Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) Midterm Evaluation Study (MES)
Country: Philippines
PRIMEX was commissioned by DA to carry out the mid-term evaluation of PRDP. Specifically, the PRIMEX MES Team: (i) assessed the extent by which outcomes anticipated from PRDP implementation were taking place at midterm or were likely to be achieved by the end of the project; and (ii) determined the appropriate adjustments and strategies for the remaining implementation period to ensure achievement of the intermediate results expected from each component and the overall project development objective (PDO) targets at the end of the project. The main activities of the MES Team were the following: (i) analysis of the progress of PRDP implementation by component; (ii) description of the current situation and comparing changes in the areas covered by the study in two periods: (a) “before” PRDP intervention (baseline/end of 2014); and (b) “after” PRDP intervention as of the middle of the PRDP implementation period (Year 3/end of 2017); (iii) assessment of whether or not changes emerging in the project areas are spearheaded by PRDP activities and interventions as of the period of the study; (iv) analysis of the status, identification of challenges, and recommending the way forward in the integration or mainstreaming across DA offices and programs of the 10 innovative tools and reforms that PRDP has demonstrated in the aspects of planning, budgeting, delivery of interventions, transparency, social and environmental safeguards, monitoring and evaluation (M&E), and others; (v) identification of implementation component-wise and cross-cutting issues and challenges, as well as measures to address these in the next half of the project implementation period; (vi) identification of lessons learned that need to be taken into consideration by DA in steering the project and in designing future similar projects; and (vii) review and evaluation of the institutional arrangements for farm to market road (FMR) construction and maintenance under the Joint DA-DPWH Memorandum No. 1 dated 18 July 2013 and DA-DPWH Joint Letter of Agreement dated 11 October 2013.