Agrarian reform gets P10 billion in development assistance

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the OPEC Fund for International Development have extended P10 billion in official development assistance (ODA) for basic rural infrastructure projects to the Department of Agrarian Reform.

OPEC is the Organization of Petroleum-Exporting Countries.

Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman on Friday said that the P10 billion would go to farm-to-market roads and irrigation systems that are expected to be completed within five years in 152 agrarian-reform communities nationwide.

Pangandaman added that the five-year project, dubbed as the Second Agrarian Reform Communities Project, is the biggest since it nearly doubles the cost of the previous project.

The first phase of the project, worth P5.8 billion, was implemented for eight years, which ended in 2007.

Pangandaman said the new project, jointly initiated by the Agrarian Reform department and the Asian Development Bank, covers the provinces of Camarines Sur, Camarines Norte, Sorsogon, Romblon and Marinduque in Luzon; Eastern Samar, Western Samar, Northern Samar, Leyte and Negros Occidental in the Visayas; and Zamboanga-Sibugay, Zamboanga del Sur, Zamboanga del Norte, Maguindanao, Lanao del Sur, Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and Sulu in Mindanao.

He thanked the donors for making the Second Agrarian Reform Communities Project possible.

Pangandaman said that the continuing support provided by the ADB and other partners in the donor community “is a testament to the capability and credibility of the [department] to implement large-scale, multi-stakeholder development projects under the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP).”

He expressed hope that the foreign donors’ continued support to the agrarian reform program would help pave the way for the immediate passage of the agrarian reform extension law, which is being deliberated upon in Congress.

ADB representative Dr. Manoshi Mitra said that agrarian reform program was playing a vital role in “ending inequalities through land distribution as well as through the provision of support services to various agrarian reform communities.”

Mitra added that the project aims to help raise the standards of living of farmer-beneficiaries, reduce incidence of poverty and promote lasting peace in the countryside.  –Ira Karen Apanay, Manila Times