Inception Report - NAP-Ag Philippines

26 October 2016

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), held an inception workshop for the programme “Integrating Agriculture into the National Adaptation Plan (NAP-Ag).” It convened key agencies with a purpose of laying down the foundation of the programme, of sensitizing the stakeholders to the different planned outcomes of the projects, and to get inputs and insights on the details of the program. Ms. Floradema Eleazar stated the need for climate change resiliency of the agricultural sector in her opening remarks. Assistant Secretary, Lerey Panes, emphasized the need to incorporate climate change resiliency into the planning of public investments, especially infrastructure. An overview of the progress of DA with regard to climate change adaptation was provided by Dr. Alice Ilaga. She presented updates of the Adaptation and Mitigation Initiative in Agriculture (AMIA), the CCA and DRR programme of DA. The department is looking into the NAP-Ag program to help in the scaling out and scaling up of landscape approaches risk assessment and strategic planning, and in mainstreaming these into national and sub-national plans. The AMIA 1 maps were presented based on the request of workshop participants. An expert panel presentation tackled the status of the National Climate Change Action Plan and the National Adaptation Plan, the landscape planning approach in agriculture, the monitoring and evaluation of adaptation interventions, the gaps and needs of PAGASA’s forecasts and the updates of the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Plan. The panel consisted of Ms. Maricar Palaña, Dr. Rex Cruz, Dr. Arlene Inocencio, Ms. Analyn Solis and Mr. Ulysses Lustria Jr. The details of the program such as the workplan, the institutional arrangement and the project area were discussed. The participants gave their insights, comments and suggestions on the outputs and activities in the workplan. There will be two committees in the NAP-Ag programme, the steering committee (SC) and the technical working group (TWG). The SC is composed of officials of participating agencies, who will provide guidance on mainstreaming the outcomes of the programme into institutions and policies. The TWG is composed of representatives from different government agencies, non-government organizations and academic institutions involved in the agriculture sectors and climate change. The group will provide technical advisory and review to the various outputs of the program. The workshop participants concluded that the project area should be a river basin in Mindanao that is near or located in one of the 10 poorest provinces, and has sufficient data. The participants narrowed down two possible target river basins: i) Mindanao River Basin and ii) Agus-Taguloan in ARMM. The final selection of the study area will be made on the next TWG meeting.