Senior Officials. It will reinforce and contribute to ongoing global actions such as the ones set in Kyoto, Paris and Glasgow.
To implement these goals, APEC will accelerate the creation of a conducive regulatory framework, ramp up capacity building and infrastructure development, and will do what it does best—creating networks among stakeholders to foster discussion and incubate ideas.
I mentioned that certain economic trends are proving that growth doesn’t have to come at the price of high carbon emissions. It's a trend that is more prevalent in developed economies, predominantly in Europe but with a few standouts in the APEC region.
APEC economies represent diversity in terms of culture, politics, size and wealth. For initiatives to flourish, they will need to be inclusive, flexible and designed to benefit the majority rather than the few. A greenlight from member economies on the Bangkok Goals and passage into APEC’s long game as a workstream, will set the region on a growth trajectory towards a more sustainable, inclusive and resilient future.
#
Dr Rebecca Sta Maria is the executive director of the APEC Secretariat. This article was first published by the Bangkok Post on 18 November 2022.
