The Department of Agriculture (DA) and World Bank (WB) have discussed preparations for the DA–Philippine Rural Development Project Scale-Up (DA-PRDP Scale-Up) recently.
DA Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban and World Bank (WB) Country Director to the Philippines Ndiamé Diop discussed the preparations for the project.
DA-PRDP National Project Director Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa and National Deputy Project Director Shandy Hubilla, presented the progress of the team on the preparation for the project appraisal.
Diop has expounded the importance of the timeline set by the WB for the DA-PRDP Scale-Up.
“We’ve set this specific timeline so we can launch the PRDP Scale-Up by July and I can see that the PRDP team is doing very well in hitting the targets,” the WB director said.
Moreover, WB Task Team leader to the DA-PRDP Mio Takada thanked Panganiban for his continuous guidance since the inception of the proposed PRDP Scale-Up.
“On behalf of the World Bank team, I thank you, Senior Undersecretary Panganiban, for your guidance since our very first meeting way back in September 2022,” he said.
“We’re preparing all the necessary paper works as we are very excited to start the implementation of the PRDP Scale-Up as soon as possible,” Takada added.
Meanwhile, WB Lead Urban Specialist Madhu Raghunath has raised the importance of the harmonization of the three WB-assisted DA projects currently on the way.
“We’re making sure that all project operation manuals of PRDP Scale-Up, Mindanao Inclusive Agriculture Development Project [MIADP], and Philippine Fisheries and Coastal Resiliency [FishCoRe] are harmonized to ensure that there will be no duplication of interventions and that the implementation of these three projects complement each other,” she said.
