BAGUIO CITY – The Cordillera Regional Development Council (RDC-CAR) approved a resolution containing the detailed and additional financing of $13.1 million which is equivalent to more or less P600 million for the upscaling the 2nd Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management (CHARM) project that would translate to the extension of the 7-year agricultural development project to an additional two years.
RDC-CAR Resolution No. 1, series of 2016 stated that this new upscaled project which is proposed for implementation from January 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018 will have a total project cost of $13.127 million broken down as follows; International Fund for Agriculture and Development (IFAD) loan – $10.333 million; government counterpart – $1.972 million; Local government counterpart – $0.736 million and beneficiaries counterpart – $0.086 million.
CHARM 2 has reportedly attained 97 percent of its physical targets as of December 31, 2015 and is expected to be fully completed by December 31, 2016 and in order for the [project to sustain its accomplishments, two more years with additional financing has been requested to expand, replicate, adopt and sustain its successful sub-projects to reach more people and contribute to the reduction of poverty in the region in the coming years.
The foreign-assisted agricultural development project is a 7-year project from 2009 to 2015 with a total project cost of P1.96 billion inclusive of loans from the IFAD and Oil Producing and Exporting Countries Fund for International Development (OFID), the national government and the grant from the IFAD.
CHARM 2’s goal is to reduce poverty in the poor, indigenous upland areas of the Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR) and directly benefit 170 barangays in 37 municipalities in the six provinces of the region during the duration of the project implementation.
The 4 major components of the foreign-assisted project include social mobilization and participatory investment planning and land titling, community watershed conservation, forest management and agro-forestry, agriculture, agri-business and income-generating activities, and rural infrastructure development.
Despite Charm2’s challenges which stalled initial project implementation, its performance accelerated rapidly in 2013-2014 and was given a rating of ‘satisfactory’ by the IFAD supervision and implementation support (SIS) mission which was conducted in February 26 to March 16, 2015.
The project was unanimously endorsed by the members of the RDC-CAR sectoral committee on economic development during its 2016 first quarter meeting held last February 26, 2016.
It can be recalled that the 1st CHARM project was implemented in the region from 1998 to 2004 to help in the development of the agriculture sector in the rural areas of the region to help uplift the living condition of over 40,000 individuals in the identified areas of interventions beneficial in improving the lives of the poor in the countryside.
By Herald Express News Team
