PANAP is one of five regional centres of Pesticide Action Network, a global network dedicated to the elimination of harm upon humans and the environment by pesticide use. Alongside this, the centres focus on promoting sustainable biodiversity-based ecological agriculture. PANAP advances its goal through its role in helping strengthen people's movements in their assertion of rights to land and livelihood; advancing food sovereignty; promoting BEA and defending the diverse Asian rice heritage; resisting corporate agriculture and control over seeds; protecting people and the environment from highly hazardous pesticides; opposing neo-liberal globalisation that harms people's interests; and empowering rural communities, especially rural women, and building up women's leadership in all such movements.