At the meeting, SRD’s staff presented the changes on the structure of the organization, strategic program goals and achievements as well as challenges and difficulties in the year 2009, focusing on sustainable agricultural development and pro-poor policy advocacy. The donors expressed high appreciation on the professional orgnizational and management structure and the efficiency in project implementation of SRD. While maintaining the successes of the projects on the aspect of agricultural development, SRD has approached new issues such as undertaking research for advocacy, capacity building on climate change and enhancing networking activities. Those new initiatives have also highly attracted the attention of the donors. All questions from them were explained or clarified by SRD’s Management Board and staff. “SRD’s research are not academic but action research. All conclusions and recommendations in each research have strong evidences achieved by taking surveys as well as through our practical experiences at local communities” stressed Vu Thi Bich Hop, SRD’s Executive Director.

The donors also shared with SRD their news and updates on their situation and potential changes on their future policies. It is stated that SRD, with a transparent and accountable management and operation system and dynamic moves toward new and relevant initiatives, would be a “sustainable” partner for their plan in both short-term and long-term in the next period.