Publication Date: 10 March 2022
Author: Josephine Therese Emily Teves
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https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4070681
Abstract
This paper maps and analyzes the aid authorities in an Official Development Assistance (ODA) funded Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) subproject in Agdangan, Quezon Province in the Philippines. It uses the concept of Emery & Flora (2020) to analyze the importance of the stock of built-up, political, financial, natural, cultural, human, and social capitals as predictors of aid authorities and other project actors' dynamic relations and explore pathways on which each actor influences decision-making processes during the project management process.
It uses five-month ethnographic research in Agdangan Quezon, which combined study instruments such as government reports, semi-structured interview questions, focus group discussions (FGDs), and a survey among research participants such as Japanese and Filipino aid authorities, academe, and project beneficiaries such as (1) landowners, (2) investors, (3) ordinary citizens, and (4) ARBs from November 2020 to December 2021. It contributes to the discussion of how Japanese and Filipino aid authorities influence domestic decision-making processes within the FMR subproject management processes. The author found that the power is held traditionally by aid authorities, particularly Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), Nippon Koei, the Philippine representatives from national government agencies, and local politicians. Other supporting actors, such as landowners and traders, get disproportionate benefits, while Agrarian Reform Beneficiaries (ARBs) are substantially less powerful, receiving fewer benefits.
Thus, the most dominant pathway of aid authorities is through the subproject implementation process, especially on subproject management guidelines and accountability considerations. The power relation imbalance in the FMR subproject management process promotes perpetual dominance of traditionally powerful such as the power elites, landowners, and traders, while ARBs experience further marginalization and disempowerment.