As of 2007
Procurement Watch Set to Conclude Three Projects
It’s all over bar the writing.
The European Commission (EC)-funded project “Capacitating Civil Society Organizations’ Procurement Trainers, Observers, and Monitors”, begun late November 2006, saw its last three training courses completed in Davao and Iloilo in early and late July, respectively, and in Cagayan de Oro in early August. The Training Manuals have also been finalized and submitted to the Office of the Ombudsman (OMB), and all that’s left for us to do now is to complete the documentation and submit the final report to the OMB.
The last orientation workshop for The Asia Foundation (TAF)-funded project “Feedback and Complaints Handling Mechanism Phase 2” was held at the Mallberry Suites in downtown Cagayan de Oro in August. PWI’s resident research specialist, Mr Anthony Septimo, presented the results of his evaluative case study of the mechanism at the Discovery Suites in Pasig City on 24 August 2007. PWI is set to submit the final report to TAF on 28 September 2007.
Another TAF-funded project, “Development of a Research Methodology and Sampling Frame: Observing Changes in Expenditure Efficiency Arising from Reform Measures” (whew! what a mouthful), has wound down to a close. The results of the Differential Expenditure Efficiency Measurement (DEEM) pilot-test were presented to Civil Society and the academe on 2 August 2007 at the UP School of Economics; the same results were presented to the public-at-large on 15 August 2007 at the UP Balay Kalinaw. The final report was submitted to TAF on 14 September 2007. Further pilot-tests of the DEEM tool are being mulled.
Let’s Write a Book
It’s all over bar the writing.
Of course in this case, the whole point of the project is in the writing. When we say it’s all over we mean the process of submitting a project proposal and getting it approved. That part’s over. Now we have to sit down and write the book.
Let’s backtrack a little bit. Several months ago the Embassy of the United States of America issued a call for proposals for their 2007 Democracy Small Grants program. PWI submitted a proposal called “Facing the Challenges of Fighting Corruption in Procurement –Enhancing CSO Effectiveness and Motivation”. What we meant by this rather complicated expression was that we wanted to tell the true stories of some Procurement Observers and Monitors who have successfully fought corruption. And we wanted to tell their stories so that other Observers and Monitors can read the stories and be encouraged by them.
In the first week of September, we happily received a letter from the US Embassy, telling us that our project proposal had been approved for funding. You can imagine how excited we are to write the stories for this book! It sure beats writing pages and pages of boring reports and documentation.
Procurement Watch Broadening Horizons
Everyone knows that a clean bidding process is no absolute guarantee of good performance during contract implementation. Opportunities for cheating and corruption do not, unfortunately, end with the Award of Contract. Thankfully, there are several Civil Society Organizations that specialize in contract implementation monitoring.
PWI has always been at the forefront when it comes to fighting corruption and inefficiency during the bidding process. Recently, however, we have begun to “diversify” — that is, we have begun to include contract implementation monitoring in our portfolio.
For instance, PWI has signed a MOA to join the Bantay Lansangan, (roughly, “Road Watch”) a multi-sectoral initiative for improving transparency and accountability in the implementation of the DPWH’s road projects.
More recently still, PWI’s Ms Carole Belisario assisted Mr David Stafford, Consultant for the Department for International Development (DFID), an aid agency of the United Kingdom, to hold a series of meetings and workshops with government, civil society, and various funding agencies to explore the possibility of piloting the Construction Sector Transparency (CoST) Initiative.
The CoST Initiative aims to improve transparency in the implementation of publicly-funded construction projects. The CoST concept has been patterned after the Extraction Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), a highly successful program for transparency in the oil and mining sector.
Mr David Stafford came to the Philippines to explain the CoST concept to a large multi-sectoral audience on 5 September 2007 at the Discovery Suites. The discussions that followed were lively and positive. At the cabinet meeting on 11 September, President Arroyo gave the go-signal for CoST. The Philippines will be one of nine pilot countries for the CoST Initiative.
PWI Customizes RA 9184 Training Design for Indigenous Peoples of Northern Luzon
The La Salle Institute of Governance (LSIG) asked us for help. We gave it…
PWI Communications and Development Officer Immanuel A. Magalit spend several days in pine-clad Baguio City in the first week of August to demonstrate a new training design for training CSO Procurement Observers. What was new about it? It was tailor-made for training the indigenous peoples (IPs) of Northern Luzon.
Organized by Dr Francisco Magno, Director of the LSIG, and facilitated by the able Mr Ramon Padilla, the three-day activity was a resounding success. The participants, drawn from the Northern Luzon Citizens for Good Governance, appreciated the customized training design, to which they had contributed much of their wisdom during meetings held in June. They also appreciated the work of Mr Warren Serrano, who demonstrated a customized training design on the LGU Budget Watch, and of Ms Divina Luz Lopez, whose customized training design was on LGU Planning and Monitoring and Evaluation.
Extensions
On 21 March 2007, the DEEM tool and results were presented to an audience of CSOs and international funding agencies at the Clermont Room of the Discovery Suites. On 23 March a similar presentation was given to officials of the Department of Health and of the Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center, the pilot agency for testing the DEEM tool, at the DOH compound along Rizal Avenue. Both presentations gave rise to some lively discussion.
The findings presented by PWI were so surprising, that most parties felt that a round of data revalidation was called for. So PWI researchers have been doing some extra work in the past month or so. The Asia Foundation, which is funding the project, graciously allowed a time extension.
In the meantime, the last orientation workshop of the Feedback and Complaint Handling Mechanism project, scheduled for late March in Cagayan de Oro, was postponed due to a new paper requirement of the USAID that PWI found difficult to comply with quickly. A new date will be set for the workshop.
