Bohol is one of the pilot provinces chosen for the Conditional Matching Grant to Provinces (CMGP) that includes reforms in local roads management (LRM) and public financial management (PFM). The CMGP is implemented in 81 provinces by the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) in partnership with the Provincial Local Government Units (PLGUs).
By providing the provinces with financial investment for capital outlay, the Program addresses the under-investment in local roads, and the improvement of national-local roads connectivity to increase economic to increase economic activity and improve public access to facilities and services in the provinces. Moreover, as governance reforms are necessary to sustain local roads management, the Program also supports governance reforms, quality assurance and the strengthening of governance processes, specifically in the aspects of local roads management (LRM) and public financial management (PFM), among others.
CMGP builds on the Provincial Road Management Facility (PRMF) program of DILG through the Australian Government – Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) implemented over 2000-2015, and where the Province of Bohol is one of the 10 beneficiary provinces. The DILG has institutionalized key elements of the program when it launched KALSADA in 2016, and eventually named it CGMP in 2017.
In line with the economic agenda of the Duterte Administration, which highlights the importance of the reliable road network, the Program is designed to contribute to a robust and competitive national economy. CMGP aims to improve the state of local roads, and connect these to national road networks. This will enhance local and regional productivity easing out value chain bottlenecks in agriculture, tourism and manufacturing.
Through the DILG-DBM Joint Memorandum Circular No. 2017-2, the PLGUs are tasked to prepare a Provincial Governance Reform Roadmap (PGRR) to achieve the set reform targets. The PGRR is a five-year governance reform plan of the PLGUs in seven key reform areas on LRM and PFM consisting of annual targets and strategies required for the province to achieve the “target situation” by 2022. It is focused on building the capacities of PLGUs by promoting economic growth and improving community access to provincial and private services.
In partnership with the DILG, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has launched a project “Paving the Road to SDGs through Good Governance” (Roads2SDGs), which aims to provide support to quality assurance and the governance reform components of CMGP through the ‘Road to SDGs’ framework. This framework will anchor the prioritization, planning, deign, implementation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects to the achievement of the SDGs, incorporating the elements of partnership building, climate change and disaster risk reduction, gender mainstreaming, and citizen participation for transparency and accountability.
The PGRR aims to improve the skills, processes and systems of Provincial Governments in LRM and PFM, so they may more efficiently and effectively plan, design, implement, and maintain their local roads network. The reforms will allow for the sustainable development of local road networks that will contribute to the achievement of the selected indicators of the SDGs. The elements of SDFs will improve road governance while effective roads pave way towards achieving the SDGs and vice versa.
Please click HERE to open the PGRR of the Province of Bohol in PDF format.