Indonesia, 8 August 2019 – In conjunction with the celebration of the 52^nd ASEAN Day, ASEAN Farmers’ Organisations Support Programme (AFOSP), one of the ASEAN Foundation’s flagship programmes under community building pillar, was showcased in the ASEAN-EU Cooperation and Scholarship Day exhibition.

Under the exhibition theme of “ASEAN New Chapter: Striving Together,” AFOSP’s participation in this exhibition aimed to promote products of agricultural cooperatives from the region—chief of them is ASEAN coffee. Several coffees from Indonesia and Viet Nam were given for free to exhibition visitors. To ensure the authenticity of the information shared, Indonesian coffee farmers who are the beneficiaries of AFOSP were also invited to interact with curious visitors.

Apart from the exhibition, a launch event of EU-ASEAN Bluebook 2019 was also held in the old ASEAN Hall. The EU-ASEAN Bluebook 2019 is an annual publication that emphasises on the cooperation between the European Union and ASEAN. One of the focuses of the publication is economic cooperation, in which AFOSP becomes one of the flagship initiatives within it.

The Bluebook features several success stories of the AFOSP programme, such as empowering coffee farmers in Vietnam, developing drought-resistant farming techniques in Thailand, and building shed houses and sustainable cooling systems in Lao PDR. Download the full story here: http://bit.ly/EUbluebook2019.