CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)--Going nonstop in advancing Mindanao’s peace and development agenda, the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA) has conducted consultations with the stakeholders and partner agencies from Regions 9 and 10 to come up with a final M2020/Mindanao Agenda 2023-2028 Results-Based Monitoring and Evaluation (RBME) framework to be used in assessing key development goals and outcomes.
Held here at Mallberry Suites Business Hotel on October 11–12, the consultation workshop tackled the four major agenda of International Partnership and BIMP EAGA, Transport Logistics and Connectivity, Digital Transformation and Innovation, Ecological Integrity, and Peace, Governance and Institutions.
The participants were divided into four thematic groups to brainstorm about the strategies and mechanisms to resolve the various issues confronting Mindanao’s peace and development efforts.
Following the peace pacts forged between the government and the Moro separatist groups—the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF)—the participants saw the need for a complete implementation of all signed peace agreements and explored the normalization and reintegration of former combatants and their families.
It can be recalled that the peace accord with the MNLF was signed on September 2, 1996, while the MILF peace deal was signed on March 27, 2014.
As the second-largest island in the country, Mindanao supplies more than 40 percent of the country’s food requirements, as it produces rice, corn, coconut, banana, coffee, mango, sugarcane, pineapple, cacao, and other food commodities.
Despite the abundance of farm produce and marine resources, Mindanao recorded a 36.2% poverty incidence in 2022, higher than the national average of 21.6%. This prompted the island’s stakeholders to come up with certain strategies and mechanisms to engender growth and development in the area, with MinDA as a coordinating agency taking the lead.
Created by Republic Act (RA) 9996 on February 17, 2010, MinDA has been tasked with promoting, coordinating, and facilitating the active and extensive participation of all sectors to effect the socio-economic development of Mindanao. (PIA-10)
