Decentralizing Philippine development : second year assessment

Evaluation covers FY 1992. All program goals, if not fully achieved, have been significantly advanced. Of great benefit program was the 1991 passage of the Local Government Code, which transferred responsibility and resources for local development to local governments. However, even with the passage of the Code, national and local leaders have not fully faced up to the challenge of urbanization, which is certain to dominate the Philippine social agenda in the coming decades. Progress on specific policy measures has been impressive. Especially significant have been: (1) a one-third increase in city real property and business tax collections; (2) a growing number of initiatives involving the private sector in urban service provision (water supply, garbage collection and disposal, public market operations, slaughterhouses); (3) the start of a process to inventory idle public lands as a basis for converting them to productive use; (4) substantial progress in joint government-private sector housing production, with private firms having completed construction in 9 cities vs. a target of 6; and (5) the provision of land tenure and services to poor households under the Community Mortgage Program, which has initiated 65 projects in 14 cities vs. a targeted 20 projects in 8 cities. Though many of these accomplishments are impressive, targets as stated in the second tranche of the policy matrix were achieved in only three of the ten program elements. These delays do not appear to constitute a major problem, however: in each case the responsible agencies are moving actively to complete program requirements and no major barriers exist that seem likely to prevent full achievement in the next few months. Policy studies under the complementary training/TA project have contributed directly to several accomplishments under the policy matrix. The training/TA project has also taken other steps to facilitate the overall decentralization process, including: a "Sharing Program" by which city officials have the opportunity to learn about innovative techniques from the officials of other cities who have successfully implemented them; development of the national "Urban Development Sector Review;" and a program to train 15-20 NGO"s in developing 200 sites for 10,000 households under the Community Mortgage Program.