BICOL BIENNIAL EVALUATION : BICOL RIVER BASIN DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM

Special evaluation, covering the period l977-79, is based on document review, site visits, and interviews with project personnel. USAID has provided essential commodities and funded participant training, but BRBDP performance has been mixed. A decentralized regional development approach of identifying constraints to area development and of developing complementary component projects using local resources to meet local needs has encouraged local participation and has attracted outside funding. Success in designing/funding projects, however, has drawn attention away from other key development problems such as exploiting the benefits of irrigation projects. BRBDP's loss in the past year of most of its senior planners has exacerbated the situation. Emphasis must shift to supporting the five on-going, AID-supported loan subprojects and promoting agribusiness/rural industry subprojects. It is recommended that: (1) projects be designed/reviewed to minimize disturbance of the physical and socioeconomic environment; (2) second-generation projects include agro-forestation, coastal zone management, perennial cropping systems for smallholders, and annual mixed cropping systems; (3) line agencies/municipal offices be granted more responsibility for implementing projects; (4) general area profiles be conducted on areas unlikely to be attractive to private investors; (5) data collection/project selection methods be streamlined; (6) research on systems of resource management be increased; (7) field trials/applied research be coordinated with evaluation activities; (8) available data on rice yield be consolidated; (9) hydrologists and water management consultants be hired; (10) a permanent program director be hired and restaffing procede; (11) a new irrigation repayment policy be developed; (12) irrigation rotational systems/irrigation associations be examined for replication; and (13) a depository for BRBDP documents be created and a technical document be published for distribution to Philippine and international professionals.