RP gets $125-M from UN for anti-poverty programs

The Philippines has received a $125-million grant from the United Nations (UN) for three action plans designed to fight poverty through development programs in the country.

The three programs will be implemented with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Food Development Fund (UNFPA) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Based on the UN’s Country Program Action Plans (CPAPs), the development programs would empower the country’s poorest and most vulnerable, improve the reproductive health status of the Filipino people, and reduce the disparities in child well-being indicators in 24 priority provinces and cities by at least 50 percent as compared with national averages.

"Its overall strategy - which focuses on policy reforms, institution and capacity building, and area-based community development – is very much in line with the strategies laid out in the 2004-2010 Medium Term Philippine Development Plan (MTPDP)," Socioeconomic Planning Secretary and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) director general Romulo L. Neri said.

"Indeed, the CPAPs, as well as the MTPDP, will surely provide us with the appropriate measures to defeat poverty and fulfill the medium-term development goals," he said.

The UNDP program specifies strategies that will promote and protect the rights of the poor as well as help create an enabling environment to realize their full participation in national development.

On the other hand, the UNFPA has three major components, namely: Population and development, reproductive health, and gender and culture. The strategic areas of intervention for this program will be reducing fertility, improving maternal health, promoting adolescent reproductive health, and HIV/AIDS prevention, support and care through capacity building of policy makers, program managers, service providers and empowering the poor and the vulnerable population at the grassroots.