DENR, DA to craft guidelines for US $10M INREMP fund

IN A bid to come up with an implementing guideline for the $10M INREMP Rural Infra Fund, two government agencies in the Cordillera region conducted a workshop to discuss and integrate the Rural Infrastructure guidelines.

Department of Environment and Natural Resources Integrated Natural Resources and Environmental Management Project and Department of Agriculture’s Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resource Management Project recently conducted a workshop to further protect its vast upper river basins by improving watershed management of the Chico River Basin.

Plenary discussions were conducted and facilitated by Engr. Rey Gerona, the Rural Infrastructure Engineer of CESM and Engr. Sonny Salvacion from DA – CHARMP.

During the workshop, it was agreed to expedite the implementation and accomplishment of the targets, the rural infra fund will be implemented in 68 barangays only, after these have undergone social preparation activities and have the necessary NCIP Certification Permit.

It was also clarified the US $10M will be for civil works within the 68 barangays previously identified by the DA. For Non-CHARMP areas but under the INREMP, rural infra will be covered by the $1.2M fund allocation.

The subprojects meanwhile should be compliant to the country and other lending institution laws and regulation among others.

The rural infra fund implementation will be supervised,

governed and directed by a regional interagency committee for Rural Infra Rehabilitation & Improvement which will be created and composed of DA, DENR, NCIP, NIA, PLGUs, DPWH, DILG, NGO.

DA-CAR is the agency having the overall responsibility for the project implementation. However, as partners in the implementation, the DENR will provide DA a technical, administrative & other assistance, where needed, including the conduct of Orientation on INREMP activities, the procurement, environmental policies, social safeguards. DENR-CAR Release