Partner institutions from government and private sectors identified priority programs, projects and activities (PPAs) for Western Visayas through a month-long series of workshops starting in mid-November. The activity was a joint undertaking between RDC/NEDA-VI and the Iloilo Economic Development Foundation, Inc. (ILED) – a private sector group implementing the Coordinating Roads and Infrastructure Investments for Development (CR+ID) project under the auspices of The Asia Foundation.
The CR+ID project sought to capacitate local government units in engaging the private business groups (e.g. chambers, professional organizations, clubs, etc.) in the identification of critical infrastructure in their area given that the latter could help provide vital information where future investments may be located and thus would warrant government support in terms of capital outlay on roads, bridges, ports, social infra, etc. NEDA-VI saw the benefit of this partnership and took advantage of the enthusiasm of the business community in helping government identify priority PPAs for the next six years of the present administration.
The provincial workshops which concluded in the province of Iloilo on December 9, 2016, aimed at generating PPAs that the LGUs would want the national government to fund and/or implement in their jurisdiction. Government participants included members of the Provincial Development Council (PDC), the planning officers of all municipalities and component cities, provincial agency heads, and congressional representatives.
The PPAs, generated from each of the provinces and endorsed by their PDCs, will be processed by the Project Development, Investment Programming, and Budget Division of NEDA-VI to ensure that these pass certain criteria ad requirements. The final list will then be included in the Regional Development Investment Program, 2017-2022. The RDIP is a companion document of the Regional Development Plan (RDP) which translates the regional goals and strategies into programs and projects for funding and implementation in the next six years. It covers programs and projects to be funded through general appropriations, official development assistance, or public-private partnership arrangements.
The 2017-2022 RDP and RDIP will be presented to the RDC Sector Committees for their endorsement to and eventual adoption by the RDC-VI in the first quarter of 2017. (CPGaitana/DRD)
