Duterte creates inter-agency task force to address hunger in PHL

President Rodrigo Duterte has formed an inter-agency task force to ensure coordinated and effective implementation of measures to eradicate hunger and achieve food security in the country.

The Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero Hunger is headed by the Cabinet Secretary with the Agriculture and Social Welfare secretaries as vice chairpersons, according to Executive Order 101 signed by Duterte on January 10.

The members included the secretaries of the Departments of Agrarian Reform; Budget and Management; Education; Environment and Natural Resources; Health; Labor and Employment; Interior and Local Government; Trade and Industry; and Science and Technology, as well as the heads of the Presidential Communications Operations Office, National Economic and Development Authority, and Commission on Higher Education.

“Involuntary hunger, food security, undernutrition, and child wasting, stunting and mortality, continue to be serious concerns in the country,” the EO stated.

“There is a need to carefully coordinate, rationalize, monitor and assess the efforts of concerned government agencies and instrumentalities to ensure a whole-of-government approach to eradicating hunger and achieving food security.”

Under the EO, the task force is mandated to craft the National Food Policy (NFP), which will outline national priorities based on a comprehensive understanding of the problems of hunger and related issues, and shall provide a roadmap for achieving zero hunger.

The NFP must contain initiatives for ending hunger, achieving food security, improving nutrition and promoting sustainable agriculture.

The body should also provide the President annual reports on the state of hunger, food security, nutrition and agricultural production in the Philippines.

The initial funding requirements for the implementation of the EO will be charged against the current appropriations of the member-agencies.

The budgetary requirements for the succeeding years will be included in the annual budget proposals of the concerned agencies.

The Duterte administration recently revised the target reduction of poverty incidence to 11%, from the original 14%, by 2022.

This came after the Philippine Statistics Authority reported last December that poverty incidence declined to 16.6% in 2018 from 23.3% in 2015.

The NEDA attributed the decline in poverty to sustained growth that generated jobs for the poor, increased incomes of the poor that outweighed inflation, the implementation of social programs like conditional and unconditional cash transfers and pensions, population and family planning program, and less extreme weather conditions. —KBK, GMA News