On January 10–13, more than 300 PRDP staff from the National Project Coordination Office (NPCO) and Project Support Offices (PSOs) gathered to evaluate the Project’s performance and set targets for the upcoming series of World Bank missions.

“Last year was very busy and challenging and now we’re entering a very critical, crucial stage in our Project life. The expectation is high for all of us,” PRDP South Luzon PSO Director Shandy Hubilla remarked when he welcomed the guests who came from the different parts of the country.

The PRDP South Luzon Cluster hosted the teams from the NPCO and the three PSOs from North Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao for the NPCO-PSO coordination workshop, which is conducted for the first time in the three years of the Project implementation.

Topics discussed during the four-day workshop were the prioritization guidelines for subprojects to be funded by the additional financing, action plans for the proposed Project expansion, emerging good practices and lessons learned in the Project implementation, preparations for the series of missions and the next steps for PRDP.

PRDP National Deputy Project Director Arnel De Mesa stressed that the said activity is very critical. After his presentation of the Project updates, however, he stated, “I hope that what I gave you is a challenge, not a reason to panic. The good thing is that all challenges are meant to be surpassed.”

Director De Mesa also cautioned everyone to think that ““we are not okay,” because the PRDP team needs to further improve its performance before the next World Bank review mission in May.

He reminded the PRDP staff that more than the infrastructure and enterprise development subprojects, the Project is really “about achieving its objectives to have impact to the lives of its stakeholders.” ### (Gumamela Celes Bejarin, DA-PRDP South Luzon PSO InfoACE Unit)