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Philippines News Agency
MANILA – The European Union and the Philippine government launched on Wednesday the Bangsamoro Agri-Enterprise Program (BAEP) and the National Copernicus Capacity Support Action Program for the Philippines (CopPhil).
BAEP is a new five-year program to boost local agricultural production and improve the investment climate in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM), while CopPhil is a nationwide three-year program to reduce vulnerability from natural disasters.
The two financing agreements signed between the EU and the Philippines will focus on disaster preparedness and poverty reduction; and the cycle of vulnerability linking the two.
Both programs will begin in 2022, working closely with the partners from the involved governmental bodies.
Although each program will work in separate areas, both contribute to the EU and the Philippines’ commitment to the achievement of Sustainable Development Goals to support peace, development, and prosperity, reduce inequality and fight climate change.
“Understanding how our planet works and in particular, how climate change affects it is vital for sustainable economic growth and food security. Partnerships with an innovative public sector, a competitive business sector, and civil society are critical to success in these areas," EU Ambassador to the Philippines Luc Véron said.
Dominguez, for his part, said: "This assistance from the European Union will support the Duterte administration's already heightened efforts to boost farm productivity and achieve inclusive growth in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao and further strengthen the country's climate resilience in the face of global warming."
The BAEP, with a EUR20 million (about PHP1.14 billion) budget for five years, is part of the broader EU objective of a peaceful, cohesive, secure, and inclusively developed Bangsamoro.
It aims to improve the quality and diversity of local agricultural production to respond better to the needs of the market and will support the transitional administration to elaborate a strategy to develop and attract investments in agri-business.
On the production side, the program will work with local farmers and cooperatives to adopt more integrated farming systems using a value chain approach, thus improving their capacities to increase quantity, quality and consistency of produce throughout the year.
On the commercialization side, BAEP will support the establishment of product standard quality systems for halal and sea-aqua products.
Other aspects including ensuring quality control, development of certification procedures and processes as well as the physical infrastructures, such as setting up well-equipped modern laboratories and processing facilities will also be put in place.
The program will be assisting the BARMM agri-business sector to establish itself as an effective and recognized regional player and attractive investment opportunity, by facilitating the export of agri-products and processed food within Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia- Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) trade corridor.
With BAEP, the EU aims at supporting local competence and skills development and promoting the appropriate local research and development, which will focus on climate change-resilient, agro-ecological farming systems, local craftsmanship, better hands-on farm management tools, improved farmer-centered and farmer-driven extension systems, improved conservation processes and respect for traditional and indigenous knowledge.
The program will also increase women’s participation in business, open new employment opportunities and improve incomes.
The EU will engage a technical assistance support service provider to work directly with local governmental bodies within the BARMM to improve their institutional capacities.
CopPhil, on the other hand, will utilize a EUR10 million (about PHP570 million) budget for a duration of three years and will support the Philippine government’s objectives of developing and leveraging Space Science & Technology applications to strengthen the nation's resilience to natural disasters and climate change. This is the first of its kind in the region.
The program will employ an innovative approach to disaster reduction and climate adaptation using data from the EU Copernicus Earth Observation satellites and ground-based data collection systems.
It will also support the Philippine Government’s capacities for decision-making and monitoring of policy implementation based on timely and accurate data.
In the long-term, the program will contribute to the effective management of the environment and the natural resources of the Philippine ecosystems and improve the resilience of all livelihoods against natural hazards and climate change-related threats.
The cooperation builds on the Philippines’ already strong expertise in space technology applications.
It is designed to address technical and infrastructure needs for enhanced satellite and ground-based data acquisition and processing, information sharing and application development which are critical for evidence-based policy and decision making in response to disasters.
The European Space Agency, the Department of Science and Technology and the Philippine Space Agency will be implementing the program. (PR)
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