A total of 20 participants attended the meeting which was facilitated by MARDI as the host of the event. The representative from FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific gave the welcome address after which the meeting was officially opened by the Director General of MARDI followed by a photography session.

Project overview discussed summary, goals and objectives, approach, deliverables, partner roles, budget, logical and operational framework.

On project management and reporting, the discussion was led by the Secretariat (MARDI) on matters pertaining to reporting formats, communication, and monitoring and evaluation.

The next session involved all four countries (Malaysia, Philippines, Indonesia and Fiji) providing updates on the status of taro in their respective countries.

On the second day, discussions were had on the project outcomes expected to be achieved for the duration of the project. Partners discussed how to achieve those outcomes, what it meant, how to deliver and report on them.

Planning activities to be carried out was discussed (baseline survey, pilot site selection, selection of model farms by country) followed by summary of the meeting where findings, recommendations and agreement were presented.

The last activity involved field visit to site facilities within MARDI eg MyGeneBank.