For this year's Valentines Day, we visited La Libertad, a village here in Baclayon, Bohol. This time, we did not spend time talking with a neighborhood with pronounced social disparities. We went to the Baclayon Homestead Farm and visited a lake with potential as a good tour destination.
Both could benefit the poor in La Libertad. If developed as a training and demonstration center, the farm owned by the Medfords could be an institutional asset to improve the skills level of farmers in producing organic food products. The Loyola Lake, on the other hand, could attract local and foreign tourists and stimulate the local economy in the process that will benefit the families who live near the lake and, possibly, all the rest of the households in the village community.
This visit to La Libertad has set me to thinking again about the vast possibilities of using what has been known as the PPP or Public-Private Partnership in developing community assets as part of poverty reduction efforts at municipal or city level. In all my years as development professional which has spanned four decades in several countries in Asia and the Pacific, I believe that the built-in inefficiency of local governments can be upset with the fiscal discipline and business focus that the private sector can bring into projects designed to benefit households and local communities in ways that also earn profit for the investors.
Baclayon offers a great opportunity at this time to demonstrate how the PPP can be made to work to make local governments more effective. Its 5-year Community-Based Eco-cultural Tourism Plan has been approved by the LGU, which has also given the nod to the strategy to involve primarily the private sector in implementing the priority projects identified by the plan.
The private sector in the municipality is fully represented in the newly-organized Baclayon Entrepreneurs Association (BEA) which ensures a mechanism for the the maximum participation of the sector. The management of business firms, such as the Peacock Garden, has shown keen interest in the new concept about the involvement of hotels in community development work as practised by some hotels in Cambodia.
Most of the political leaders have seen the wisdom of having the PPP as a strategy to address problems of inefficiency, lack of motivation, inadequate staff and funding which constitute formidable constraints to effective governance over the years.
Indeed it is time to achieve a breakthrough in governance through adoption of the PPP in the planning and implementation of projects.
Both could benefit the poor in La Libertad. If developed as a training and demonstration center, the farm owned by the Medfords could be an institutional asset to improve the skills level of farmers in producing organic food products. The Loyola Lake, on the other hand, could attract local and foreign tourists and stimulate the local economy in the process that will benefit the families who live near the lake and, possibly, all the rest of the households in the village community.
This visit to La Libertad has set me to thinking again about the vast possibilities of using what has been known as the PPP or Public-Private Partnership in developing community assets as part of poverty reduction efforts at municipal or city level. In all my years as development professional which has spanned four decades in several countries in Asia and the Pacific, I believe that the built-in inefficiency of local governments can be upset with the fiscal discipline and business focus that the private sector can bring into projects designed to benefit households and local communities in ways that also earn profit for the investors.
Baclayon offers a great opportunity at this time to demonstrate how the PPP can be made to work to make local governments more effective. Its 5-year Community-Based Eco-cultural Tourism Plan has been approved by the LGU, which has also given the nod to the strategy to involve primarily the private sector in implementing the priority projects identified by the plan.
The private sector in the municipality is fully represented in the newly-organized Baclayon Entrepreneurs Association (BEA) which ensures a mechanism for the the maximum participation of the sector. The management of business firms, such as the Peacock Garden, has shown keen interest in the new concept about the involvement of hotels in community development work as practised by some hotels in Cambodia.
Most of the political leaders have seen the wisdom of having the PPP as a strategy to address problems of inefficiency, lack of motivation, inadequate staff and funding which constitute formidable constraints to effective governance over the years.
Indeed it is time to achieve a breakthrough in governance through adoption of the PPP in the planning and implementation of projects.
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