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IFAD in the Philippines Since 1978, IFAD has committed a total of US$152.9 million in financing for 11 projects related to agricultural development. From its first project, which financed year-round irrigation to improve productivity in the Cayagan Valley of Northern Luzon, to the most recent, which emphasizes financial services supporting the development of microenterprises, IFAD has had a role in efforts to reduce poverty in the Philippines. The goals are to enable poor rural people to improve their incomes and food security, and provide better food, education and health care for their families. Working with the government to achieve the goals of the Medium-Term Development Plan 2004-2010, IFAD supports microfinance, with the aim of tripling loans to self-employed people, to microenterprises and to remote areas. IFAD’s strategy in the PhilippinesIFAD’s current strategy in the Philippines has evolved from the government’s own strategic initiative — contained in its social reform agenda — from IFAD’s own strategic framework and key strategies for Asia and the Pacific region, and from lessons learned from past operations in the country. Past experiences have sharpened the focus of IFAD’s activities to concentrate on the least-favoured marginal upland and coastal areas, home to many of the country’s poorest people. Target groups include indigenous peoples and people who benefited from agrarian reform in the uplands, coastal fishers, landless people and women, in general, who are among the poorest of the poor. IFAD works with the government and other partners to help reduce poverty in some of the poorest areas in the country: Bicol, Panay Island, Samar and Leyte, Northern Mindanao and Caraga. IFAD loans support:
Poor people’s access to the financial services that they need to improve their incomes is a crucial factor in breaking the poverty cycle. In the Philippines IFAD supports institutions that adopt the Grameen banking approach, providing microcredit in the form of small, even tiny, loans to borrowers who have little or no collateral. Programmes and projects financed by IFAD promote innovative approaches to some of the issues that perpetuate rural poverty. Key innovative features of IFAD operations in the Philippines focus on securing access to land in ancestral domains for indigenous peoples, on putting in place land use planning, and on helping indigenous peoples achieve better management of natural resources.Source: IFAD |
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