1. Committee for APRACA Strategic Plan 2025-2030

As per the decision taken during the 76 th EXCOM Meeting held in Nanning, Guangxi, China on 6 th September 2023., the following members volunteered to join the drafting committee of APRACA Strategic Plan 2025-2030 (hereafter SP 2025-30).

Chairman of Drafting Committee: Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC), Thailand
Committee Members:

a) Agricultural Development Bank of China (ADBC), China
b) National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), India
c) State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), Pakistan
d) Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh
e) Nepal Rastra Bank, Nepal
f) Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (Agribank), Vietnam

Secretary to the Committee: APARCA Secretary General

2. Methodology Followed:

APRACA Secretariat prepared the brief Terms of Reference (ToR) for the APRACA SP 2025-2030 and shared the same with the Chair of the drafting committee (BAAC) along with the approved APRACA Strategic Plan 2019-2024. The BAAC team organized a meeting with the President of BAAC (vice-chair of APRACA EXCOM) on 15 December 2023 who provided guidance to draw the main objectives of APRACA SP 2025-2030. The BAAC and APRACA team prepared a draft based on the broad guidelines provided by the President of BAAC and the APRACA SP 2019-2024.

The draft was discussed in the meeting of the drafting committee members on 16 January 2024 which was chaired by the President of BAAC. A special reference were made during the deliberations in aligning the Strategic Plan of APRACA with the Sustainable Development Goals 2030 of the United Nations. After the comments and feedback from the members of the drafting committee, the APRACA Secretariat in collaboration with BAAC now finalized the APRACA SP 2025-2030 and place the draft to the members of 77 th EXCOM members for feedback and comments to improve the same and incorporate this in the final version which will be circulated within 15 days from the date of EXCOM meeting. The New SP 2025-30 will be implemented with effect from the first quarter of 2025.

3. Strategic Plan 2025-2030

A. Background and APRACA Strategic Framework
Asia-Pacific Rural and Agricultural Credit Association (APRACA) was founded by 37 institutions from 16 countries 1 in 1977 to promote cooperation and facilitate mutual
exchange of information and expertise in the field of rural credit and finance. To date, APRACA is owned by 92 member-institutions dedicated to rural/agricultural credit and finance from 24 countries in the Asia-Pacific Region 2 . Upon the policy guidance of its General Assembly (GA) and Executive Committee (EXCOM), APRACA Secretariat exercises decentralized implementation of its major functions through two agencies, namely: (i) APRACA-Centre for Training and Research on Agricultural Banking (CENTRAB); and (ii) APRACA Rural and Agricultural Expert’s Association (ARAFEA) and 3 ACEs (APRACA Centres of excellence) in China, Iran and India. The APRACA Secretariat based in Bangkok mainly coordinates the training, research and consultancy projects of the association and support the agencies and ACEs. Since its inception, APRACA has aspired to work for rural growth and development particularly for the upliftment of the rural poor in the Asia-Pacific Region. APRACA envisions itself as the authority and leader organization on agricultural rural finance in the Asia-Pacific region. This collective aspiration of the APRACA member institutions is reflected in the vision statement adopted since 2013 (Box 1).

The APRACA mission statement contains the association’s operational objectives, functions, and ideals, and APRACA’s strategic purpose (Box 2).