However, despite these, the country continues to register the highest, and even increasing, poverty rate in the Asian Region. Certain regions of the country have remained poor and underdeveloped for many years.

Among the many causes for this is the weak coordination and lack of mutual support from different sectors of society. Development efforts tend to be sporadic and isolated in one location, without strong provincial or regional coordination, inter-area learning and program/policy support.

It is in this context that one of the strategic thrusts of CODE-NGO is to strengthen the development actions of the civil society at the regional level. In 2007-2008, with support from the Peace and Equity Foundation, CODE-NGO launched the “Inter-network, Multisectoral Regional Anti-Poverty Partnership (IMRAPP)” project in four selected regions – Bicol, Eastern Samar, ARMM and Western Mindanao/BaSulTa Islands.

The IMRAPP project does not develop new model for development, but rather capitalizes on past successful experiments on “netwroking and partnerships” of various sectors – peoples’ organizations, non-government organizations, local governments, church, business, academe –  to address the issue of poverty in their locality. One of the priority elements of this framework is the call for civl society to engage more effectively with the local government units in addressing poverty issues, and at the same time engaging with national  government.

The project does not intend to create new formal organizations, but instead encourages the civil society groups, particularly members of CODE-NGO, to exercise leadership at the local level in formulating common development agenda and catalyzing energies for effective implementation of needed interventions to address poverty in the regions.

CODE-NGO conducted the IMRAPP National Workshop last March 3-4, 2009 at the Partnership Center, PhilDHRRA, Varsity Hills, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. In attendance were twenty two participants coming from the four participating regions (Bicol, Western Samar, Zamboanga Region, and the ARMM) and the national network members of CODE-NGO.

The National Workshop was a follow up activity after the implementation of IMRAPP project in 2007-2008. It aimed at clarifying the basic development framework that supported the IMRAPP concept, especially in relation with the long term goals of CODE-NGO. It specifically wanted to identify with the IMRAPP participating regions  the next steps in the implementation of IMRAPP.

One of the resource persons was Dr. Nandy Aldaba, an economics professor of the Ateneo de Manila Univesity, who discussed “The National Development Models and the Current Financial Crisis”. Before his inputs, he showed a video entitled “Reshaping Economic Geography” from the World Development Report (WDR) 2009. With reference to the video, he discussed the emerging development model as perceived by some WB experts based on the experiences and realities of key cities in developing countries. At the end of his lecture, he discussed the impact of the economic crisis in the Philippine  and the current responses of the government.

Ms Jing Lopez then facilitated a discussion on the topic “Regional Development: Elements, Processes and Best Practices. She traced the evolution of the process of development planning in the Philippines. She analyzed them by providing some lessons and insights from existing practices/models of local networking for development and poverty alleviation.

During the discusion on the “common development framework”, the participants made sure they were grounded on principles and agenda outlined in the CODE-NGO’s “Covenant of Philippine Development”.

The final workshop dealt with the identification of the next steps, common issues, and challenges regarding the IMRAPP strategy in their respective regions.

National Forum

A National Forum was conducted last December 4, 2007 attended by  NGO representatives from Metro Manila and selected regions in the country, academe and government agencies. In that forum, the Peace and Equity Foundation made a presentation on the updated National Poverty Mapping project. Also, the participating regions presented the results of the series of dialogues and consultations that they conducted to discuss regional situationers prior to the National Forum regarding IMRAPP.

Regional Discussions

Bicol Region:  From the 2006 RDC 5 Report, Bicol is the 4th poorest region in the country. Among the provinces of Bicol, Masbate remained the poorest, having one poor family for every two families in 2006.

In its discussion with partners, the Coalition for Bicol Development (CBD) identified two major development agenda for the region, namely; 1) development of the agriculture sector towards sustainable integrated agri-business; and, b) disaster preparedness and risk management.

Eastern Visayas Region: Region 8 is rich in bio-diversity, agricultural produce, mineral reserves, and power generation. However, it is the 3rd poorest region in the country. The Regional Development Plan contains the millennium development goals (MDG). However, current trends indicate that there is low probability of achieving the MDG targets. While the Region has performed fairly well in infrastructure improvements; it has to catch up in the areas health and education.

ARMM – Maguindanao and Lanao del Sur:  The ARMM is the poorest region in the Philippines. It is beset with peace issues arising from historical circumstances; and various types of unrests such as agrarian, resource use, indigenous peoples, environmental, and inter-clan and inter-community conflicts.

Discussing with its partners, MinCODE has identified poverty alleviation as the priority development agenda in the Maguindanao – Lanao del Sur area. Its attainment is dependent among others on capability building and livelihood program. Capacity building refers to programs that provide education and hone the skills of the target population, as well as access to required resources by the identified communities. Livelihood programs promotes improvement of household income.

Western Mindanao Region– Zamboanga Peninsula and the BaSulta Islands:  In 2003, poverty incidence of Western Mindanao was indicated at 49% – following ARMM at 61%.  Tawi-tawi has the highest incidence of poverty, increasing greatly from 34.6 in 2003 to 78.9 in 2006. At second is Zamboanga del Norte at 63.0.

Poverty particularly in the island provinces of Western Mindanao is brought by armed conflict. The creation of Zamboanga Peninsula and the ARMM’s autonomy that incorporated the provinces of Basilan (except Isabela City, the capital), Sulu, and Tawi-Tawi; and a number of recently enacted laws present new opportunities for bringing about much needed policy innovations and reforms.

The priority development agenda for this region are 1) governance, 2) productivity, and 3) environment.