of the Verde Island Passage, Philippines - weADAPT

chapter 4 • outreach and communication strategy: results
Marinduque and Romblon
Awareness and Engagement
Priority public: Elected officials and Local government units
Priority products: Capacity building
Strategy:
1. coordination through the SB
2. include in the municipal SB agenda
3. conduct the actual capacity building
Action and Implementation
Priority public: Elected officials
Priority product: Organization of a task force on climate change
Strategy:
1. identification of climate change members
2. organizational meeting
3. creation of climate change task force through ordinance
Funding
Priority public: Local government units
Priority product: Ordinances to provide government funding for climate change projects
Strategy:
1. coordination with the SB
2. draft an ordinance
3. deliberation
4. public hearing
As seen above, over 85% of the people involved in
the formulation of the draft strategy, work for the local
government units. This group also made up the bulk of
the participants of the VA workshop. Therefore, this may
explain why the elected officials were identified as the
priority target audience for all three objectives of the
climate change communications strategy.
The prioritization of local officials for the
communications strategy suggests that the majority
of the stakeholders believe these people have the
greatest capacity to impact (directly or indirectly)
climate change perceptions in local communities. The
results of the validation also suggest that the main
focus of the strategy should be at the level of the
municipal governments since the national government
is generally not active in implementation, even though
all management falls under national laws and policies.
This reflects the fact that the Local Government
Code of 1991 transferred many environment-related
responsibilities of the national government to the local
government units.
with NGOs and the business sector closely followed
in importance. It appears that environmental projects
are not prioritized for funding by local government units
because their benefits are difficult to quantify. Local
officials are also concerned that projects they fund will
affect the number of votes that they receive at the next
election. This makes them biased towards projects that
have immediate, readily visible local benefits, such as
health programs and infrastructure.
The strategies identified, addressed capacity building,
behavior change and taking action. The product of
greatest importance, was the municipal ordinance,
which would then make climate change activities a legal
mandate. There is also a clear top-down trend in the
priorities and strategies identified in the workshops,
with government officials as priority targets and the
general public taking second priority.
Second priority was given to fishermen and farmers
for awareness building, likely due to the fact that they
are the people most directly impacted by the effects of
climate change. The business sector was considered an
important target for the action/implementation objective.
This reflects a common belief that government initiatives
are not sufficient enough to complete environmental
projects. This same attitude is apparent in the results
for the third objective, which is to find funding for
climate change projects. Although funding from within
the local government units was prioritized, partnerships
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