Refer
to: Ms. Dale Zapata
83321148/8334507
VP NOLI REVEALS
2-PRONGED HOUSING PROGRAM FOR SLUM DWELLERS
Seeing importance
of cooperative movements to economic development
14
September 2005
VICE PRESIDENT and concurrent Housing
and Urban Development Coordinating Council
(HUDCC) chairman Noli
“Kabayan” De Castro underscored the role of local cooperatives in enhancing the prospects
of housing microfinance and
revealed the two pilot housing
projects aimed at providing shelter security and livelihood opportunities to urban poor
families: the development of
poor urban communities project & the strategic private sector partnership for
urban poverty reduction.
De Castro,
speaking at this year’s Asian Credit
Union Forum,
first pointed out that 30.4
percent of our country’s
population was found to be living below the poverty line and such poverty statistics
are replicated in practically
all developing countries.
Therefore, as similarly concluded by the United Nations where there is strong private
investment, there is sustained
economic growth. The answer to
poverty is in the hands of private entrepreneurs --- including primary cooperatives.
“Housing is
one area where the Philippine government recognizes the important role and
contribution of the private
sector, specifically,” De Castro stressed, “in the areas of housing finance and
construction.”
In this
regard, the Vice President disclosed that under the development of poor urban
communities project, the aim
is to enable the urban poor to avail of financial services for micro enterprise development, home improvements, and
housing. The project will also
pilot the potential for, and
sustainability of micro finance institutions, in the provision of housing micro finance to the
urban poor.
The strategic
private sector partnership for urban poverty reduction program in Metro
Manila, on the other hand,
aims to build the capacities of the poor and to develop a market for their micro
enterprise
products.
De Castro
noted that the practice of local cooperative movements in reasonably following the
experience of credit unions in
other parts of the world was able to provide at the grassroot levels
mechanisms for economic
development and thus pave the way for people-centered development.
The Vice
President hopes for the success of the objectives of the ACU forum of
standardizing systems and
policies of savings and credit cooperatives or credit unions across Asia, and on
creating model credit unions
through a system of branding. In the Philippines, De Castro said that the
National Confederation
of
Cooperatives or Natcco and the
Philippine
Federation of Credit Cooperatives or PFCCO --- are themselves working together
towards this end.
Moreover, the
government, through the Philippine Congress, led by the Philippine
cooperative sector
representative in Congress, Congressman Guillermo P. Cua, is now crafting legislation for
savings and credit
cooperatives that aims to bring savings and credit cooperatives into the mainstream
financial system and raise
their performance to a level at par with the rest of the financial industry.
“Personally,
I wish to see the day when savings and credit cooperatives in the Philippines
have a brand name equivalent
to the successful brands in the
country. I wish to see that day when I can carry an electronic card issued by a cooperative
in the Philippines and which I
can use in other parts of Asia
and the
world.”
Ref no. VPMEDIA 05-125
©
Copyright
2005
Office of the Vice President (OVP) 
Management Information Services
Division (MISD). All rights reserved.
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