CATBALOGAN CITY — The Provincial Government of Samar is aiming to reduce poverty rate from the current 49.5% to 30% in the next five years.
The government aims to achieve this by economic development primarily buoyed by Spark Samar campaign in partnership with government agencies and private organizations.
Monday, September 4, the Provincial Administrator and Spark Samar Project Manager, Mario Quijano said that the province has lined up projects focusing on farm-to-market roads, health, livelihood, agriculture, and irrigation to reach the poverty reduction target.
“There is an integrated approach to development, which the government created for its implementation to be in unison,” Quijano said.
Last 2015, the local government launched Spark Samar Program to stimulate tourism development, with Basey, Marabut, and Paranas towns as pilot areas.
Quijano leads the Project Management Office tasked to supervise the implementation of tourism-related projects. It includes evaluation to ensure its completion.
Improvement of health services is another way to hit the target. As of 2015, Samar’s total population is 780,481.
“We need a healthy population who will help us attain development plans in the local level. We need to bring health to the rural areas, to the poorest of the poor; to the farthest barangays and this is a big challenge for all of us,” Quijano said.
The province was in the 14th place among the poorest provinces in the country in 2016, having 49.5 percent poverty incidence.