Phl-hosted center, Korean entity team up for climate change proj

LOS BAÑOS, Laguna, Philippines  – A Philippine government-hosted Southeast Asian center based here and a Korea agency have agreed to cooperate in a number of research and development (R&D) projects, among them on climate change.

A memorandum of understanding (MOU) along this line has been signed here by the Southeast Asian Ministers of Education Organization-Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (SEARCA) and the Korea Adaptation Center for Climate Change (KACCC).

Signatories to the MOU were SEARCA director Dr. Gil C. Saguiguit Jr. and KACCC director Dr. Young Han Kwon. Witnesses were Susan V. Fernandez, head of SEARCA’s Management Services Unit, and Huicheul Jung, KACCC research fellow.

SEARCA is one of the 20 “centers of excellence” of SEAMEO, an intergovernment treaty body founded in 1965 to foster cooperation among Southeast Asian nations in the fields of education, science, and culture. The center is hosted by the Philippine government on the campus of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB).

KACCC is a center established by the Korean Ministry of Environment at the Korea Environment Institute based on Korea’s capital city of Seoul.

Under the MOU, SEARCAand KACCC committed to collaborate in the development and conduct of research studies on environmental and natural resource management through shared used of existing resources, including existing knowledge products, and joint generation of additional resources.

The two parties will also coordinate and integrate knowledge and learning events and related endeavors on responding to climate change in environmental and natural resource management that makes possible more efficient operations and better utilization of resources.

To advance these aims, SEARCA and KACCC will integrate research and capacity development programs and other related endeavors where appropriate and cost-effective.

“Both parties shall promote and facilitate capacity building and the exchange of experts in its programs,” the MOU further stipulates.

The five-year agreement further binds SEARCA and KACCC “to identify specific research, capacity development, and knowledge management activities they may collaborate on, in cooperation with additional partners, to be covered by separate Memoranda of Agreement.”