DLR chief co-chairs int’l roundtable meet

Land Reform Secretary Rene C. Villa co-chaired together with the Minister of Agriculture of Burkina Faso the roundtable meeting on the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of Halving Poverty by 2015 held recently in Rome.

Villa said the roundtable meeting was organized by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) as part of its governing council meetings with the aim of assessing the performance of major countries in Asia and Africa to achieve poverty reduction as well as share lessons from the experiences of countries of these two regions.

IFAD is a specialized agency of the United Nations established in 1977 to finance agricultural development projects primarily for food production in developing countries. Since 1978, IFAD has invested more than $8.5 billion in rural poverty eradication programs and projects that have reached more than 250 million of the world’s rural poor.

Today, IFAD assists the Philippines and the DLR in particular, through the Western Mindanao Community Initiatives Project (DLR/IFAD-WMCIP) worth P678.3 million covering about 16,000 households in selected areas of Region 9 and the Northern Mindanao Community Initiatives and Resource Management Project (DLR/IFAD-NMCIREMP), worth P1.13 billion covering 58,000 households in selected areas of Regions 10 and 13. Both are anchored on the principle that the rural poor must be empowered to lead their own development if poverty is to be eradicated.

IFAD presented discussion papers for Asia and Western and Central Africa which became the basis for the panel discussion by 4 to 6 eminent panelists from different countries of Asia and Africa. This was followed by a general discussion where delegates from all member countries participated.

Villa noted that the MDG meet, is primarily for the benefit of official delegates of the Governing Council, who are ministers and senior officials of member governments.

Villa, who is accompanied by DLR Undersecretary for Support Services Gerundio Madueno, also represented the Philippines in the said Council meetings where he delivered brief remarks on President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s 10-point agenda and Land Reform Strategies of the recently introduced Medium-Term Philippine Development Plan.