COTABATO CITY — BARMM Senior Minister Abdulraof A. Macacua receives on 2 December a visit from United Nations World Food Programme Country Director, Brenda Barton, to explore how the two agencies can work further to improve food security in the Bangsamoro region and responsiveness towards the needs of the Bangsamoro people.

“WFP commends the leadership and vision of the Senior Minister on the Convergence and Kayod Ka Bangsamoro project,” says Barton.

“We see how the communities come together with the aid of various trainings and feel the work in BARMM as across-the-board cutting edge. What you do has too much soul, passion and hardwork which is easy to sell to other development institutions and WFP is grateful to be your partner,” she added.

Joining Barton were WFP Head of Cotabato Sub-Office Dr. Mishael Q. Argonza and staff Hasna A. Adam. Representing the MENRE along with Senior Minister Macacua was Forest Management Services Director Abdul-Jalil S. Umngan and Senior Forest Management Specialist Czarina Kunso.

KKB Convergence has scaled-up from the Phase 1 participants of 1,000 households to now 3,700 participants (Phase 2) in food assistance for assets (FFA) activities and will be further assisted with rice assistance in the next project phase. This project advocates to improve food security and nutrition, livelihoods and peacebuilding engaging decommissioned and soon-to-be-decommissioned combatants. The project further works out market accessibility of the KKB participants in collaboration with MAFAR and the local government units. With the available resources for the project expansion, WFP affirms the inclusion of vulnerable communities in the provinces of Sulu and Tawi-tawi and will encourage other UN agencies to support development initiatives in this part of the region.

Through the discussion, WFP will introduce to BARMM the Climate Study, Consolidated Livelihood Exercise for Analyzing Resilience (CLEAR) which is an analytical approach developed by WFP to better understand how food security is affected by climate risks.

WFP also presented the GECS-MOVE mobile telecommunications system project that BARMM can look into. This emergency communication system was designed by DICT and WFP to provide connectivity to first responders and other coordinating agencies when traditional modes of communication are down.

With the incoming Japanese rice donation, WFP also raised the renewal of the Agreement on the free use of Polloc warehouse. The warehouse has served as storage facility for rice and other food and non-food items that augment the efforts of the government in responding to the needs of the Bangsamoro people.

The Kayod Ka Bangsamoro Convergence Model is a key project established in July 2020 that is the brainchild of MENRE Minister Macacua which supports decommissioned and soon-to-be-decommissioned combatants and vulnerable communities to build sustainable income-generating activities and to improve market value chains for rural development.