By Joy Quetula, Project Manager
Social development and social change is not a one-way street. Instead, it is a combination of expressways, junctions, and rough roads. There will be traffic, humps, and roadblocks here and there, but it does not necessarily mean we cannot reach our destination. All we need to do is to ensure that these obstacles in our road networks are worth the drive.
The question is what if there are more underdeveloped road networks available? Are you willing to take the long drive?
Road Networks in the Philippines
The Philippines has an extensive road network of about 216,016 km wherein 32,526 km is classified as national roads while 183,490 km is classified as local roads. In 2016, only 24.6% of all provincial roads in the Philippines are of acceptable quality, while the remaining roads are either unpaved or are in poor condition and need rehabilitation. According to the Sector Assessment (Summary): Road Transport of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the poor condition of our country’s road network is attributed to three major causes:
- The slow pace of road network expansion
- Poor progress in managing, improving, and maintaining existing road assets
- Weak institutional capacity for development planning and implementation
With the current state of our road networks, how can we ensure that we are not left behind in terms of social and economic development?
Government Intervention
Studies have shown that having good road networks significantly boosts a country’s development and economic growth as it facilitates trade, delivery and access to basic social services to and from urban and rural communities, and increases people’s mobility.
Photo Courtesy of freepik
To ensure that the concerns on underdeveloped roads are addressed, the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) launched a project that aims to improve the state core of provincial roads through sustainable mechanisms such as strengthening the capacity and performance of provincial governments in local road management (LRM) and public financial management (PFM). This government reform program came into being through the Conditional Matching Grant to Provinces (CMGP) Program.
Paving the Roads to Sustainable Development Goals (Roads2SDGs) and ACL
In partnership with the DILG, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) launched the project “Paving the Roads to the Sustainable Development Goals through Good Local Governance (Roads2SDGs).” The Road2SDGs aims to provide support to the governance reform and quality assurance components of CMGP. It is deeply rooted in the prioritization, planning, design, implementation, and maintenance of infrastructure projects to the achievement of the SDGs.
UNDP chose ASSIST Creativelab (ACL) to develop the Roads2SDGs’ series of communication materials that will feature the project’s advocacies, successes, and best practices. These communication materials include:
- Eight (8) instructional videos on Local Road Construction (LRC). The LRC videos aim to provide clear demonstrations and instructions on how to properly perform the construction methodologies of various road works following the DPWH Blue Book. The videos follow the step-by-step procedures of local road construction starting from earthworks or site preparation to subbase preparation, PCCP preparation, provision of road shoulders, provision and construction of road drainage, slope protection, to provision and discussion of the standards for safety devices in local roads, and provision and discussion of standards for pavement markings on local roads.
- Instructional Video No. 1: Earthworks
- Instructional Video No. 2: Subbase
- Instructional Video No. 3: PCCP
- Instructional Video No. 4: Shoulders
- Instructional Video No. 5: Drainage
- Instructional Video No. 6: Slope Protection
- Instructional Video No. 7: Safety Devices
- Instructional Video No. 8: Pavement Markings
- Four (4) “Road2SDGs: Paving the Road to Good Governance” magazines. The magazines are quarterly magazines that showcase the stories of the beneficiaries of the CMGP Program. The stories highlight how the road project under CMGP helped the beneficiaries to have better access to essential services and life opportunities.
- Four (4) Documentary Videos . The first three documentary videos feature the best practices and lessons learned in the select provinces of the project. The topics are quality assurance, governance reform, and citizen participation in planning, budgeting, and monitoring implementation. On the other hand, the fourth video is a 20-minute documentary video that features the story, best practices, lessons learned, and results of the Roads2SDGs projects.
ASSIST Creative Lab x Roads2SDGs in a Nutshell
As a self-sustaining development organization, ASSIST is greatly driven by its philosophy of being a “Partner to Progress” by providing development solutions and consulting services for development stakeholders. To ensure that it provides quality service to its partners, its specialized unit – ASSIST Creative Lab strives to provide optimum impact by catalyzing social change through effective communication, visibility, and knowledge management needs of development stakeholders.
ACL takes pride in promoting sustainability and creating social change through design and development services. With ACL’s extensive experience in implementing projects related to development communication, and our long track record in promoting sustainability in various sectors such as agriculture and rural development, private sector partnerships, human development, and energy and natural resources, this endeavor with Road2SDGs has become fulfilling. The developed communication materials serve as proof of the reach and impacts of the CMGP and Roads2SDGs. This partnership has instigated ACL’s burning desire to promote sustainable development by promoting industry and innovation, and infrastructure (SDG 9), and building sustainable cities and communities (SDG 11).
If you are looking for various ways to optimize your organization’s impacts through a mix of contextualized and innovative design capabilities, ASSIST Creative Lab can help you realize your vision for social impact through great creative design and meaningful communication campaign materials.
SDGs:
SDG 9 – Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure
SDG 11 – Sustainable Cities and Communities
