COLLABDev believes that by strengthening local coalitions and enhancing the data capacities of key players and stakeholders in the area, they will have the technical know-how to improve their own communities, facilitating much-needed local development.
The coalition is composed of the local government of Palimbang, members of the SKSU-Palimbang campus, business owners, and the communities.
COLLABDev Chief of Party Jenina Joy Chavez described the partnership as a technical support initiative that started in January 2021 and will end in December 2023.
“It’s an initiative to increase the data maturity of Palimbang and promote local coalitions so that they can address local development concerns. Sa Palimbang po gusto nilang maging visible [Palimbang wants to be visible],” she told the Philippine Information Agency in an interview.
Chavez said the only aspiration of the municipal government is to be known for its physical beauty and attributes.
“Ang gusto kasi nila ay mabigyan ng mukha ang Palimbang na kasing ganda ng bayan ng Palimbang. Ang ginawa po ng COLLABDev ay tinulungan ang Palimbang na mamapa ang lahat ng mga critical infrastructure at lahat ng tourism business establishments nito at nilagay iyon sa mapa [What they want is to give Palimbang a face that is as beautiful as the town of Palimbang. What COLLABDev did was help Palimbang map all its critical infrastructure and all its tourism business establishments],” she said.
She also said they helped the coalition with tourism planning to promote the town’s numerous investment opportunities while encouraging livelihoods from tourism.
Through the use of data-driven and dartboard analogy techniques in addressing local concerns, COLLABDev is optimistic that with the town’s determined efforts, they will be able to encourage not just local and international tourists but, most importantly, investors to invest in the area.
Jessica Reyes-Cantos, president of the COLLABDev Project, clarified that the dartboard analogy they used was a powerful technique in mapping the town’s significant data, from infrastructure and tourism facilities to business establishments, pointing out the importance of knowing and hitting the target with accuracy and precision, just like when playing dart.
“Para kang naglalaro ng darts, pagka naka piring ka meron kang general idea kung nasaan ‘yung dart na ‘yan pero ‘pag wala kang datos para kang naglalaro na may blindfold, pero kapag tinanggal mo ‘yung blindfold na ‘yan may datos ka kita mo ‘yung target so kailangan ma hit mo yan [It's like playing darts. When you're blindfolded, you have a general idea of where the dart is, but when you don't have data, it's like you're playing with a blindfold. But when you remove that blindfold, you have data and you see its target, so you have to hit that],” she explained.
