BUTUAN CITY (PNA) — Caraga’s poorest villages received yesterday R1.1 billion assistance from United Nations through the implementation of the Northern Community Initiatives and Resource Management Project (NCIREMP).
A memorandum of agreements for the project was signed yesterday between the United Nations for Project Services (UNOPS) and 25 local government units, non-governmental organizations and national government agencies.
The project aims to alleviate poverty in 58,000 rural households located in 270 barangays of ancestral domain, indigenous peoples, upland dwellers, fishing families in coastal and lakeside communities of the 43 municipalities and one city in Caraga Region and Region 10, all in Mindanao.
About 17 percent of the R1.1-billion anti-poverty project was set aside for the lumad beneficiaries which comprise majority of more than 50 percent of the population of Caraga Region.
The project will be implemented through UNOPS’ International Fund for Agricultural Development. The lead implementing government agency is the Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR).
DAR Regional Director Felix Aguhob said Caraga Region, being second to Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) in poverty incidence, was given top priority by IFAD in terms of funding and number of beneficiaries, most of whom are indigenous people.
National Program Coordinator for NCIREMP, former DAR regional director Antonio Menor, said the Phase I of the program will be implemented in five years and will be extended depending on the success of the implementation.
Among projects to be implemented are livelihood programs, construction of farm-to-market roads, support services for Agrarian Reform Communities such as provision of post harvest facilities, capability-building training for indigenous communities especially in transforming CADCs to CADTs and other anti-poverty initiatives in the beneficiary communities.
The beneficiary local government units are the municipalities of Esperanza, La Paz, Loreto, Rosario, Talacogon and Veruela, all in Agusan del Sur province.
In Surigao del Sur, the beneficiaries are Lianga, San Agustin, Marihatag, Madrid, Cortes, Carmen, Carrascal, Carmen, Cortes, Cantilan, Cagwait, Lanuza and Bayabas.
The beneficiaries are in Misamis Oriental, the town of Claveria; in Bukidnon, the municipality of Impasugong; and in Surigao del Norte, the towns of Basilisa, Dinagat, Libjo, San Jose and Tubajon.
Officials of the National Commission on Indigenous People headed by Regional Directors Domingo Pareja Jr. of Caraga Region and Rommel Jardinazo of Region X were present during the signing of the MoA on the assistance.
Other government agencies supporting the project are the Department of Environment and Natural Resources and National Commission on Indigenous People.
