Domoguen: Building resilient highland communities

(Conclusion of a two-part series article)

WE CONCLUDE this two-part series article with a presentation of the best practices in project implementation that were undertaken by the stakeholders of the Second Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management Project (Charmp2).

The Charmp2 started in 2009. It is the third sequel of foreign-funded rural community development interventions packaged for the Cordilleras’ marginalized highlands beginning with the Highland Agricultural Development Project (HADP) in 1987-1994 and later followed by the Cordillera Highland Agricultural Resources Management (Charm) Project from 1998-2004.

The Charmp2 was implemented in remote, almost unknown and poverty-stricken villages in 36 municipalities of the Cordillera championing participatory, gender, indigenous, inter-agency, and other community resources management strategies that would accelerate infrastructure development, promote good governance and social development, and the conservation, protection, and rehabilitation of the region’s natural resources and quality environment.

The Project was completed last December 30, 2019. Now on its two-year scale-up phase, the Project seeks to upscale best practices evolved in project implementation in 18 new barangays of the Cordillera.

Before looking at these best practices, it would be well to also note that the Charmp2 is by itself, a unique, holistic, and innovative rural community development intervention quite unlike the others that we have seen implemented in the Cordillera addressing development concerns involving single commodities like citrus or potato, if not “one-time big-time” rural infrastructure projects like multi-million farm-to-market roads or postharvest facilities.

The issues with which Jorge Mario Bergoglio, also known as Pope Francis, began his papacy were migration and jobs. These are issues that the world’s poor care about, issues with which most Cordillerans also struggle with on a daily basis, its pains recently highlighted during the Itogon landslide tragedy where most of those buried, dead, and missing are immigrants from nearby provinces searching for better income and quality of life.

Many a poor migrant know this by heart, “where there is no work, there is no dignity.”

Pope Francis understood what it took to leave one land for another, “that fortitude, as well as the great pain that comes from being uprooted,” as he put it when he shared the background of his family in South America to those who would listen.

Migration at its worst tears families apart and leaves its victims suffer not only financial crises, family break-ups, and sadness of forced forgetfulness of a person’s history and belonging to a caring community.

It is for these same reasons, that the Charmp2 was conceptualized, to improve the quality of life in the region’s marginalized highland communities, by improving local livelihoods, increasing the income of local folks, and addressing a host of community development priorities identified by the beneficiaries themselves during community consultations and participatory planning exercises assisted by the Project’s operatives from the Department of Agriculture and its key implementing partners to include the local government units(LGUs) and National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP).

In the Project’s coverage areas, the identified priority projects by the beneficiaries are the following: Implementation of agro-forestry watershed management systems to improve watersheds in slope areas; Implementation of agribusiness and livelihood development through group enterprises; and, Improvement of rural community infrastructure essential for the promotion of agricultural production and rural-based livelihoods to include farm-to-market-access roads, communal irrigation projects or systems; solar dryers; warehouses; and greenhouses.

Best practices in project implementation arise out of a good understanding of community development problems and the interventions implemented to address those problems, the lessons learned during project implementation, and innovations carried out to address the problems.

There are several best practices but the fully documented ones are 1) Participatory project investment process wherein the beneficiary community identifies and targets actual needs that result in the effective implementation of project interventions.

2) Green covenant-based approach to reforestation and agroforestry project is a multi-partite covenanting scheme involving the DA, indigenous people’s organization (IPO), and the barangay, municipal and provincial local government units (LGUs). The Covenant is doctrinal and deeply binds all the parties to the pursuit of their agreed roles compared to the ordinary civil contracts.

3) Livelihood Assistance Fund (LAF) is a Charmp2 community-based easy access credit program for smallholder families to engage in community and group businesses and livelihood. Its implementation has helped farmer groups increase productivity, income, and assets.

4) Barangay Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation Team is a Charmp2 community-based monitoring and evaluation system for public good projects. It aims to make project implementation more participatory, inclusive, extensive, and effective by involving beneficiaries in the development needs identification and preparation of project investment plans, to monitoring implementation, thus the creation of Barangay Monitoring and Evaluation Teams (BPMETs), and pursuing sustainable development initiatives and interventions.

5) Charmp2 School on Air (SoA): An innovative Community Learning Approach for the Highland Communities. The approach uses the airwaves to transcend communication and physical access barriers to overcome a major development problem in the Project’s coverage areas: “lack of technological know-how.” It involves all project key stakeholders in identifying broadcast topics, preparing learning modules, implementation and monitoring, the conduct of field practicum, and graduation of participants.

Except for the Charmp2 SoA approach which is now being implemented under the regular programs of the DA, all the other best practices are being implemented in the new 18 barangays of the Charmp2 Scale Up phase, some with added features. Eventually, it is desired that these practices will ultimately become success stories in transforming rural highland communities into resilient and self-sustaining abodes for people and all living creatures - local inhabitants, migratory or otherwise.

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