The Sumkar District Administration in Madang province is now committed in supporting its cocoa farmers in the Karkar island communities and mainland. District Administrator, Charles Katu, declared this during the singing of partnership agreement between three cocoa farmer groups and the World Bank through the PNG Agriculture Commercialization and Diversification (PACD) Project Cocoa Component in Madang province last week, held at the Sumkar District Administration area. He stated that this program is good for the Madang communities that will give chance to every household to have a share to participate in the socio-economic activities for a better livelihood. “Since the inception of the projects, the government officers have been working closely with the farmer groups in mobilizing the farmers, establishing the lead partners and negotiating with the farmers and lead partners.” “I assure that the government will fully support these projects after the project completion in terms of sustainability in the long run. Sumkar District Authority is committed to support the projects moving forward.” “These signing agreements will become like a binding agent to bring us the government and lead partners and farmers to develop this program in the district.” Meanwhile, the officers on ground on the mainland are currently fully participating in the programs under the program manager in which he thanked his officers for participating and implementing this program, and now will be signing the agreement partnership. Katu further stated that there are lot of times that the people in the district ask for help from the district, but due to funding, sometimes the district help but not all the time. He commented that this funding from the World Bank to the three cocoa projects will greatly help more than 1, 000 farmers to boost cocoa production in the province. In addition, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Karkar Local Level Government (LLG), Ian Beb, acknowledged the PACD team and the lead partners in the island for their time and dedication. He said that this is a milestone achievement in the Karkar communities and mainland communities and urged the farmer groups to work together to implement this various cocoa projects successfully. Furthermore, PACD Cocoa Component Project Manager, Roland Kerina, congratulated the three farmer groups and their lead partners NGO Promotion Inc. from the mainland and Karkar Island, Biabi Enterprise Limited and Kulili Estate Limited with their joint partner and producer organizations. Kerina told the occasion that the funding will be channeled through goods and services such as cocoa seedlings, farming tools, trainings and other plans in the farmer group respective project plans. “Many other projects come and go without proper completion or only few benefits but with this project I assured you that this is a true project and PMU team will work closely with the farmer groups until completion.” He reminded the farmers that the team went through a tedious process in the last twelve months to identify the potential Lead Partners from a total of 61 Expression of Interests. However, only 26 passed through to the detailed project proposal phase and final 22 passed on to be assessed by the Projects Technical Appraisal Committee (TAC). This Committee is independent, which comprises of professionals, led by Mr. Paul Barker as Chairman. Following this appraisal ratings, the final list was recommended to the Cocoa Industry Coordination Committee. Meanwhile, the three in Madang province are fortunate that they have met the Word Bank guidelines and requirement and upon success, they will now be receiving funding worth more than K3 million to implement their projects.