Tarlac City, Tarlac – To capacitate the different staff of the Department of Agriculture Regional Field Office 3, Regional Project Coordination Office 3 and local government units (LGUs) staff, the RPCO3 I-PLAN spearheaded a four-day training-workshop on Project Proposal Packaging last July 3-6, 2017 at ROS Paraiso, Tarlac City, Tarlac.

The activity aimed to facilitate acquisition of skills and knowledge in packaging a comprehensive and up to date project proposal.

Experts and specialists from Central Luzon State University served as the resource persons and facilitators during the training.

Dr. Mercedita M. Reyes, Assistant Professor III of CLSU University Science High School emphasized the importance of funding agricultural projects in the Philippines.

“We are an agricultural country and if there is one area in the Philippines that has to be enriched, developed, improved and funded multi-billions that should be the field of agriculture,” she said.

Marjorie Manlulu, Head of Linkages and Intercultural Exchanges Unit in CLSU explained the importance of scientific writing in writing project proposal.

“Your project proposals should be tailored according to the needs and traits of your readers,” she said.

She added that in writing a project proposal, one should know the problem of a certain group or institution, convince them that you are the answer to their problem and give a detailed solution.

She reminded the participants that the proposal should reflect the organization’s goals and culture.

“You should bear in mind to demonstrate the style and appearance of the organization. If submitting to an organization, know their expectations in terms of format and style. You should make documents interesting and appealing, communicate and reinforce difficult concepts, communicate instructions and descriptions of objects and processes and communicate large amounts of quantitative data,” she said.

During the training, Dr. Rolando D. Dollete, CLSU Dean of College of Education discussed the need of proper strategic planning, project design and defining project goals and objectives.  He also tackled the stages and strategies of writing a project proposal including the budgeting and funding.

As output of the training, the participants presented their project proposal to the resource speakers.

The I-PLAN component under the Philippine Rural Development Project aims to enhance the Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Plan through science-based tools and to harmonize regional and provincial Agriculture and Fisheries Modernization Plan through the formulation of the Provincial Commodity Investment Plan (PCIP) using VCA. (Dianne Lapuz, RPCO3 InfoACE Unit)