1935. Home. Have received via email the documents (Plan of Operations; Minutes of Meeting) on the water project finalized by Ulli of GTZ. The revisions capture faithfully the discussions last Tuesday. I will send the attachments to Atty. Cambangay, Roger and Hermilo for their comments. Hopefully, we can finalize arrangements between the Provincial Government and GTZ within the month.

Meanwhile, the project office is still being set up. Part of the old library is being renovated. This has been taking quite a long time. I asked the officer assigned to this task and he said this was due to the usual red tape associated with the procurement of construction materials. GTZ has already purchased the chairs, desks, etc. and they are there stored in the office under renovation.

Perhaps we should start with procurement procedures to make things flow smoothly with regard to starting a project at provincial level.

I do not know if NGOs have a similar problem regarding slow-moving bureaucracies. In that meeting I attended with some NGOs and AusAID-PACAP last 01 Oct, the NGOs seemed to be bothered by the LGU’s inability to implement properly some livelihood projects in Candijay. An NGO represented openly expressed distrust in LGU’s capacity to handle project funds from donors.

It was pointed out, however, that a sharply focused project on strengthening local governance is needed and that NGOs should not give up partnership with LGUs in the implementation of projects. In the first place, the role of NGOs is primarily to field-test and innovate approaches and make them available for replication by Government. Otherwise, if donors will continue expanding assistance to NGOs beyond the pilot phase, the risk is there that a parallel service delivery structure will be established to perform tasks that LGUs are mandated to do.

The debate on this issue seems to be beclouded by perceived competition between LGUs and NGOs (and even among NGOs themselves) for scarce donor resources.

This is one reason why BLDF does not seek foreign donor assistance. It wants to pursue projects based on available local resources. In the end, this will be good for local development.