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MANILA, Philippines — The Bangsamoro Agri-Enterprise Program (BAEP) and the National Copernicus Capacity Support Action Program for the Philippines were inaugurated on Wednesday by the European Union and the Philippine government (CopPhil).

BAEP is a new five-year program in the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) to promote local agricultural productivity and improve the investment climate, whereas CopPhil is a countrywide three-year program to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters.

The EU and the Philippines have signed two finance agreements that will focus on disaster preparedness and poverty reduction, as well as the vulnerability cycle that connects the two.

Both programs will commence in 2022 and will work closely with partners from the various agencies involved.

Despite the fact that each program will focus on different aspects, they will both contribute to the EU and the Philippines’ commitment to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, which aim to promote peace, development, and prosperity, as well as reduce inequality and combat climate change.

“Understanding how our world works, and how climate change affects it in particular, is critical for long-term economic growth and food security.” Partnerships with an innovative public sector, a competitive corporate sector, and civil society are key to success in these sectors, according to Luc Véron, EU Ambassador to the Philippines.

“This assistance from the European Union will support the Duterte administration’s already stepped-up efforts to boost farm productivity and achieve inclusive growth in Muslim Mindanao’s Bangsamoro Autonomous Region, as well as further strengthen the country’s climate resilience in the face of global warming,” Dominguez said.

The BAEP, which has a five-year budget of EUR20 million (about PHP1.14 billion), is part of the EU’s larger goal of a peaceful, coherent, secure, and inclusively developed Bangsamoro.

It intends to improve the quality and diversity of local agricultural production in order to better respond to market demands, and it will assist the transitional administration in developing and attracting agribusiness investments.

On the production side, the initiative will work with local farmers and cooperatives to implement more integrated farming methods based on a value chain approach, allowing them to raise the amount, quality, and consistency of their food throughout the year.

BAEP will support the implementation of product standard quality standards for halal and sea-aqua products on the commercialization side.

Other components will be implemented, such as quality control, the creation of certification procedures and processes, and physical infrastructures, such as the establishment of well-equipped contemporary laboratories and processing facilities.

By facilitating the export of agri-products and processed food within the Brunei Darussalam-Indonesia-Malaysia-Philippines East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP-EAGA) trade corridor, the program will help the BARMM agri-business sector establish itself as an effective and recognized regional player and attractive investment opportunity.

With BAEP, the EU aims to promote appropriate local research and development, with a focus on climate change-resilient, agro-ecological farming systems, local craftsmanship, better hands-on farm management tools, improved farmer-centered and farmer-driven extension systems, improved conservation processes, and respect for traditional and indigenous knowledge.

In addition, the program will expand women’s engagement in business, create new job opportunities, and raise salaries.

The EU will hire a technical assistance support service provider to work directly with local governments in the BARMM to help them enhance their institutional capacities.

CopPhil, on the other hand, would use a three-year budget of EUR10 million (about PHP570 million) to support the Philippine government’s goals of creating and exploiting Space Science & Technology applications to increase the country’s resilience to natural disasters and climate change. This is the region’s first of its sort.

Using data from the EU Copernicus Earth Observation satellites and ground-based data collecting systems, the program will take a novel approach to disaster reduction and climate adaptation.

It would also help the Philippine government improve its decision-making and policy-implementation monitoring capabilities by providing fast and reliable data.

Long-term, the initiative will help to strengthen the resilience of all livelihoods against natural hazards and climate change-related challenges by assisting in the proper management of the environment and natural resources of Philippine ecosystems.

The collaboration relies on the Philippines’ existing competence in space-related applications.

It is intended to address the technical and infrastructure requirements for improved satellite and ground-based data collecting and processing, information exchange, and application development, all of which are necessary for evidence-based policy and decision making in disaster response.

The program will be implemented by the European Space Agency, the Department of Science and Technology, and the Philippine Space Agency.

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