AsiaDHRRA had the opportunity to be part of the program during the 5th ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication (SOMRDPE) meeting in Manila from 12-14 October 2005. AsiaDHRRA’s presentation which took place in an open session on October 13 at the The Manila Peninsula Hotel, Makati City was coordinated through the Office of Human Development Unit of the ASEAN
Secretariat.
The presentation was mainly an update of the Southeast Asia Rural Development Award (SEARDA) which remains to be a strategic regional cooperation between ASEAN and AsiaDHHRA/CSOs. The SEARDA proposal which aims to recognize and award rural development “good practices” in the Southeast Asian Region was first presented and considered during the 4th ASEAN SOMRDPE held in December 2003 in Yangon, Myanmar. Constrained by lack of funding for core needs, a call from the ASEAN thru SOMRDPE to re-affirm its support to SEARDA to jointly mobilize resources and a formal endorsement to potential funders/stakeholders was raised.
It was also an opportunity for AsiaDHRRA to present the other initiatives being done in the regional level particularly the result of the recently concluded CSO Conference on Engaging ASEAN held in Bangkok,Thailand where AsiaDHRRA was one of the
organizers. His Excellency Secretary General Ong Keng Yong and his senior officers were present and had a dialogue with the CSOs in the said conference.
The 5th SOMRDPE meeting was chaired by Sec. Zamzamin L. Ampatuan from the Philippines.