Philippines Bill Institutionalize Tender

The House of Representatives approved on third and final reading a bill seeking to institutionalize the convergence strategy for sustainable rural development. House Bill 9146 or the National Convergence Initiative Act is principally authored by Rep. Anna Katrina Enverga 1st District Quezon. It garnered the votes of all 183 House Members present during the plenary voting.The measure seeks to institutionalize a complementation strategy among the four National Convergence Initiative NCI rural development departments. These are the Department of Environment and Natural Resources DENR Department of Agriculture DA Department of Agrarian Reform DAR and Department of Interior and Local Government DILG.The convergence is seen to support agricultural development by adopting a participatory approach in all phases of development from planning and budgeting implementation and monitoring and evaluation. The convergence strategy shall adopt the watershed and integrated ecosystem management as well as integrated area development approaches as the intervention framework in the convergence areas.This is primarily because the ridge to reef convergence strategy is an environmentall sustainable approach to development since human interventions in the forest and upland areas would impact on the lowland areas and this in turn would affect the coastal and marine areas the bill states.Selection of convergence zones shall also take into consideration Strategic Agricultural and Fisheries Development Zones SAFDZ provisions of Republic Act 8435 or the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Act of 1997.The implementation of the NCI shall be done through Technical Working Groups TWG in an ecosystem. The three groupsthe TWG on Coastal and Marine Resources Management the TWG on Sustainable Lowland Agriculture and the TWG on Forestry and Upland Developmentare equally important and shall be mutually reinforcing. They shall ensure that the objectives of the NCI as a means of improving institutional efficiencies in the governance of sustainable rural development are achieved.The three TWGs shall have the following crosscutting components Policy and Advocacy Agro-Enterprise and Agribusiness Development Capacity Development and Knowledge Management.The NCI shall have an Executive Board to serve as its policymaking body. The Board shall direct the implementation of the provisions of the measure.The Board shall be composed of four voting members the Secretary of DA as Chairperson the Secretaries of the DENR DAR and DILG as members and the Executive Director of the NCI Secretariat as ex-officio member.The National Convergence-Technical Working Group NCI-TWG shall serve as the advisory and recommendatory body to the Board on matters related to the implementation of the NCI.Parallel NCI-TWGs shall be established in the Regional Provincial and Municipal levels. All NCI-TWGs shall work closely with other government line agencies and offices to ensure complementation and alignment of NCI interventions with that of other related agencies and offices.Meanwhile a permanent NCI Secretariat shall be created with the corresponding plantilla positions for its administrative and technical staff compliment. Among its functions shall be to coordinate the conduct of the NCI-Executive Board and NCI-TWG meetings and workshops writeshops seminars fora and consultations provide administrative logistics and technical support to the NCI-TWG and document prepare and disseminate the highlights of the proceedings of the NCI Executive Board and NCI-TWG meetings and activities.