NEDA to improve monitoring of ODA projects

MANILA, Philippines - The National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) will improve the monitoring of projects funded through official development assistance (ODA) from multilateral agencies.

NEDA Deputy Director-General Rolando Tungpalan said the agency is now putting in place alert mechanisms to identify potential or actual problems. 

Through the alert mechanisms, NEDA hopes to improve the efficiency of project implementation and effectiveness.

Tungpalan said the three new systems that the NEDA-Project Monitoring Staff (PMS) is starting to develop and employ are the Alert Mechanism for Foreign-Assisted Projects, the Reporting on Results, and the Good Practice Awards.

The Alert Mechanism for Foreign-Assisted Project aims to increase public accountability by utilizing physical and financial indicators to assess the status of ODA projects, subsequently applying alert levels to signal top management.

“The importance of the alert mechanism system is to increase public accountability while providing top management advance information and a guide to proactively address implementation bottlenecks,” Tungpalan said.

NEDA is expected to come out with the first report of the alert mechanism system on February 2010.

Tungpalan said the Reporting on Results system comprises a one to two-page supplement to the NEDA project profile.

The “project highlights” submitted by implementing agencies would contain the projects’ results, outcomes, project beneficiaries, clarificatory information and recognitions received.

The Good Practices Awards aim to encourage implementing agencies to document good practices generated from the implementation of ODA projects.

Tungpalan said that the key word is “good,” emphasizing well-done approaches to solving program or project implementation issues that can be easily shared.

“We hope to showcase good practices generated from the implementation of ODA projects, good practices from the ground that can be replicated elsewhere,” Tungpalan said.

The three enhancements are continuing efforts that would further promote ODA project efficiency and advocate a results-based outlook for development projects, Tungpalan added.

“We have a need to be accountable for results. Accountability for results does not only include an accounting and auditing process, but it means that we need to tell our taxpayers and the taxpayers of our partners that we are using their resources for purposes that are meaningful to us, consistent with our development objectives,” he said.