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Reine kathryn Rala
1 post Location:
Davao city
Philippines |
31-08-2011 07:54Rural livelihoods in Southern Philippines, needs further actionIn the past months, I have been engaged in community development planning in 7 barangays (devolved political communities) in Davao Oriental, Southern Philippines. These communities have never experienced how to formulate plans for their community with a sense of ownership, until I came in to assist them.
As part of my return service being a recipient of a Dutch scholarship some 5 years ago, I was thrilled working with these communities after engaging myself in academic teaching in a State University. I had always wanted to apply those theories I learned from postgraduate class. With these experiences, I have sensed how deep these communities experience social illnesses which have been unaddressed for sometime by the local government units.
For communities to get a grip of development with a ‘sense of ownership’, I encouraged them to actively participate in the planning. A first, members of the community gather their own community profile to eradicate biased responses from informants as it is their own people who gathered information about their community. They were trained how to use Participatory Rural Appraisal and use the information as basis for their own development plan. As second, the planning process was represented by significant sectors in the barangay with key community officials. After conduting all the convergence activities, I assisted the community in photo documentation, and technical writing. Before the plan was finalized and printed, this was presented in a public consultation to solicit further comments, reactions and recommendations.
Natural resource-based problems
Majority of the issues aroused during the workshop planning relates to their rural livelihoods. Since majority of these barangays were along the coasts, illegal ways of fishing was a perennial problem. There was one barangay whose coast was declared a Marine Protected Area as part of the Integrated Coastal Resources Management Project funded by the Asian Development Bank and Global Environment Facility. It took a lot of effort for fishers to engage in their main activity as fishing to conduct it with higher responsibility, not to overfish. Deforestation was another natural resource based-problem posing difficulty for local based governance to implement ordinances that protects forest resources which included mangroves and hard wood.
Limited access to pre & post-harvest facilities
Access to agricultural extension as trainings and seminars on increasing farmers’ agricultural produce, product upgrading using coconut based materials or simple livelihoods training which were of interest to women and youth hardly reached these sectors in the community. To increase their agricultural produce and combat the effects of climate change, farmers needed further subsidy of fertilizer and pest control. However, people in the community needed a lot of convincing to use organic means in increasing their production in a sustainable way. Other households in the community were also interested in animal farming/ production but could not sustain it as they use it for their own subsistence. Limitation to financing access to sustain household’s small scale livelihood endeavor also rose during identification of problems by the community.
Physical infrastructure
Farm-to-market roads, provision of electricity & irrigation system, fishport facility, and construction of public market facility were the physical infrastructures have yet to be installed in these communities to support the livelihoods of rural people in this area.
Waste management
Segregation of waste is hardly practiced in the rural areas. However, the local government units must impose ordinances on proper waste management to prevent further disasters and destruction of natural resources in the area.
Improving agricultural systems in the Philippines is a long way to go. To quote an American who got interested in my postgraduate research on improving the livelihoods of coconut farmers through diversification, “The Philippines is still pre-industrial age America, but it has so much resources that Filipinos hardly maximize it for their own subsistence and development.” A sad fact, but to change the system is long process.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/rein_kat_79/6098708017/sizes/m/in/photostream/
Drying rice in Southern Philippines.
Make the best of what you have. I can be an agent of change (for welfare betterment) by thinking foremost of what i can contribute best for the good of my community. It should start within me and convince other members of the community, or even the international community as the dutch taxpayers to contribute significantly as well to eradicating worldwide poverty.
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