The PACAP12

Mt. Matutum Integrated Conservation and Development (MICADEV) Project
hectares through protection, assisted natural regeneration (ANR), reforestation,
agro-forestry, river bank rehabilitation, stabilisation, and gully tree planting.
• To provide basic social services (health and education) to barangay households.
• To provide infrastructure support to community development programs within
MMPL, adjacent areas and the 14 barangays covering the MMPL.
• To develop and implement a coordinated development plan for MMPL and its
adjacent communities in partnership with different stakeholders in the area.
VII. Implementing the Area-Focus
Approach
Basic to the implementation of the MICADEV-AFA project was the
area-focused approach. AFA 11 was a management and implementation
strategy that sought to unite stakeholders with common
and/or complementary agenda, and focus their development
initiatives and resources on a single geographically contiguous
and clearly delineated area.
LGU Support. MICADEV was able to harness the resources
and support of affected barangays, municipalities, and
provinces in the MMPL initiative. LGU officials showed
ready support for the program. Having seen their people
suffer the effects of calamitous floods and continued water
depletion, they were optimistic that MICADEV could avert the recurrence of such
calamities. The LGUs put counterpart funding and other resources at the disposal of
the project. The LGUs also issued resolutions, ordinances, and executive orders to
provide a legal mandate to support MICADEV activities.
Multi-Sectoral/Multi-Level Coordination. The AFA approach implied close coordination
among key development players, especially between and among developmental
NGOs and LGUs. Thematic or sectoral concerns like environment, gender development
and women’s concerns, ecologically sound agricultural, indigenous peoples’
(IP) concerns, and others, were all incorporated into educational and social awareness-raising
activities and in the processes for implementing specific project components
under MICADEV.
Learning Process Focus To Project Management, Evaluation and Monitoring. AFA
used a learning process approach wherein project accomplishments, positive
changes, and transformation in one area would lend insight and learning to project
implementation in other areas. This learning approach also helped to rationalise
decisions related to expansion or replication of project initiatives to new areas.
11 In some sectors, the AFA strategy is known as “convergence”, where resources from various sectors are
concentrated on a priority area where problems are at such a level of urgency, magnitude and complexity as
to require concerted multi-sectoral action. A similar approach was being implemented in Agrarian Reform
Communities, although on a much smaller scale.
B E S T P R A C T I C E S I N C O M M U N I T Y D E V E L O P M E N T 29