Saturday, October 14, 2006 Upland development model presented to experts
MAYOR Givel Mamaril of Malalag town in Davao del Sur, presented at a forum of policy experts and researchers the local government's gains and experience in evolving and implementing the Sustainable Upland Development (SUD) model.
Malalag is a partner local government unit of the European Union that supported Upland Development Programme in Southern Mindanao (UDP), which is executed by the Department of Agriculture.
The forum, entitled "Crafting Good Policies for Sustainable Upland Development at the Local Level," organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (Pids), was held on September 26 at the Grand Boulevard Hotel in Manila.
Mamaril's presentation urged forum participants to seriously consider the SUD model in development policy research and to work on mainstreaming such for replication by local government units nationwide.
Earlier, the National Economic and Development Authority (Neda) deputy director general Augusto B. Santos, in his keynote speech, emphasized, "SUD is an important strategy in the fight against poverty, which is the current administration's basic task as embodied in the Medium Term Philippines Development Plan."
Pids president Dr. Josef T. Yap synthesized the forum discussion with his announcement that "SUD shall be an integral part of the development policy research and governance framework."
Some 38 municipalities in the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao del Sur, Sarangani and South Cotabato are implementing the SUD model.
A national policy for the implementation of the SUD model has been endorsed by the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao Island Conferences of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) and will be taken up at the LMP National Summit on October 24 and 25 in Manila.
