Significant progress for Dairy Asia

The ‘Focal Points’ (lead organisation within a member country) of the thirteen Asian countries who are members of the Dairy Asia initiative, met in Bangkok in March for a two day workshop.

Launched only a year ago the Dairy Asia initiative through its members has achieved great things already.  The Dairy Asia Sustainability Framework has established its own set of 10 Strategic Objectives that align with both the Global Dairy Sustainability Framework Criteria and importantly the SDGs.  In addition, at the workshop, each member came to the meeting having established a local multi-stakeholder group and conducted meetings, to report in their top three priorities for their country.

Though some slight variations, it was amazing to work with each of these Focal Points and see the priority synergies between what are often quite diverse countries within the Dairy Asia network.  The knowledge gained from this exercise alone is invaluable in sharing, developing and implementing projects to address the identified priorities.

Already within the Dairy Asia network there is a genetics working group as genetic gain is seen as essential to increasing productivity and ultimately profitability – a high priority area for the region.

The DSF is now formally part of the Dairy Asia Steering Committee and two members of the Dairy Asia Steering Committee will be joining the existing DSF Governors to ensure that future DSF developments considers the needs and priorities of the Asian region also.

Members of the DSF may well be interacting with our colleagues from Dairy Asia in the future as they are now fully embedded into the DSF model and will be assisting us in developing our high level indicators for each DSF Criteria and will also be joining in our hugely popular member webinars’

It is an absolute pleasure to work with the Dairy Asia Secretariat team and its members and appreciating how we can best support the needs of both Dairy Asia and the DSF alike.  The MOU signed between the two initiatives has cemented an already excellent working relationship.