World Bank-funded project promotes geotagging

MAASIN CITY, Southern Leyte, March 18 (PNA) –- The Department of Agriculture has trained local government units (LGUs) and contractors of World Bank-funded Philippine Rural Development Project (PRDP) on geotagging, a “tell-all” tool.

“Essentially, geotagging is about the use of images for information – transmitting it the fastest way with utmost credibility,” Sam Belamide, a geotagging expert, told participants of the Training on Applied Geotagging on Thursday in this city.

Belamide, the geo-mapping and governance unit head of the PRDP national project coordination office, pointed out that it is a tool which could aid in decision–making, promote transparency in project implementation and ultimately, ensure proper use of government funds.

“This tool may be used for free. We can use it especially in validation and monitoring of sub projects and even in the process of assessment or evaluation. This will bring about savings in favor of the government as through its proper application, it will avoid, for instance, any possible duplication of funding support for any project, making full payment over unfinished or worse, non–existent projects,” Belamide explained.

Under the PRDP, winning contractors and LGU co-implementers are required to regularly submit geotagged photos of the status of sub projects as pre-condition for release of funds for payment.

Geotagging was developed and first applied as one of the science-based tools, which greatly helped in the successful implementation of the Mindanao Rural Development Program (MRDP) in 2011.

During the training, the participants were taught about the importance of geotagging under the PRDP, its application and the proper use of equipment. They were also required to conduct actual field-level geotagging.

Also present during the training were rural infrastructure engineers and technical personnel from the I-BUILD Component and Geomapping and Governance Unit of the PRDP Regional Project Coordination Office-8 and Project Support Office for Visayas. (PNA)
JMC/SQM/DA-PR/EGR