Sustainable upland model presented to policy experts
Davao City (14 October) -- Mayor Givel Mamaril of the Municipality of Malalag, Davao del Sur, presented at a forum of policy experts and researchers her municipality’s gains and experience in evolving and implementing the Sustainable Upland Development (SUD) Model. The Municipality of Malalag is a partner LGU of the European Union supported Upland Development Programme in Southern Mindanao (UDP), which is executed by the Department of Agriculture.
The forum entitled “Crafting Good Policies for Sustainable Upland Development at the Local Level,” organized by the Philippine Institute for Development Studies (PIDS), was held last September 26, 2006 at the Grand Boulevard Hotel, Manila.
Mamaril’s presentation urged forum participants to seriously consider the SUD Model in development policy research and to work on mainstreaming the SUD Model for replication by local government units nationwide.
Earlier, the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Deputy director General Augusto B. Santos, in his keynote speech, emphasized “Sustainable Upland Development is an important strategy in the fight against poverty, which is the current administration’s basic task as embodied in the Medium Term Philippines Development Plan.”
PIDS President Dr. Josef T. Yap synthesized the forum discussion with his announcement that “sustainable upland development shall be an integral part of the development policy research and governance framework.”
Some 38 municipalities in the provinces of Compostela Valley, Davao del Norte, Davao Oriental, Davao del Sur, Sarangani and South Cotabato are implementing the SUD Model.
A national policy for the implementation of the SUD Model has been endorsed by the Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao Island Conferences of the League of Municipalities of the Philippines (LMP) and will be taken up at the LMP National Summit on October 24-25, 2006 in Manila. (PIA) [top]
