Relevant ASEAN Guidelines on Land Use

The basic objective of the ASEAN cooperation in food, agriculture and forestry is to formulate and implement regional cooperation activities to enhance the international competitiveness of ASEAN’s food, agriculture and forestry products as well as further strengthen the food security arrangement in the region and joint positions in international fora.

For more information on ASEAN’s engagement in this area, please visit :

ASEAN Secretariat website
ASEAN Secretariat Food, Agriculture and Forestry Division

This page includes relevant ASEAN guidelines on land use.

ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Sustainable Agriculture in ASEAN

Year: April, 2023
The guidelines for sustainable agriculture in ASEAN emphasize the need for the sustainable production of these agricultural inputs from available resources within ASEAN such as agriculture biomass and food wastes, promoting circularity in agriculture, cheaper farming inputs and leading to the greater competitiveness of ASEAN agricultural produce.

ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Promoting Climate-Smart Agriculture (CSA) Practices Volume 3

Year: April, 2023
The Volume 3 primarily aims to provide guidance on how ASEAN Member States (AMS) can promote the adoption and upscaling of CSA practices such as the ones presented in the ASEAN Guidelines. For this purpose, Volume 3 (1) provides assessment guidelines for prioritising the CSA approaches and (2) suggests principles for the promotion and adoption of CSA approaches among AMS.

Study on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in ASEAN

Year: April, 2023

The Study on Nature-based Solutions (NbS) in ASEAN seeks to provide a solid overview of the status of NbS (related to forest, bare land and coastal ecosystems) in the ASEAN Member States (AMS) and to

-take stock of and synthesize existing knowledge to identify best practices for NbS and their socio economic benefits across forest, bare land and coastal ecosystems,
-provide environmental and socio-economic evidence-based results in the Southeast Asian region by synthesizing existing knowledge and practices,
-identify available financial instruments and mechanisms to support the implementation and upscaling of appropriate NbS,
-provide recommendations on how to integrate and enhance the uptake of NbS in regional policies and at the local level.

Across these objectives, the study will review regional examples to provide a strong economic perspective and justification for NbS such as job creation, investment perspectives, incorporation into carbon markets etc.

Fact Sheet Overview of ASEAN Guidance Documents for Climate-Smart Land Use

Year: April, 2021
The ASEAN guidelines are not legally binding documents. Implementation of the guidelines is based on country priorities and on whether national users will see them as useful tools to support country policy processes.
The Guidelines can be helpful:
• To understand regional challenges and ASEAN Member States’ priorities;
• To find out about relevant principles, technologies and management practices;
• To learn from experience gained during application of these approaches in the ASEAN context;
• To receive guidance on the aspects to consider when developing regional, national or local strategies, policies or action plans;
• To exchange ideas and experience with other experts and policy-makers working in a related area.

ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Promoting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Practices Vol II

Year: September, 2017
The 2nd volume covers four additional priority practices for promoting climate resilience in agricultural sectors with additional regional cooperation potential for each topic;
– Agricultural insurance
– Integrated farming systems,
– Climate information services, and
– Rice shrimp farming.
They are based on what have been done and/or ongoing projects in ASEAN by partners.

ASEAN Regional Guidelines for Promoting Climate Smart Agriculture (CSA) Practices Vol I

Year: September, 2015
The guideline presents two major obstacles followed by recommendations in attempt to upscale CSA in the region: minimum regional cooperation and implementation of good practices. The guideline identified selected crops with high climate risk before proceeding to the good practices which AMS can refer to. The technical guidelines cover the following topics:
– Stress tolerant maize varieties
– Stress tolerant rice varieties
– Agro insurance using weather indices
– Alternate wetting & drying
– Cropping calendar for rice and maize

ASEAN Guidelines for Agroforestry Development

Year: 2018
The Guidelines are intended to be applicable to all types of land or ecosystems targeted for agroforestry interventions within ASEAN Member States (AMS). It is not a technical guideline for establishing agroforestry but, rather, a framework or facilitating dialogue in the design of agroforestry policies, programs, projects and investments between, and within, AMS. This guideline elaborates 13 principles and key guidelines for each principle that can act as “check list” for developing agroforestry program;
– Institutional Principles,
– Economic Principles,
– Socio-cultural principles,
– Technical design principles,
– Communication and scaling principles, including effective scaling up and sustainability.

The document is available in eight ASEAN languages as a reference only. Please visit the page

ASEAN Guidelines on Promoting Responsible Investment in Food, Agriculture and Forestry

Year : October, 2018
The guidelines promote favourable conditions to attract responsible investment in Food Agriculture and Forestry (FAF), creating such ecosystem grounded in Committee on World Food Security’s Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture Systems (CSF-RAI) to be implemented in ASEAN.
There are ten guidelines that can support ASEAN Member States (AMS) to nurture the ecosystem for responsible investment in FAF. Besides, the guidelines also address roles and responsibilities for identified FAF stakeholders such as agribusinesses and large-scale investors, smallholders, communities, civil society, financial sector actors and home countries.

The guidelines are available in the eight ASEAN languages. Please visit the ASEAN RAI Guidelines

AMAF’s Approach to Gender Mainstreaming in the Food, Agriculture and Forestry Sectors

Year : October, 2018
Approach to gender mainstreaming in Food Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) sectors is defined as public measures that apply a gender perspective which aims at affecting the behaviour of different stakeholders (producers, farmers, regulators, and so on), through in general:

– Ensure equal participation of women and men in all decision-making process, policy discussion, capacity building activities and capacity building (leadership, marketing, trading and business skills, etc) in all national and regional activities.
– Collect gender data during the design, implementation and monitoring and evaluation phase of all projects/activities.
– Provide opportunity for women to access different financial services such as credit, savings, remittances and insurance schemes for them to scale up.

The guideline elaborates challenges in various sector around food, agriculture and forestry, comes up with gender interventions to each strategic thrust for different SPAs in Livestock, Crop, Fisheries, Forestry, Climate change and Food security.

The document is available in eight ASEAN languages as a reference only. Please visit the page

10 Phases in Developing a National Crop Insurance Program: Guide Overview

Year : 2017
This is a step-by-step overview guide for prospective governments to consider before launching a national crop insurance program or to review for improving a current program. This 10 phase guide overview has been developed for the ASEAN Climate Resilience Network (ASEAN-CRN) Knowledge Exchange Event on Effective Policies for Promoting Agriculture Climate Insurance to Increase Resilience in ASEAN, held on 1618 August 2016 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

The document is available in eight ASEAN languages as a reference only. Please visit the page

ASEAN Public-Private Partnership Regional Framework for Technology Development in the Food, Agriculture and Forestry (FAF) Sector

Year: September, 2017
The overall objective of the ASEAN PPP Regional Framework for Technology Development in the FAF Sector (TDFAF) is to increase collaborative investments in sustainable technology development, adoption and dissemination throughout whole value chain in the FAF sector in ASEAN.

To achieve its objectives, the aim of the PPP Framework for TDFAF is to provide guidance to AMS on how to create a predictable and efficient PPP environment for promoting technology development and dissemination in FAF value chains. It also aims to contribute to increasing the harmonization of the PPP policies, legal frameworks and institutional arrangements in AMS.

The document is available in eight ASEAN languages as a reference only. Please visit the page

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