City of San Fernando, PAMPANGA – As the year is about to end, the I-REAP Component under the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) of the Department of Agriculture (DA) urged project sustainability during the Virtual 2020 Regional Project Coordination Office (RPCO 3) – Provincial Project Management Implementing Unit (PPMIU) I-REAP Year-End Assessment held simultaneously to various provinces in Central Luzon on December 10, 2020.

Project Support Office (PSO) I-REAP Component Head Mary Anndie Clavel stressed the need to achieve project indicators by which the project is gauged based on output and income.

Clavel disclosed that in 2019 among the targets is to complete the physical or financial aspect of the I-REAP by 2020 but was abruptly put off due to the coronavirus pandemic.

“We are really after project sustainability. But unfortunately, we are still on the implementation stage of the project. So, starting next year, we will try to divert the focus of I-REAP. Once we accomplished the disbursement to enterprise operations,” Clavel said.

She emphasized that the primary end-goals of the I-REAP is to increase income, membership, women participation, market output and accessibility.

She also reckoned mechanisms and strategies such as enterprise assessment, enterprise operations manual, and other tools that were used to ensure the functionality of enterprises.

With this, Clavel took the opportunity to remind participants about the directive of the World Bank regarding the acceleration of disbursement in achieving 100% in the physical and financial disbursement this December of 2020 or before June of 2021.

“The management and the World Bank still expect us to deliver (accomplishments),” she added.

During the virtual assessment, the USD280 million Second Additional Financing (AF-2) Retrofitting with EUR18.3 million European Union Co-Financing Grant was discussed to identify subprojects and enterprises that lead towards secure and inclusively developed communities.

Currently, the I-REAP has a total of 155 approved subprojects wherein 125 are deemed completed, 28 under implementation, 28 awaiting contract execution which 17 are 50% and above progress, 11 are less than 50% progress, two remaining subprojects under procurement and two subprojects issued with No Objection Letter (NOL 1).

Among other activities were charting and targeting of timeline and catch-up plans for the year 2021 after which a presentation of updates and current status of civil works and enterprises from the different provinces of Central Luzon. (MA. REINA LEN G. LUNA, RPCO3 InfoACE)