COTABATO CITY — Some technical personnel led by the Official Development Assistance Nationally Funded Programs and Projects Coordination Division (ODANFPPCD) of the Bangsamoro Planning and Development Authority (BPDA) underwent training on Official Development Assistance (ODA) mechanism in BARMM, facilitated by the Public Investment Staff (PIS) of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) – Pasig held via zoom video teleconference today, June 24.
ODANFPPCD is a newly created division of BPDA and mainly functions to coordinate, monitor, and evaluate nationally funded programs and projects and those coming from development partners.
BPDA Director General Engr. Mohajirin T. Ali shared that this virtual training aims to gain more insights and information which will help the division become more effective in the process of handling work and responsibilities.
“This is also part of our strategic effort to continuously capacitate and improve the technical personnel of the BPDA and the very reason why representatives from other divisions were also invited to attend and learn from the training,” he said.
Furthermore, ODA refers to loan or grant that meets the following criteria: promotes sustainable social and economic development and welfare of the Philippines; contracted with governments of foreign countries with the Philippines has diplomatic, trade relations or bilateral agreements or which are members of the United Nation, their agencies, and international or multilateral lending institutions; there are no available comparable financial instruments in the capital market, and must contain a grant element of 25%.
Among the topics discussed were the ODA process, investment programming process, and investment coordination committee process discussed by Lea E. Payumo, Jemima Kesia V. Melgar, and Perine S. del Camat, respectively.
In his message, Engr. Guialalluden M. Usop, Project Development Officer III, underscored ODA’s significant role in promoting a sustainable social and economic development in the Philippines.
“In ensuring the parallel intervention in our region, it is eminent that we understand our functions so that we can have an effective and responsive planning, review, and evaluation of projects intended for the development assistance in the BARMM,” Usop stressed.
Meanwhile, Engr. Ali expressed his gratitude to NEDA-Pasig for the immediate response to the invitation to share their expertise in this subject as well as to other pre-identified training subjects. (BPDA-BARMM)