MANILA, May 6 (PNA) — The government and private enterprises are working together to create more job opportunities especially in areas with most poor families with the aim of reducing poverty incidence to 18 to 20 percent in 2016.
Through the Accelerated and Sustainable Anti-Poverty Program (ASAPP), they have launched a series of activities in nine more pilot provinces, namely Pangasinan, Quezon, Camarines Sur, Negros Occidental, Cebu, Leyte, Zamboanga del Sur, Davao del Sur and Sulu.
Government policies and programs to link the poor with enterprises include skill enhancement to increase the poor’s employability in businesses with growth potentials, trade facilitation and market linkages such that the poor get to supply the raw materials, inputs and services needed by bigger businesses.
“We need to be more precise in our interventions, even our interventions to promote economic growth to ensure that it will be inclusive,” said Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio Balisacan in his speech at the Salubungan held in Cebu City.
Salubungan is a public-private partnership model of the ASAPP that aims to tap the skills and resources of the poor in enabling private enterprises to expand their production capacities and markets.
“We will try to address gaps with government intervention and support from the private sector to create massive employment so that those currently considered below the poverty threshold can be included in the growth process,” said National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Deputy Director-General Margarita Songco in a separate Salubungan held in Iloilo City.
“We don’t need grand projects. What we need are doable targets for the private sector, and enabling environment and commitment from the government to encourage businesses to hire the vulnerable and source inputs from them,” Songco added.
The other ASAPP model involves employing the poor in government programs and projects, such as in public works, shelter and facilities improvement, as well as education, health and nutrition, and ecological management programs.
In the Iloilo workshop, the private sector represented by medium scale and social enterprises in hotel, resort, restaurant, food processing, construction and agri-business industries, identified the skills they require for their operations.
These medium scale and social firms also expressed their willingness to hire individuals from the target communities.
The Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) reported that poverty incidence among Filipinos reached 25.8 percent as of first semester of 2014. (PNA)