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Monday, July 25, 2005
Gov't, EU to tackle development of upland areas in Mindanao
THE government and the European Union (EU) are preparing for a national development program for the country's upland areas to succeed an EU-funded initiative for upland communities in southern and central Mindanao that will end early next year.
Dashiel Indelible, co-director of the Upland Development Programme (UDP) for Southern Mindanao, said the successor initiative will primarily focus on the development of the upland areas and their resources through a sustainable system that they have implemented in five pilot provinces in Mindanao.
He said the government is now pushing for the adoption of the UDP, which will end in January 2006, as a national policy.
"The program was so successful that it is now being planned for implementation on a national scale using the initial program beneficiaries as models," he said.
The UDP, which is supported by a grant of 18.3 million Euros from the European Commission, aims "to develop and test a replicable model of sustainable management of upland resources, and to enable upland communities to address their subsistence needs and to produce marketable surpluses through sustainable market-led agricultural development."
The six components of the project are sustainable agricultural development, resource management, marketing and enterprise development, rural financial services, community and institutional development and extension, and agricultural support infrastructure.
The project, which is mainly implemented by DA and the local government units, covers 480 sitios or hamlets accounting for a total 7,000 hectares of watershed in Davao del Sur, Davao Oriental, Compostela Valley, South Cotabato and Sarangani.
Indelible said they will turn over the UDP projects to the host LGUs upon the program's termination next year.
"Right now, we are in the process of finalizing the systems and mechanisms that would help the LGUs effectively sustain the projects. We're also making modeling strategies in preparation for its national implementation," he said.
Indelible said they have already submitted some project proposals that will be covered in the upcoming successor program, which would be funded anew by the Brussels, Belgium-based European Commission.
"The funding is being arranged with Brussels but we're confident that we will get its nod soon," he said. (Allen V. Estabillo)
For Bisaya stories from General Santos.Click here. (This section is updated every Monday)
(July 25, 2005 issue)
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