Purdie Bowden

Formerly a lead negotiator for Australia at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, including for the Paris Agreement negotiations, Purdie is an experienced policy advisor at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. She has expertise in climate change and development finance and is currently working on blended finance initiatives, including co-managing the Australian Government’s Emerging Markets Impact Investment Fund (EMIIF).

Bashu Aryal

Mr. Aryal is a Country Programme Officer in Nepal since 2007. Prior to this position, Mr. Aryal entered into the development field as a Banker, for about a decade, in managing agricultural credit in a national development bank. Afterwards, Mr. Aryal  worked with a number of UN and other development agencies (such as GiZ, Unicef, FINNIDA) active in Nepal for about a decade. Before joining to the development field in 1987, Mr. Aryal worked as a school teacher for about a decade in remote rural Nepal. Mr. Aryal holds a Master’s Degree specialized in Development Administration.

Paul Voutier

Paul is Senior Advisor, Innovation at Grow Asia, a multi-stakeholder partnership platform that catalyzes action on inclusive agricultural development in South East Asia. Grow Asia was established by the World Economic Forum in collaboration with the ASEAN Secretariat. 
 

Shingo Kimura

Shingo is responsible for ADB’s operation on sustainable rural development and food security in East Asia. Prior to joining ADB, he was Economist and Agricultural Policy Analyst at the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris, where he conducted a series of policy research for the productive, sustainable, and resilient food and agricultural sector in Europe, North America, and Asia.

Rural Prosperity with Carbon Neutrality and Food Security

Rural regions have the advantage of not only having the space for solar and wind energy production - which are low-carbon electricity technologies - but also have the potential to generate carbon neutral bioenergy. This scenario sets the opportunity on leading the process towards carbon neutrality. However, rural carbon neutrality does have implications for food security as food-land-nexus complicates the interactions.