Monday, October 30, 2017

Round Table Discussion with Albay DRRM Stakeholders


CESDR DRR-CCA members, Dr. Beng Manalang, Dr. Andy Oreta and SOE Dean Dr. Tess Tiongco  attended a round table discussion with Albay DRRM Stakeholders. It was conducted last August 31, 2017, at 4 in the afternoon. The objective of this round table discussion was to identify the area of strength of the Albay Province and possible areas for collaboration in the future, further it focused on the integration of DRR in research to understand requirements and products of research and its scientific study. Read related blog on Albay Networking.

During the discussion, areas where focused on:
  •      Policies among LGU, included are legal bases for making written mandates and laws, which are CCA and DRR centered.
  •       Community based impact evaluation  that needs to incorporate DRR mgt. and CCA adaptation ; it was also discussed that programs implemented needs to be evaluated and formulate new programs if one is not successful. This would also allow the use of the developed tools of DLSU.
  •    Encouraging LGU to coordinate with NEDA on growth modeling  that are sustainable, environment focused, public safety is considered, was also looked into as the LGU needs to look for funding.
  •        As per suggestion of Dr. Daep possible areas for collaborations needs to be focused on the concept of  BUILD BETTER PRINCIPLE, as it is long term solution. Further Dr. Daep, made an emphasis on training LGU officials and empowering them with deeper understanding of their roles in legislation and implementation.
  • .       A workshop was conducted where in each Department present during the discussion were asked to present areas that are researchable and is the focused of the LGU.

6.        
a.       For the  Agriculture Department, areas identified as researchable were the following:
                                                           i.       Development of rice variety that is Albay Climate Resilient, this is aimed at making rice production sustainable.
                                                            ii.      Since Albay is an agricultural province it is deemed important that climate proofing of post harvest area is needed. Irrigation needs also to be looked into.
                                                            iii.      Impact Evaluation: Better tools based –policies on retrieval of crops

b.      Social Welfare
                                                          i.      Effects of DRR on vulnerable sectors with consideration to the socio-cultural
                                                          ii.      Incidence of gender based violence to displaced families.
                                                           iii.      Impact of service delivery to displaced families
                                                           iv.      Training on Psychological management

c.       Albay Provincial Health Office
                                                               i.      Facility based improvement, since majority of the hospital in the Province have been improved for better services. Structures that were old and dilapidated were retrofitted. However, there are still few structures that need to be climate change resilient and disaster proof.
                                                             ii.      Health Service providers must be empowered through training and kept abreast with the DOH programs yet locally focused.

d.      Academe (represented by Bicol University external affairs officer Prof. Weng Zoilo)
                                                               i.      As CCA and DRR has been discussed often to students; it is important that a policy needs to be  put into place that would ensure that the LGU and schools, colleges and universities will be able to come up with a module which are focused on climate change and disaster risk reduction management.
                                                             ii.      Modules that are formulated must be piloted and downloaded to various schools for pilot testing
                                                            iii.      The Professors must guide their student and give them the title for their thesis, topics that deals with climate change adaptation and mitigation and disaster risk reduction needs to be looked into by the advisers.

e.      LGU:
                                                               i.      A conduct of seminar on associated hazards and impact to the government, including its RDNA and PDANA must be looked into. Also the consideration on having a Critical resource assessment per LGU and profiling of resources, and having it available in an electronic file would facilitate easy use of the critical data.

                                                             ii.      Sustainability of CCA and DRR programs requires the  institutionalization of CCADRRMTI. Module development and formulation of trainings for the local executives will be one of the activities of the CCADRRMTI.

 iii.      Another area that needs to be looked into is the training of Key personnel and LGU officials including the executives after election on policy making and writing of executive orders.

Other matters discussed during the round table discussion were, aimed at identifying areas for possible collaboration with DLSU.
1.       Development of evaluation tools that are specific to their respective agencies and are CCA-DRR centered.
2.       Another matter discussed was the conduct of training among LGU and their personnel on the formulation of proposal to ensure that proper funding be given.
3.       The health sector must come up with a critical resource identification and strengthening of LGU , which is  more specific for their locality.
Contextualizing a tool and CCADRR program that is centred on the health sector has become challenging since the National government, through the Department of Health download their programs to the LGUs, it is in this context that some LGU programs for the Health sector are not given much focused. It is therefore important that the DOH and LGU must come up with the possible collaboration of making CCA-DRR in the health sector CCA-DRR specific.

4.       Also, it was identified during the discussion the training needs:
a.       LGU executives on their roles on CCA and DRR
b.      Forecasting
c.       Policy writing
d.      Media relation
e.      Zero Casualty

f.        Resource Identification

Documented by
Joan Evasco - Lagco

 Photos during the workshop and the outputs