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NAGA
CITY, July 13 (PNA) -- Some 55 depressed municipalities in Bicol region
are seeing hope to improve their lives after they were chosen as
beneficiaries of a capability-building program to be implemented by the
Spanish government, in partnership with the Philippine government
through the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).
DILG
Regional Director Blandino Maceda said the program seeks to strengthen
the capacity of the lower class towns and help them address their weak
points towards better management of their respective local government
units.
He
said one of the expected gains from the program is an improved revenue
management system among the concerned local officials.
The
partnership was expressed in a memorandum of agreement signed by DILG
undersecretary for Local Government Austere Panadero and Jesus Molina,
coordinator of the Agencia Española de Cooperacion International para
el Desarrollo (AECID) on July 3, in Manila.
The
MOA signing was witnessed by the Ambassador to the Philippines, Luis
Romero, and mayors from selected municipalities in the Bicol region.
Maceda said other municipalities also named program beneficiaries were 55 towns from the Caraga region.
The MOA provides for Spanish technical assistance and more than 400,000 euros to finance the LGU capability enhancement project.
Bicol and Caraga regions are the priority regions of the Spanish-Filipino development cooperation in the country.
Beneficiary-
municipalities of the program in the Bicol region are allocated as
follows: Albay, 8 towns; Camarines Norte, 5; Camarines Sur, 17;
Catanduanes, 8; Masbate, 10; and Sorsogon, 7.
The
DILG, according to Maceda, has performance indicators for LGUs that can
be used as a tool to measure the progress obtained by each municipality
based on the employment of mechanisms and strategies they learned from
the program.(PNA)
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