1. Sustainable rural development is vital to the economic, social and environmental viability of nations, the same way that it is essential for poverty eradication as global poverty is overwhelmingly rural (UN, 2020). Experiences have shown that national and global poverty reduction targets will not be met unless poverty in rural areas is reduced. Southeast Asia’s strategic importance and great potential as a global development contributor cannot be over emphasised, and yet the region faces serious rural developmental challenges and high incidence of rural poverty. There is thus a need to review the region’s approaches to rural development.

2. The ASEAN region supplies over 50 percent of the world’s food and yet it houses a third of the world’s poor. It is home to 668.62 million people (as of 2020) with the third largest labor force, next only to India and China. Rising food prices are bringing the specter of food shortages and under nutrition to millions more of the region’s poor now greatly aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.