A ceremonial signing that signals a collaborative partnership between the Development Academy of the Philippines and the Department of Health on two major projects for the Mimaropa (Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon and Palawan) Region was held last February 5 at the OD Corpuz Hall at the DAP Building in Pasig City.
DAP Officer in Charge Magdalena Mendoza and DOH Regional Director Dr. Eduardo Janairo signed the contract for the P5 million project, dubbed “Evaluation of Two DOH RO Mimaropa Projects” and which was set to run from January to April 2018. The project covers two components: An Evaluation of Five Modalities of Community-Based Drug Treatment and Rehabilitation in Mimaropa, and An Impact Assessment of the Municipal Leadership and Governance (MLGP) Course on Mimaropa Participants.
Drug program evaluation
Being the project’s major component, the first part of the project that will review the drug program in Mimaropa is an applied research that aims to evaluate the five interventions of community-based drug treatment and rehabilitation (CBDTR) piloted by the DOH in the region in response to the sudden and continued increase in the number of drug users and dependents who surrendered at the onset of the drug war waged by the Duterte administration.
The results of the evaluation are intended to inform and improve the design and implementation of the community drug treatment and rehabilitation efforts of the DOH regional office, as well as serve as inputs to the CBDTR Good Practice Conference that DOH Mimaropa plans to organize in 2018.
Evaluation team
The evaluation research team is led by Jo-Ann de Belen, a project manager and project evaluation expert, and Dr. Elmer Soriano, a health governance expert. In addition, a project steering group composed of Dr. Janairo and DAP Vice President for Organizational Development Trygve Bolante will supervise the project and ensure that it is conducted according to the agreed plans of the two parties and government policies.
The second component of the project, meanwhile, will evaluate the impact that the MLGP implemented by the DAP in 2014 has had on the 40 Mimaropa participants as well as on their constituents or publics. The participants are composed of municipal mayors, municipal health officers and DOH regional office development managers.
Health governance policy resource
The results of this study will serve as information resource for health governance policy and aims to improve service delivery.
A crucial feature of the project is the capacity building of the DOH Mimaropa’s research and monitoring and evaluation team consisting of researchers and project implementers, which will work with the DAP team closely so that knowledge and technology transfer on project monitoring and evaluation is also achieved.
The project is being undertaken with the help of Mark Atole and Miguel Suarez of the DAP Graduate School of Public and Development Management, Marites Solomon of the Sustainable Human Development Program, and Enrico Caja of the Institutional Marketing Center.