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FOOD SECURITY
The pursuit of food security has always been an important component of ANGOC?s programs. However, the emergence of Food Security as a major program focus started with ANGOC?s participation in the World Food Summit (WFS) in Rome, Italy in 1996. Since then, Food Security has become top priority for the ANGOC Network. In 1998 ANGOC came up with a Strategic Action Plan (ASAP) whose major focus was a food security enhancing initiative called the 200-Village Project.
The 200-Village Project is designed to monitor the extent to which food security and poverty eradication initiatives have been or are being undertaken within the framework of agrarian reform and resource rights, sustainable agriculture and resource management, and participatory local governance. It also seeks to empower poor communities by restoring or consolidating their access to land and resources on which their livelihood depends. The Project has three phases: (i) baseline survey and community planning; (ii) community project implementation and (iii) policy advocacy.
Baseline survey and community planning phase consists of data gathering at household, community and country levels. Community project implementation, as follow-up phase, is a need-based approach addressing household food insecurity. The Policy advocacy component, on the other hand, complements the whole process. The 200-Village Project has been implemented initially in nine (9) countries and has covered about 5,640 households in 189 villages out of the target 200. The countries include Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. The major activities conducted in the first phase (Baseline Survey and Community Planning) include national and village meetings, PRA training, household surveys, community profiling, preparation of national food security situationers, regional conferences and regional training. The household survey and community profiling were conducted through the efforts of some 17 NGO Networks in the selected countries and with the participation of around 125 community-based NGOs/POs. The preliminary results of the first phase clearly suggest certain areas for community interventions and possible initiatives in addressing food security problems. A number of community projects are already being formulated by the Country Focal Points and local NGO partners.
ANGOC?s Role in the Implementation of Community Projects There are two concrete follow-up strategies for the implementation of the second phase. One is a Community-initiated strategy where ANGOC would focus on linking community initiatives with interested support agencies through the CFPs and local NGO Partners. National or community-based NGOs can act as project holder and directly coordinate with the support organization in technical and financial dealings. However, ANGOC would retain its coordination role for documentation, monitoring and policy advocacy, especially at the regional level. The other is the Program-based strategy. The ANGOC Network?s priority program areas of intervention to promote food security i.e. (i) Agrarian Reform and Resource Rights (ARRR); (ii) Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development (SARD), and; (iii) Participatory Local Governance (PLG) would provide the framework. These areas would serve as the common focus of intervention and collaboration for community project implementation (Phase II) and policy advocacy (Phase III), by the Country Focal Points and the ANGOC Network both at the national and regional levels. In this strategy, ANGOC would be the project holder, in collaboration with the national or the community-based NGOs.
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