diff --git a/package/vala/vala.hash b/package/vala/vala.hash
index b3716f0854..a16875ac6a 100644
--- a/package/vala/vala.hash
+++ b/package/vala/vala.hash
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-# From https://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.56/vala-0.56.14.sha256sum
-sha256  9382c268ca9bdc02aaedc8152a9818bf3935273041f629c56de410e360a3f557  vala-0.56.14.tar.xz
+# From https://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/0.56/vala-0.56.17.sha256sum
+sha256  26100c4e4ef0049c619275f140d97cf565883d00c7543c82bcce5a426934ed6a  vala-0.56.17.tar.xz
 # Locally computed
 sha256  5df07007198989c622f5d41de8d703e7bef3d0e79d62e24332ee739a452af62a  COPYING
diff --git a/package/vala/vala.mk b/package/vala/vala.mk
index 415d996faa..85f928202a 100644
--- a/package/vala/vala.mk
+++ b/package/vala/vala.mk
@@ -5,7 +5,7 @@
 ################################################################################
 
 VALA_VERSION_MAJOR = 0.56
-VALA_VERSION = $(VALA_VERSION_MAJOR).14
+VALA_VERSION = $(VALA_VERSION_MAJOR).17
 VALA_SITE = http://download.gnome.org/sources/vala/$(VALA_VERSION_MAJOR)
 VALA_SOURCE = vala-$(VALA_VERSION).tar.xz
 VALA_LICENSE = LGPL-2.1+
@@ -15,7 +15,9 @@ VALA_CPE_ID_VENDOR = gnome
 HOST_VALA_DEPENDENCIES = host-bison host-flex host-libglib2
 # Yes, the autoconf script understands ':' as "xsltproc is not
 # available".
-HOST_VALA_CONF_ENV = ac_cv_path_XSLTPROC=:
+HOST_VALA_CONF_ENV = \
+	ac_cv_path_XSLTPROC=: \
+	GI_GIRDIR="$(STAGING_DIR)/usr/share/gir-1.0"
 HOST_VALA_CONF_OPTS += --disable-valadoc
 
 # We wrap vala, valac and vapigen to point to the proper gir and vapi data dirs