The Department of Agriculture (DA) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have signed an aide memoire for a village-level development project worth $66 million (roughly P3.05 billion) in the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR).

Undersecretary for Operations Jesus Emmanuel M. Paras signed the agreement on behalf of Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap while IFAD country Program Manager Sana F.K. Jatta inked the deal for the agency of the United Nations (UN.)

The project will cover 170 barangays in 37 towns of six provinces in CAR.

IFAD funds projects directly to the beneficiaries in order to improve their output and jumpstart their own community development plans, identify specific schemes and pursue them using IFAD and DA funds.

Specifically, projects will focus on reforestation, agricultural productivity and rural infrastructure. The infrastructure component will be devoted to building farm-to-market roads, community-based irrigation systems, and development of village-level potable water system.

To get the project on stream, Paras said a Special Release Order (SRO) for the P170.8-million DA Counterpart Fund and Loan Proceeds has been approved.

For its part, IFAD released $1.5 million working fund or roughly P72 million. The IFAD fund was a soft loan to the Philippine government.

Since the IFAD mission last March, the implementors reported that the machinery to implement the project from the Cordillera Regional Office of the DA to the villages has been set.