The Social and Environmental Safeguards (SES) Unit of the Department of Agriculture – Philippine Rural Development Project (DA-PRDP) North Luzon cluster held its second quarter assessment and coordination meeting from June 27 to July 1, 2022 at Sta. Ana, Cagayan.

On the first day of the meeting, Project Support Office (PSO) SES Unit Head, Emmanuel Aragones, presented and discussed the unit’s agreed actions, challenges, and way forward transpired during the recently concluded 14th World Bank Implementation Support Mission to DA-PRDP.

Afterwards, the PSO SES unit staff facilitated the plenary workshops for their counterparts from the region on the implementation support mission’s agreed actions. These include updating of social safeguards aspects of subprojects, post-mission follow-up on other subprojects, and listing of safeguards training.

To have an overview of all the subprojects with pending SES compliance, Aragones also presented the status of subprojects per region that are under proposal, under implementation, and completed.

Meanwhile, SES Specialist of the National Project Coordination Office (NPCO), Michael Francis Falconi, gave a refresher presentation on the grievance redress mechanism (GRM) and social safeguards database, which included safeguards guidelines and a matrix on the updating of data in PRDP web-based GRM.

Participants from the four regions actively participated and presented their respective identified issues and concerns in subproject implementation relative to SES compliance. They also identified eligible subprojects to undergo a post-mission site visit which will be conducted in the coming months.

Present during the activity was the Regional Technical Director of Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO) 2, Rose Mary G. Aquino, who recognized the importance of the unit in the project implementation.

In her speech, she said that the coordination meeting was a perfect time for all the staff of the unit to reflect on the lessons learned from the past months in order to arrive at more strategic plans for the Project.

“I hope this activity will give a clear pathway to the SES unit of the cluster as you continually take on a vital role in implementing various projects in the rural communities,” she added.

The five-day activity concluded with a presentation of agreement and ways forward based on what has been discussed. (Ericson M. Guiao, PSO North Luzon InfoACE)