Department of Agriculture (DA) Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban welcomed the team of experts from the World Bank led by new Southeast Asia Agri Practice Manager Paavo Eliste on September 26, 2023.
The officials discussed the progress of the ongoing World Bank-funded projects with the DA and identified new collaborative projects in the agriculture and fisheries sector for the country’s food security.
Eliste congratulated the DA team for delivering high quality and high impact projects with successful results. He also expressed continued support for the agency.
Undersecretary Panganiban, on the other hand, shared that President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. instructed him to improve and expedite the project operations particularly for the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) implementation.
Currently, the DA has three active projects with the World Bank, namely, the PRDP Scale-up, Philippine Fisheries and Coastal Resiliency Project (FishCoRe), and the Mindanao Inclusive Agriculture Development Project (MIADP).
It was agreed that a National Technical Steering Committee composed of DA and World Bank officials and experts will be organized to oversee the three projects.
The meeting was also attended by the OIC of the DA Office of the Assistant Secretary for Operations and Field Operations Service Director U-Nichols Manalo and World Bank Task Team Leader to the DA-PRDP Mio Takada. Experts from the World Bank team including Frode Davanger, Madhu Raghunath, Maria Theresa Quiñones, Rommel Herrera, Anuja Kar, and Paula Beatrice Macandog also joined the meeting.
