Transparency and accountability are crucial in implementing various agricultural-fishery subprojects, whether small or big, to ensure that allocated funds are utilized for their intended purposes.

And as the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) of the Department of Agriculture continuously provides support for farmers in the countryside through various types of infrastructure and enterprise subprojects, the World Bank, being the grantor of loan support to the Project, recognized the importance of further strengthening the existing institutional system and structure that guide in project implementation in order to avoid fraud and corruption within the Project.

With this, the World Bank team visited the North Luzon cluster to conduct “Technical Discussions on Institutional and Fiduciary Strengthening for DA projects in the World Bank Pipeline” on January 18, 2023 in Angeles City.

The WB team was headed by its Task Team Leader, Mio Takada, with Institutional Strengthening Specialist Anna Pinto Herbert and Senior Financial Management Specialist Tomas Sta. Maria, Institution and Rural Development Advisor, Douglas Forno, and Infrastructure Engineer, Raoul Azanza.

Ms. Herbert led the technical discussion where she presented the “Guidelines on Preventing and Combating Fraud and Corruption in Projects Financed by IBRD Loans and IDA Credits and Grants.” In her presentation, she highlighted the importance of spotting and detecting red flags in project implementation and providing preventive and mitigating measures to address them.

After her discussion, she grouped the participants into three for a workshop on identifying red flags in the given scenarios focusing on procurement, contract management, and accounting system and determining the possible solution to these identified red flags.

Participants in the said activity included officials and representatives from the local government units of Tarlac and Bataan, the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR), the Regional Project Coordination Office 3 (RPCO3), and Project Support Office (PSO) North Luzon.

The cluster was the last stop for the WB team in conducting the series of discussions as part of their two-part Mission to DA-PRDP that kicked off on January 9, 2023. (Ericson M. Guiao, PSO North Luzon InfoACE)