Managing disasters from preparedness to response is a daunting and oftentimes costly task for local government units (LGUs). When lives are at risk there can be no allowance for inept officials, inefficiency and mismanagement of funds.

The DRRM (Disaster Risk Reduction and Management) Fund Watch was conceptualized to strengthen the stringency of monitoring of the DRRM funds of an LGU by including citizen participation. The project utilizes a specially conceptualized FundWatch tool. Aside from the monitoring of DRRM Funds, the tool also features a survey which gives importance to the Core Humanitarian Standards and its application to the LGU’s DRRM Plan.

The LGUs included in the pilot training were: Busuanga, Linapacan, Pasacao, and Pamplona while the project rollout expanded to 6 more LGUs which were: Cortes, Tagbilaran, Oras, Dolores, Liloy, and Labason (from the provinces of Palawan, Camarines Sur, Bohol, Eastern Samar, and Zamboanga Del Norte). Participating Networks for the project include: Partnership of Philippine Support Service Agencies (PhilSSA), Coalition for Bicol Development (CBD), Central Visayas Network of NGOs (CenVisNet), Eastern Visayas Network of NGOs and POs (EvNet), and Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE) together their local civil society organizations (CSOs).

As of February 2017, majority of the participating CSOs in the selected LGUs have already completed surveying and monitoring the DRRM Funds and its utilization rate. At the end of the surveying, the CSOs will be meeting the select LGUs to present their findings and prepare an agenda based on the results of their surveys. Aside from face-to- face presentation with LGUs, the CSOs may also showcase their findings in a soon-to-be-launched CODE-NGO DRRM Website which, aside from the FundWatch Project, will also feature the different DRRM initiatives of CODE-NGO.

The results of the survey will be completed soon. CSOs who participated have mostly received their data through Public Postings and not through the FDP Portals. Nonetheless the LGUs covered by the project have been supportive and cooperative with the monitoring of CSOs.

At the end of the project, the results and policy recommendations will be presented to national government agencies (NGAS) based on the analysis.

John Joel de Guzman is the Project Officer of CODE-NGO’s DRRM Fund Watch Project supported by Making All Voices Count (MAVC).