In line with the 10th World Bank Implementation Support Mission’s recommendation of assessing the effectiveness of the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP) as a planning tool in creating investment and opportunities in the agriculture sector, the Department of Agriculture- Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) Regional Project Coordination Office 6 (RPCO 6) I-PLAN Component held the Negros Occidental PCIP Assessment in Bacolod City on July 28-29, 2022.

Led by the I-PLAN Component, the RPCO 6 staff composed of representatives from the Monitoring and Evaluation Unit, Administrative Unit, and InfoACE Unit, interviewed the participating local government unit (LGU) representatives and convergence partners.

Focused Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interview (KII) guide questions were used to generate LGU practices in formulating/updating, implementing, and utilizing the CIP as a planning tool in creating investments and opportunities in the provincial commodity industry. Particularly, the questionnaire with area of emphasis on Formulation Process, CIP Updating Process, CIP Implementation/ Utilization was utilized during the assessment undertaken.

Planning Officer of RPCO 6 Lady Grace Maneja discussed the cluster-wide report on PCIPs and the activity’s rationale.
“Currently, the Visayas Cluster has 22 completed VCAs, 88% already translated to 16 PCIPs with 57 commodity matrices,” said Maneja.

Likewise, the component has already conducted an institutional assessment of the PCIP funded investments and results showed that there is a need to identify the leveraging mechanisms to implement and utilize the tool in view of increasing investments hence, necessitating the PCIP evaluation process.

Findings during the activity will be analyzed to devise strategies for the enhancement of CIP formulation/updating, implementation, and utilization. (April Grace Padilla, RPCO 6, Writer)