Agriculture Assistant Secretary Lerey Panes presented to Carolina Figueroa-Geron, lead rural development specialist, Agriculture Global Practice of the World Bank, the Development Aid Partner Award for Agriculture and Fisheries at the recent Mission: PHL, the BusinessMirror Envoys&Expats Awards.

In behalf of the World Bank, Figueroa-Geron thanked the Department of Agriculture, saying “no award is sweeter than that bestowed to you by one’s direct and primary client.”

She added that for many decades, the World Bank has been a proud partner of the Department of Agriculture and the Philippine government in the development and improvement of the agriculture and fisheries sector “from the first irrigation projects that we [World Bank] have cofinanced with the Philippine government starting in the 1950s, to the agriculture diversification and rural development projects in the 90s and the 2000s.”

“With this award, we will endeavor to continue to be your development partner of choice for the improvement of the lives of the Filipino farmers and fishers. And I would like to take this opportunity to thank our other partners in government for nominating World Bank in your respective endeavors. Thank you very much BusinessMirror, for this award,” Figueroa-Gerona said.

Watch for the next round of Mission: PHL, the BusinessMirror Envoys&Expats Awards in 2021.

Mission: PHL is the first and only recognition awards for the Philippines’s best partners in development cooperation. It gives due recognition to the development efforts of countries as represented by their embassies, as well as bilateral and multilateral development aid partners.

Read updates on Mission: PHL in the BusinessMirror’s Envoys&Expats Section.