The second round of the Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting with regard to the formulation of the Bangsamoro Development Plan (BDP) was held on April 25, 2014 afternoon at the Kapayapaan Hall, Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP), Ortigas Avenue, Pasig City. The meeting was held more eight months after the 1^st PSC meeting. It aimed to present draft BDP outline and storyline.

The PSC meeting was chaired by the BDA Chairman, Dr. Saffrullah M. Dipatuan. Other PSC Members present were: Ustadz Abdulkadir Abdullah, member of the BDA Board, Dr. Mohammad Yacob, BDA Executive Director, USec. Luisito Montalbo, OPAPP Executive Director, Engr. Baintan A. Ampatuan, Executive Director of the ARMM Regional Planning and Development Office, Mr. Motoo Konishi, Country Director of World Bank-Philippines, Mr. Guiamel Alim, Executive Director of Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society, representatives from National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), United Nations, and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA)-Philippines.

In his opening message, Dr. Dipatuan emphasized that the formulation of the Bangsamoro Development Plan is Bottom-Up approach in which the output of the Community Visioning Exercises is significant in identifying realistic, doable and quick impact programs/projects that shall be addressed both in the Bangsamoro Core Territories and its adjacent areas.

“This development plan must be anchored on the long history of the Bangsamoro and shall be inclusive, Dr. Dipatuan said.

With regard to the BDP timeline, Dr. Dipatuan divulged that with the active participation and commitment of various development partners, “we believed that we can still come up with a draft Bangsamoro Development Plan by June 2014 but there could be a spill over to July 2014 given the current scenario”.

Engr. Windel P. Diangcalan, BDP Core Planning Team Leader, presented the draft outline of the Bangsamoro Development Plan to the Project Steering Committee.

Engr. Diangcalan highlighted that the views from the ground, through community visioning exercises conducted at various strategic areas in Mindanao and some output of the consultations done by the civil society organizations for the Bangsamoro Basic Law, will be material references in the formulation of the BDP. “The recommendations that came out from those community consultations will be considered and hopefully provide an early wins, doable projects, and quick impact to the Bangsamoro in the transition phase while we will attempt to provide a strategic recommendations for medium-term period”, he added.

OPAPP Undersecretary Luisito Montalbo raised concern on the coherence of the BDP to the Bangsamoro Basic Law (BBL). “The BBL is still evolving but somehow efforts are to be made to ensure that the institutional arrangements in the BDP are aligned to it”, said Usec. Montalbo.

At the end of the meeting, the Project Steering Committee agreed to approve the draft BDP outline after the BDP Core Planning Team incorporated all comments and suggestions and come up with a revised outline. The next PSC meeting will be held should the BDP Integrative Report will be ready for review and approval.

Mindanao Trust Fund (MTF) provides operational support to the BDP project in addition to the specific support to the BDP themes and sub-themes. MTF contributors include - European Union (EU), World Bank and DFAT-Australia. Other partners who contributed to MTF are: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), New Zealand Aid for International Development (NZAID), United States Aid for International Development (USAID) and Swedish International Development Agency (SIDA).