Disaster risk reduction program to help the Philippines adapt

Business World Online (Philippines): The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) is preparing to start the second phase of its disaster risk reduction (DRR) initiative, which would help local officials factor in climate change and disaster management in development planning, an agency official said yesterday.

Called "Integrating DRR and Climate Change Adaptation in Local Development Planning and Disaster Management Processes," the new project will "institutionalize the DRR guidelines and include climate change considerations in local planning," NEDA Deputy Director-General for Regional Development Augusto B. Santos told BusinessWorld in a phone interview yesterday.

…NEDA has finished the first phase, with the guidelines launched late July. The second phase, meanwhile, would focus on implementing the guidelines and the inclusion of climate change in local planning. "We had to include climate change because it is a global priority. Its effects are already palpable... such as in agricultural production," Mr. Santos said.

Climate change, he added, has become a major concern for the agricultural sector. Last week, Agriculture Secretary Arthur C. Yap has warned of stronger and less-predictable typhoons that would wreak havoc on the farm sector. "So, even if you plant, when the typhoon comes, it’s [crops are] all destroyed... Climate change is not something we are talking about anymore, it is something we are experiencing," he noted….

Growing strawberries in La Trinidad near Baguio City, the Philippines, shot by Shubert Ciencia, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License.