Balisacan seeks help from dev’t partners for project evaluation

MANILA, Philippines - The government’s lead economic planner is seeking assistance from the country’s development partners in the evaluation of public undertakings.

Speaking at the fourth biennial high-level meeting of the Development Cooperation Forum (DCF) at the UN headquarters in New York City, Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan said when spending priorities of government are evaluated, the agencies or the individuals mandated to allocate or spend public resources are placed under public scrutiny.

He said the results of the government spending must be disseminated and discussed in the public domain. But the difficulty is often the inability to independently assess and evaluate, or the lack of evaluation tools.

“I take this opportunity therefore to draw the development partners’ attention to help build the capacity of governments such as the Philippines for evaluation. Surely, you can readily agree that the return on this investment will be tangible and high and will likely go a long way in enabling us all to achieve not only a country’s development agenda but the global agenda as well,” he said.

He said good evaluation generates useful evidence. In turn, good evidence enlightens judgment and provides sound basis for decision-making.

The Philippine government, for example, adopted a performance management, results-oriented system where demand for good evaluation naturally grows.

Certain elements must be in place before evaluation leads to sound decision-making, transparency, accountability and ownership.

“First, demand for evaluation must be created within a country. Second, as demand for evaluation increases, the capacity to meet such demand needs to be stepped up. Lastly, the role of joint evaluation between the development partner and the country must be seen and organized as an instrument of mutual accountability,” Balisacan added.