WB lauds Region XII, ARMM antipoverty campaign

After conducting its month-long assessment of the Department of Agriculture’s Mindanao Rural Development Program (DA-MRDP), the World Bank (WB) has recently rated the antipoverty campaign in Regions 12 and ARMM satisfactory. Other regions which surpassed WB’s rating critiques are Northern Mindanao (Region 10), CARAGA (Region 13), 11 and 9.

Covering 225 of the 420 towns all over Mindanao, DA-MRDP is long term poverty alleviation program for Mindanao jointly funded by the World Bank, the national and local governments, and the project proponents. Now on its third year of implementation, MRDP has accomplished over 131 million worth of agricultural infrastructure of which close to 66 kilometers of farm-to-market roads have been established, 39 linear meters of bridge and four units of potable water systems erected serving over a thousand households. With the counterpart of beneficiaries, about P87.01 million worth of various agri-based livelihoods were created benefiting mostly women and Indigenous Peoples and P42 million had been invested for environmental conservation and protection.

Accordingly, the evaluation was based on the increase of incomes of the benefited communities and the institutionalization of a decentralized agriculture and fisheries services delivery mechanism from which the program has shown well both in achieving its development objectives and its implementation progress.
To date, 164 towns has availed of and benefited from the infrastructure, livelihoods and environment projects of the program and that the good performance could be attributed to the active participation and counterpart of the various local government units (LGUs) in Mindanao.

Included in DA-MRDP program are the Rural Infrastructure (RI) projects such as farm to market roads, irrigation systems, single lane bridges and post-harvest facilities; and the livelihood component called Community Fund for Agricultural Development (CFAD) which employs community driven development (CDD) approach where the peoples organization themselves identify and implement their project with the help of the LGUs.

With such an overwhelming result, WB assured that bulk of developmental funds are ready for the LGUs and subsequently urged them (LGUs) to avail more of the projects under MRDP especially on agricultural infrastructure projects which will boost the economy of their respective area. It also vowed to support the developmental initiatives of every LGU so that a sustainable development shall reach especially those economically-challenged communities.