As it approaches its fourth year of implementation, the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) now takes on initial steps in mainstreaming and institutionalizing some Project-initiated tools and processes.

One of PRDP’s well-utilized approaches is the crafting of the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP). Based on a commodity’s Value Chain Analysis (VCA), this document contains priority programs and projects that aim to increase marketable surplus through investment on strategic rural infrastructure and livelihood enterprises.

Through an assessment attended by local and national government units and stakeholders in Nueva Ecija on September 13, the composite team of the PRDP national, regional and cluster offices collected feedback on the province’s use of the PCIP, by which generally positive response was gathered.

Realizing the benefits

“The PCIP is supportive of the needs of the commodity and farmers, as programs can be prioritized according to demand,” said one of the provincial staffs during the focus group discussion of the Provincial Project Management and Implementing Unit (PPMIU).

The group emphasized on the PCIP’s holistic approach in planning and budgeting, which they intend to adopt in their respective offices.

Three farmer cooperatives attended the activity –the Carranglan Multi Crops Producers Cooperative, SIKKAP San Jose Enterprise and Magsaysay Farmers MPC.

The said cooperatives have been participating in consultations for the updating of the Nueva Ecija’s existing PCIP.

“It is fulfilling to make a contribution to a plan that supports the primary needs of farmers like us,” said one farmer from SIKKAP.

“Through the PCIP, we can say that funds are now being allotted to the right project. Because of this, we are more supportive and positive that the LGU will be our partner in promoting the agriculture sector here in Nueva Ecija,” they added.

National agencies like the Department of Local and Interior Government (DILG) expressed interest in making use of PCIP in terms of indentifying projects under the Bottoms Up Budgeting (BUB) and Assistance to Disadvantage Municipalities (ADM).

Milestones

Prior to the actual crafting of the PCIP, the PPMIU of Nueva Ecija considered onion as the priority commodity to be pursued. However, the absence of VCA for onion at that time resulted to a shift to Ampalaya, since its VCA has already been completed.

Based on the results of the VCA, drafting was officially started and was further enhanced through technical reviews and stakeholders’ consultations.

On August 11, 2014, the Provincial Development Council (PDC) has endorsed for the approval of the PCIP of Ampalaya, marking the second approved PCIP in Central Luzon, after Bulacan with the same commodity. Since then, more commodities were included in the plan, namely, onion, goat, aromatic and pigmented rice, mango and tomato.

Among the seven provinces of Central Luzon, Nueva Ecija emerged as the province with the most outstanding utilization of PCIP in terms of updating, active PRDP subprojects, investment fund sources (LGU, NGAs, private sectors), active PPMIU, and consistency between VCA and PCIP.

A pre-selection was conducted by the I-PLAN component of the region in which the province received a score of 95%, followed by Bataan with 90% and Aurora with 85%.

Next Steps

Findings and recommendations from the assessment will be submitted to the World Bank and will be among the accomplishments of North Luzon in the upcoming World Bank implementation support mission on November.

“This activity will surely leave a big contribution for the improvement of the project implementation,” said Project Support Office (PSO) I-PLAN component head Ariel Briones.

He added, “This PCIP is just one of the many tools and innovations from PRDP that we hope to mainstream.”

Another assessment meeting on the institutionalization of PCIP is set to happen in Batanes on September 27, 2017. (Kayla Arceo, PSO InfoACE Unit, with inputs from PSO and RPCO3 I-PLAN and M&E)