In development work, advocacies abound: poverty reduction; environmental management; gender balance; child rights; human rights; indigenous people's rights; health; natural farming and sustainable agriculture; primary health care and so on down the line. Government agencies, donors and those from civil society institutions (NGOs, academic instititutions, people's organizations, private commercial sector) reflect in their structure and programs their respective program biases and advocacies.
Specialization is the rule. In sectoral fields of growing complexity, such specialized focus is quite important so that key concerns can be addressed with competent skills and interventions. The problem is when such biases filter down to the local level, at government and the community, and the local people are not equipped to handle information from highly specialized sources. Rather than result in a systematic and focused way to address development concerns at local level, there is confusion on which projects to implement in limited time to achieve significant impact.
We have seen this trend in local-level planning and implementation. Local governments and communities grapple with how to integrate all the key messages and information from seemingly competing advocacies promoted by donors, government agencies and non-government groups.
Efforts have been tried over the last two decades or so to address this situation:
-creation of local development councils mandated to prepare local plans and budget;
-policy and administrative support to enable local governments and communities to do participatory planning; prepare a common development profile; and prioritize projects;
-adoption of a program approach to facilitate convergence of services to target communities and households based on a consensus on priority problems to be address;
-imparting of skills to municipal planners to bring about more effective planning at local level;
-synchronization of planning at various levels to encourage the linking of budgetary resources to local plans; and the establishment of a common reporting, monitoring and evaluation system for the entire province.
The gains from these efforts have not been significant over the years due to a number of problems or constraints related to the sectoral orientation of the bureaucracy; pre-packaging of projects or interventions at national levels without regard to local problems; political interference in the planning and service delivery procedures and processes; and the lack of commitment on the part of policymakers and planners to adhere to integrated planning among the sectors based on the local development situation.
To be sure, a few LGUs have achieved this much sought-after convergence of services among the sectors, LGUs and civil society organizations, as well as the local communities. A case documentation of these successful efforts need to be done to see how to deal with key development stakeholders with varying advocacies at local levels.
Specialization is the rule. In sectoral fields of growing complexity, such specialized focus is quite important so that key concerns can be addressed with competent skills and interventions. The problem is when such biases filter down to the local level, at government and the community, and the local people are not equipped to handle information from highly specialized sources. Rather than result in a systematic and focused way to address development concerns at local level, there is confusion on which projects to implement in limited time to achieve significant impact.
We have seen this trend in local-level planning and implementation. Local governments and communities grapple with how to integrate all the key messages and information from seemingly competing advocacies promoted by donors, government agencies and non-government groups.
Efforts have been tried over the last two decades or so to address this situation:
-creation of local development councils mandated to prepare local plans and budget;
-policy and administrative support to enable local governments and communities to do participatory planning; prepare a common development profile; and prioritize projects;
-adoption of a program approach to facilitate convergence of services to target communities and households based on a consensus on priority problems to be address;
-imparting of skills to municipal planners to bring about more effective planning at local level;
-synchronization of planning at various levels to encourage the linking of budgetary resources to local plans; and the establishment of a common reporting, monitoring and evaluation system for the entire province.
The gains from these efforts have not been significant over the years due to a number of problems or constraints related to the sectoral orientation of the bureaucracy; pre-packaging of projects or interventions at national levels without regard to local problems; political interference in the planning and service delivery procedures and processes; and the lack of commitment on the part of policymakers and planners to adhere to integrated planning among the sectors based on the local development situation.
To be sure, a few LGUs have achieved this much sought-after convergence of services among the sectors, LGUs and civil society organizations, as well as the local communities. A case documentation of these successful efforts need to be done to see how to deal with key development stakeholders with varying advocacies at local levels.
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