Stakeholder Feedback on the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan: Results of consultations conducted by CARE and ACCORD
This paper presents the feedback of several groups of stakeholders from Caloocan, Malabon, Navotas, Valenzuela, Quezon City, and the City of Manila on the Final Report of the Manila Bay Sustainable Development Master Plan (MBSDMP).
Throughout August of 2019, CARE and ACCORD, through Partners for Resilience, conducted focus group discussions in six barangays, three cities, and two Water Quality Management Area (WQMA) bodies. The goal was to familiarize Manila Bay stakeholders with the MBSDMP and gather feedback from them to help ensure that the concerns and recommendations of those who may be affected by the master plan are brought to the fore. Participants were composed of community members, sectoral representatives, barangay and city local government units (LGUs), and members of the San Juan River System (SJRS) and Malabon-Navotas-Tullahan-Tinajeros River System (MANATUTI) WQMA.
The consultations consisted of one-day sessions per area, with two main parts: in the first half of the session, facilitators presented the fundamentals of Integrated Risk Management and the Rights-Based Approach before presenting the contents of the MBSDMP itself; in the second half, participants were divided into several focus groups to discuss and provide feedback on the MBSDMP.
In this paper, the results of the consultations are organized into:
A. General feedback on and cross-cutting issues affecting the MBSDMP
B. Specific feedback on each of the eight measures outlined in the MBSDMP
1. Issues and challenges – both internal to the MBSDMP itself and external factors that may affect its implementation
2. Good practices identified by participants (if any)
3. Current practices and future plans (if any)
4. Recommendations from participants
