Results Presentation and Way Forward Meeting of C-SUCSeS Project held from 27-28 June 2025 at Colombo, Sri Lanka
Two days ‘Results Presentation Meeting and Way Forward’ was held on 27-28 June 2025 at Hotel Ramada,
Colombo, Sri Lanka under IFAD and SDF funded project on “Consortium for scaling up climate smart agriculture in South Asia”. The meeting was attended by Mr. Abdulkarim, Sma, Lead Economist IFAD, Ms. Irosha Cooray, Officer Incharge (OIC) SDF, Dr. Shahidur Rashid, Director IFPRI, Dr. Harunur Rashid, Director SAC, Dr. Raza Ullah Khan, RPC, C-SUCSeS project and scientist of National Agriculture Research and Extension system (NARES) of SAARC member countries (MCs) including national focal point (NPP) and associated scientists from seven SAARC MCs; Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka physically while participant from India joined virtually.
The two days meeting started with traditional candle lighting followed by welcome address by Director SAC. Mr. D.P. Wickramasinghe, Secretary, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock, Land and Irrigation, Government of Sri Lanka was the Chief Guest at the inaugural session, while Mr. Abdulkarim Sma, Ms. Irosha Cooray, Dr. Shahidur Rashid were Special Guests. The Chief Guest elaborated the investment plan, Sri Lankan Government is pursuing to develop agriculture sector of the country and emphasized on learning from each other to develop collective wisdom against climate change impacts.
The technical session of day 1 (27 June 2025) started with country presentation by NPP sharing success stories, lessons learnt and need for sustainability of the project. The technical session on second day (28th June),
resource persons from IFPRI talked about the importance of including fisheries and crop sectors in phase-II, the scalability, and dissemination of the project results. Dr. Raza Ullah Khan, RPC presented the scope and support for including livestock and fisheries in the second phase of the project and the need for strengthening Community of Practice (CoP). Dr. Shahidur Rashid, IFPRI emphasized on the need for partnership and upscaling, broaden our partnership” not to broaden scope of the project, he added that a team is needed to coordinate with SAC, IFAD, IFPRI while working with multiple partners, and the need for “cross learning” as climate change do not care for boundaries and countries. Ms. Irosha Cooray, SDF stress on the need to look whether the proposed phase-II of the C-SUCSeS project is aligned with the institutional mandate,
goals and the thematic priorities. She added that though we are already there, but we need to look again at the strategic alignment of the phase-II, relevancy and justification etc. Therefore, we need to be more focus and specific, what are justifications, and what are the problems we are going to address. As we are going with several countries, we need to be more specific. We need to be more specific and focus on project methodologies and project design etc. Mr. Tanvir Ahmad Torophder, Director ARD, SAARC Secretariat, Nepal stressed upon the need for the second phase of the project, he calls upon inhouse capability to ensure intime and qualitive assurance in deliverabilities of the project. Mr. Abdulkarim Sma.
IFAD talked about developing a scaling up strategy for the phase-II of the C-SUCSeS. He added that we need to consider specific technologies for example to pick 1-2 CSA technologies say AWD and develop ‘pathway’ how far we can scale up this technology from baseline point look for the investment plan and policy support from respective governments to upscale such technologies.
The two days meeting ends by vote of thanks remarks by Director SAC Dr. Harunur Rashid, he thanks all stakeholders, organizers for the two days meeting and highlighted the ceaseless efforts behind the success.
He also added that the consortium developed strong interaction among the NARES of SAARC MCs and underlined the importance of C-SUCSeS Phase-II. Dr. Upul Ratnayake Add’l Secretary, technology, Government of Sri Lanka, and NPP-Sri Lanka presented overview of the two days meeting and thanked organizer for choosing Sri Lanka for hosting the meeting.