About ACAHP

What is ACAHP?

The Alliance of Cooperatives Against Hunger and Poverty (ACAHP) is a cooperative-led alliance established in 2024, bringing together farmer-owned cooperatives, cooperative federations, and partners to strengthen the role of cooperatives in public food procurement in the Philippines.

ACAHP’s purpose is to link local cooperative production with public food programmes, so that nutritious food reaches vulnerable populations while improving farmers’ incomes, strengthening cooperatives, and supporting local food systems.

ACAHP works in close partnership with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the Enhanced Partnership Against Hunger and Poverty (EPAHP), the government’s flagship whole-of-government framework on hunger and poverty.

ACAHP serves as an official coordination platform between institutional buyers and cooperative suppliers, particularly under the Negotiated Procurement Community Participation (NPCP) modality.

Beyond their role as suppliers, ACAHP engages cooperatives as:

Service providers in aggregation, processing, and logistics
Policy partners in the feedback and co-construction of procurement rules
Sources of evidence and learning to improve public food procurement systems

Mission

To establish functional partnerships between government procurement entities and cooperatives, ensuring that food supplies for public feeding programmes are sourced from local farmers and fisherfolk, thereby improving their incomes and strengthening local food systems.

Vision

A future where local cooperatives are integral players in public food procurement, contributing significantly to the eradication of hunger and poverty in the Philippines.

Goal

To increase the direct participation of farmers and fisherfolk in public food procurement, reducing hunger and poverty through inclusive, community-driven supply chains by 2035.

ACAHP’s Roles & Responsibilities

ACAHP serves as the advocacy arm of its member federations and cooperatives, linking them to public food procurement programmes, particularly NPCP, and representing their collective interests in national and regional policy dialogues.

ACAHP strengthens the capacity of cooperatives to produce, aggregate, and supply food for government feeding programmes. Where individual cooperatives cannot meet procurement volumes alone, ACAHP facilitates supply consolidation across cooperatives and federations.

ACAHP establishes a collegial monitoring system for NPCP contracts across procurement agencies and local government units. This system ensures alignment with ACAHP principles, generates learning for capacity-building programmes, and informs ongoing advocacy to improve the NPCP framework.

ACAHP members commit to mobilizing resources that support the alliance's advocacy work and the operationalization of NPCP efforts at the regional and national levels.

ACAHP’s Commitment

Regional NPCP Forums

Organizing regional forums across Mindanao to connect cooperatives, procurement entities, and civil society in exploring community-led food procurement opportunities.

Cooperative Capacity Building

Equipping cooperatives with the tools, planning mechanisms, and production coordination skills needed for effective NPCP implementation.

Provincial Cooperative Network

Working with EPAHP regional offices and local government units to designate focal cooperatives in every province, strengthening coordination across the region.

Policy Advocacy for Farmer Engagement

Advocating for improved public food procurement policies through forums and planning sessions that put farmers at the center of the procurement process.

Cooperative Empowerment for NPCP

Building cooperative capacity to actively participate in food procurement while championing their role in scaling up NPCP and reducing farmer marginalization.

NPCP Monitoring System

Establishing a monitoring and knowledge management system that helps cooperatives, LGUs, and farmers track contracts, costs, and pricing to strengthen public food procurement.

ACAHP Founding Members

A defining feature of ACAHP is that it was founded by established cooperative federations, farmers’ organizations, and development partners, each bringing decades of experience in cooperative development, food security, and policy engagement.

During the implementation of the MinPAD–SPADe programme, the main implementing partners were federations of cooperatives, farmers’ organisations, nongovernmental organisations, and international partners, which subsequently became the founding members of ACAHP. These organisations brought with them established constituencies, operational experience, and long-standing engagement in cooperative development, food security, and policy dialogue.

The founding members of ACAHP include, in particular:

AgriCOOPh (Philippine Family Farmers’ Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Cooperatives Federation),
NATCCO (National Confederation of Cooperatives),
MASS-SPECC Cooperative Development Center,
PFCCO Mindanao League (Philippine Federation of Credit Cooperatives – Mindanao League),
Model Cooperative Network,
PAKISAMA (Pambansang Kilusan ng mga Samahang Magsasaka),
PhilDHRRA,
Collectif Stratégies Alimentaires (CSA), and
Asian Farmers’ Association for Sustainable Rural Development (AFA).

Building on this federation-led foundation, ACAHP rapidly expanded through a territorial, pilot-based approach. In each pilot region under MinPAD–SPADe, primary cooperatives were progressively engaged through NPCP regional fora, orientations, and consultations, organised in collaboration with DSWD–EPAHP, cooperative federations, and local stakeholders. These processes enabled hundreds of primary cooperatives, including producers’ cooperatives, multipurpose cooperatives, and sector-specific organisations to formally join ACAHP’s collective process at the territorial level.

ACAHP Regional Technical Working Groups (RTWGs)

As ACAHP’s territorial work matured, Regional Technical Working Groups (RTWGs) were established and formally recognized across Mindanao. Each RTWG brings together primary cooperatives, federations, and public institutions as a territorial platform for coordination, production planning, and engagement with institutional food procurement under NPCP.

To ensure coherence between regional action and national dialogue, ACAHP is building a system of territorial representation, where pilot regions and their RTWGs are represented within ACAHP’s national coordination structures. This ensures bottom-up representation of primary cooperatives, alignment between regional realities and national EPAHP dialogue, and collective rather than individual representation of cooperative interests.

As a result of this step-by-step, territory-rooted process, ACAHP is deeply anchored in cooperative realities on the ground, representative of organized producers at scale, operational across multiple regions, and institutionally credible within the EPAHP and NPCP frameworks.

Institutional Transition and Sustainability

The initial ACAHP MOU was signed in the context of MinPAD–SPADe and was therefore project-specific and time-bound. A formal review has since been conducted to ensure continuity beyond the project.

The ongoing MOU revision aims to:

Update membership to reflect active and continuing federations
Establish a dedicated ACAHP Secretariat
Broaden ACAHP’s mandate to full institutional engagement under EPAHP and NPCP
Introduce governance, continuity, and resource-mobilisation mechanisms

Following the end of MinPAD–SPADe, CSA continues to support the ACAHP Secretariat through its Belgian-funded DGD programme, ensuring institutional consolidation and continuity.