MRDP strengthens DA-LGU partnership to boost dev’t

Aside from improving rural incomes, the Department of Agriculture’s (DA) antipoverty program had also been instrumental in improving local governance.
DA Secretary Proceso Alcala said through the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP),  local government units (LGUs) have been capacitated to implement various development projects.
“For each project processed and approved in MRDP, it was our paramount concern that the benefits to the farmers and fishers are clear and we augment the capacity of our partner LGUs to carry on way beyond the program duration,” Alcala said. 
Being the flagship poverty reduction program for Mindanao where national and local government collaborates, Alcala said the program enjoys tremendous support from the current administration.
“In the second semester of the previous year alone, a total of P920 million had been released for co-financing of the program’s rural infrastructure portfolio,” he said.
Alcala said he is currently negotiating with the Department of Finance (DOF) and the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) for MRDP’s extension and additional financing.  As per loan agreement, MRDP will supposedly be closing end of this year “but the demand from LGUs and beneficiaries are tremendously increasing,” Alcala said adding that the initial response from DOF and NEDA are encouraging considering the program’s successful engagement with LGUs.
He said MRDP also complements the present administration’s goal of promoting good governance as it capacitates the covered LGUs to implement projects in a transparent and efficient way.
“The procurement processes of MRDP are already being replicated in other DA projects as well as in harmonizing our LGU project engagements.  We are training additional staff members on geo-tagging,” he added.
Geotagging is the process of adding geographical identification such as globe coordinates to various media like photos or video, websites, and SMS messages.  In the case of MRDP, geotag is applied to rural infrastructure projects such as access roads and water facilities.
Alcala commended MRDP for taking the lead in using geotagging in project implementation to avoid duplication as well as in verifying its existence and in monitoring its progress.
Meanwhile, World Bank (WB) lead rural development specialist Carol Geron said MRDP was conceptualized to complement the Local Government Code as it aims to enable the LGUs to be in the frontline in the delivery of basic agricultural services.
“The second phase of MRDP has two development objectives which is to improve livelihood of participating communities and at the same time institute a decentralize delivery of agricultural services that promotes transparency and greater accountability,” Geron said.
Geron along with the WB team of consultants commended MRDP for gaining broad-based support from various agencies particularly the LGUs to spur rural development across Mindanao.         
Davao del Norte Governor Rodolfo del Rosario cited MRDP’s demand-driven approach as a means to enable LGUs to observe sound investment.
“MRDP’s funding assistance is not by allocation but based on LGUs’ ability to compete and capability implement development projects so money will not be wasted,” he said. 
As the representative of Mindanao provincial LGUs in MRDP board, del Rosario said the intent demand-driven funding allocation is to promote decentralization where LGUs can learn to implement its own program. [Noel T. Provido/DA-MRDP]