A joint follow-up and implementation support mission for CHARMP2 was conducted by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) on March 6 – 17, 2017.
The Mission sought to assess the progress of the Project implementation and “provide implementation support in the scaling up of the Project”, according to the Mission team.
They added that, “CHARMP2 was able to secure an additional financing of around USD 10.33 million from IFAD after the NEDA Board approved the scaling up of the Project in November and December 2016, respectively. With the additional financing, CHARMP2’s completion will be on December 2018 and closure on June 30, 2018.”
The Mission team is composed of Mr. Omer Zafar, IFAD Country Programme Manager, and Tawfiq El-Zabri, Country Programme Co-Manager as Mission leaders; Jerry Pacturan, Country Programme Officer, livelihood specialist; Yolando Arban, Team Leader and Institutional and Project Management Specialist; Jens Evald Kristensen, Agribusiness Specialist; and Karen Resurreccion, NEDA representative for M&E and gender concerns.
As of Mission date, the Project has already achieved 99% of its total target outputs while reaching out to 218,718 individuals or 96,166 households within the 170 covered barangays. The remaining 1% target particularly on land tenure, livelihood, completion of three rural infrastructures, and piloting of identified indigenous forest management systems and practices are on-going. These activities are expected to be completed by June this year. The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP), on the other hand, has committed to continue processing the three ongoing Certificate of Ancestral Domain Titles or CADTs under the land tenure subcomponent even without the funding support from CHARMP2’s scaling up.
The Mission team also conducted a three-day field visit in some of the old and new CHARMP2 covered-barangays in Hingyon, Ifugao; Bauko, Mountain Province, and Kapangan, Benguet to further consult with the beneficiaries and local government units on the progress of the Project’s implementation in the community; to identify issues and bottlenecks in implementation; to identify project outcomes and sustainability measures, and to assess the two-year additional financing preparatory activities for the Project’s scale up.
The Mission noted that there are already existing livelihood interest groups or LIGs that have the potential to transform into sustainable commercial enterprises. These LIGs include those engaged in Arabica coffee production, sorting and packaging; rice processing and packaging; vegetable consolidation and marketing, and wine production and bottling.
“We have to look into something that has potential and can be sustained,” emphasized Mr. Jens Evald Kristensen, Marketing Specialist. He added that these potential LIGs should be given more attention to have a lasting impact not only in their lives but also in the local economy of the community as a whole.
Moreover, IFAD observed very satisfactory survival rates both in agroforestry and reforestation projects of 90.8% and 83.5%, respectively, based from the Project’s monitoring reports and actual validation in the visited communities. It was noted however that planting materials in some plantation sites were of poor quality that is mainly related to poorly developed root system as a result of plants being planted in small polythene bags. Hence, it was recommended that the Project will continue their extension services in agroforestry and refine the Farmers Field School agroforestry module for implementation in the expansion barangays. This is also looking beyond the potential of coffee, mainly grown under the agroforestry project, as a priority agribusiness/enterprise development commodity in the region.
The Project will be submitting a preliminary Project Completion Report to NEDA within the first semester of this year highlighting emerging outcomes and sustainability measures which can be gleaned from and replicated in the Scale Up implementation.
“We have to copy what is correct and do it correctly. We want to maximize project outcomes and that at the end of the Project, it will be a legacy to the community,” said Mr. Yolando Arban, Mission Team Leader.
Meanwhile, the Mission team observed during the community dialogues that the scale up barangays are ready for the implementation of CHARMP2. They were well prepared through the various preparatory activities undertaken earlier by the Project. The beneficiaries expressed their eagerness to start implementation of projects particularly on agroforestry, livelihood and rural infrastructure. The concerned local government units have also certified the availability of counterpart funds for the rural infrastructure subprojects.
“Ti CHARMP2 ket tumulong kagaditi tattao nga agkasapulan, mangited ti pondo ken proyekto nga mausar tapnu puminpintas ti panagbiag tayo (CHARMP2 is here to help the people in need, to provide funds and projects that will be utilized for the improvement of our lives),” answered one of the community beneficiaries in Bagnen-Oriente, Bauko, Mountain Province when asked what CHARMP2 is all about.
The 18 scale up barangays have undergone the first stages of social mobilization to prepare them for the scale up implementation which included project orientation, general assemblies, and participatory planning through the Project’s Social Mobilization and Participatory Investment Planning component. Among the communities’ initial outputs are the identification of priority needs through SWOT (Strength, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis; formation of livelihood interest groups (LIGs), barangay planning and monitoring teams, and peoples’ organizations (POs); and gathering of data for the barangay’s Project Participatory Investment Plan. For the livelihood component, some of the identified potential businesses include vegetable production and processing, swine fattening and meat processing, and roots and tuber crops production and processing. For the rural infrastructure development, rehabilitation of farm to market roads ranked the highest priority need of the communities. This directly affects their local livelihoods and would make a great impact for the improvement of their lives given their unique terrain conditions.
“Ang tulong na ito ay nararapat lamang na tugma sa inyong pangangailangan, gusto at kaya ninyong gawin, at alam ninyong makatutulong sa inyo (The project should be something that really addresses your needs, you wanted to and can implement, and you think will really help you),” emphasized Mr. Arban.
To date, the implementation of scale up projects are being held up by the signing of the Project Financing Agreement that will prompt the release of funds. On IFAD’s side, the additional financing has already been approved and that the additional two years of operation has already started January this year.
The DA, together with IFAD-Philippines, is facilitating the required procedures with projected timeline of accomplishment within or earlier than July given the various processes that need to be done to have the Financing Agreement signed and the fund released.
By JB Agrifino