by Nicasio Angelo Agustin
The strategy of the national government to encourage adjacent regions and local governments belonging to an area defined by similar geophysical and natural features to plan and work together is sensible and laudable. The idea is for these localities to jointly plan how to maximize the potentials that their common resources have to offer. This undertaking mobilizes local governments not only to spur growth and development for them in a corporate and individual sense but also for them to share the responsibility in taking care of these shared resources.
This is not a new strategy. Many national government agencies in the past had – and even at present have – advocated for this approach as they believe it will greatly enhance capacities of both national and local governments to respond to the challenge of sustaining economic and social growth through the judicious use of our bountiful natural resources. Local governments can also have the opportunity to identify their niche in the broader scheme of bringing about development; they need not unnecessarily compete with each other but to complement one another.
Model projects (called integrated area development) had also been tested as early as the 70s, but being projects funded by the ODA they ceased to exist when the projects ended. Unfortunately, there were no mechanisms put in place to capture and mainstream the learning generated from these experiences. I recall, however, that there was an agency charged with area-based planning and project implementation, but it was scrapped after the First EDSA Revolution when there was a need to streamline the bureaucracy.
Then, there is the Local Government Code which places much responsibility and authority on local governments to individually manage and utilize – to some extent – the natural resources they have within their individual reach. And, as a result, we see local governments acting like desparate and separate corporate entities fighting for their own survival, sustenance and growth. Wittingly or unwittingly, the spirit of competition is promoted rather than for them to be working together with the resources they have to advance each other for the common good.
Provincial and regional planning exercises are expected to integrate, synchronize and guide local planning so that a more unified approach to development could be achieved. There is now therefore a common and shared vision of development and a set of strategies to achieve it; and if such were taken seriously, the attainment of equitable growth among adjacent and neighboring local governments would be closer to reality.
The area-based development approach is similar to provincial and regional planning, but its boundaries go beyond ethni-political jurisdictions. A natural feature – which could be a river basin or a watershed catchment area – determines the spatial coverage of the planning unit. Based on what we see on the ground, therefore, an area would then involve more than one region (in part or in whole) or several provinces not necessarily belonging to the same region. As mentioned above, the benefits of this type of planning and project implementation arrangement are innumerable.
Going beyond mere advocacy now, the success of area-based development approach is wholly dependent on the willingness of local governments to “participate” and I specifically like how the strategy uses the term “encourage”. It is on this aspect where leadership is needed. It means that someone has to incessantly influence concerned local governments and regions to practice this tried and tested development approach.
A mechanism of coordination is also a must – a mechanism that is higher than the regions but lower than the national. It’s not an added bureaucratic layer because it will only orchestrate development initiatives which are not otherwise within the ambit of either the provinces, or the regions, or the national government. A good example would be the Mindanao Development Authority (MinDA), the successor of the Mindanao Economic Development Council (MEDCo) which was then created as a mechanism of coordination among regions in Mindanao. Applying therefore the concept of area-based development, MinDA could regroup the provinces and regions in Mindanao according to their natural features and start planning out development for each area consistent with regional, provincial and local development directions. It does not require a formalization of the process; it only necessitates reorganizing and sorting out tasks.
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