MANILA, Philippines – Former House speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. proposed the creation of an Asian Micro-Finance Fund and an Asian Anti-Poverty Fund at the Anti Poverty Summit in Kunming, China to help small entrepreneurs gain easier access to credit.
De Venecia is attending the summit as the founding chairman of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP), composed of over 300 ruling and opposition parties in Northeast Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia.
ICAPP is studying the Chinese model of overcoming poverty. The conference will later move to Beijing for two days of meetings with senior officials of the Chinese government and the Communist Party.
The group first proposed the meeting on the sidelines of the Beijing Olympics with Chinese Minister Liu Yanshan.
De Venecia is also proposing the creation of an Asian Agri-business Crops Insurance Program to enable farmer cooperatives to recover some of their losses in times of natural calamities.
The Philippines, along with Bangladesh and Indonesia, have adopted the school feeding programs of Latin America to keep children in school.
In a conference in Astana, Kazakhstan, ICAAP proposed a debt-for-equity swap scheme wherein creditors would allow debtor countries to convert a portion of their debt-service payments to finance anti-poverty projects in exchange for corresponding equity.