PCAF urged to enhance transparency, address issues

MANILA, Philippines — The Philippine Council for Agriculture and Fisheries (PCAF) is being urged to strengthen participatory processes and revitalize consultative mechanisms in addressing issues besetting the agency.

An attached agency of the Department of Agriculture (DA), PCAF’s functions are related to coordination and monitoring of agricultural and fisheries modernization processes, and development of public-private partnerships as advisory special bodies to the DA.

PCAF’s national banner program committees (NBPCs) and other priority program committees (OPPCs) formulated strategic options and solutions to pressing issues confronting the agency’s participatory processes and consultative mechanisms.

Among the strategic options and solutions laid down is to enhance transparency in government transactions through strengthened participatory processes.

In participatory processes, stakeholders share ideas, opinions, and knowledge to reach a common agreement or decision and come up with sound policy recommendations or resolutions.

To strengthen the agency’s participatory processes, the NBPCs and OPPCs suggested their involvement during PCAF’s participatory monitoring and tracking activities.

The committees also recommended their involvement as well as the Agricultural and Fishery Councils (AFCs) in the preparation of budget execution documents for the department’s banner programs and their participation during the agency’s year-end assessment planning activities.

“This is to ensure that the commodity industry roadmaps (CIRs) strategic plan and budgets are included in the annual work and financial plan (WFP) of the concerned banner programs,” they said.

These suggestions are in line with the near-term agenda of PCAF to strengthen participatory planning, monitoring, and assessment through intensifying the monitoring and evaluation of DA programs, activities, and projects.

The committees also proposed the increased and improved conduct of policy research, the institutionalization of participatory agenda setting, and the creation of an Enterprise Resource Platform (ERP) for information dissemination and monitoring and evaluation to improve PCAF’s action-oriented service delivery.