The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD) through its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Unit has successfully concluded its Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) of the Constituency Development Fund (CDF) 2020 funded projects in Central Honiara Constituency (CHC) recently.
The monitoring activity was a success, despite the recent unrest in the capital City that forced the ministry to halt M&E for East and West Honiara constituencies for this year, 2022.
The objectives of the M&E were:
- To verify the implementation status of projects funded by CDF program in the constituency in 2020.
- To establish community participation in the CDF funded projects in the constituency.
- To investigate the level of awareness of CDF among community members.
- To determine the level of satisfaction of community members in CDF funded projects.
“Constituency monitoring of CDF projects is part of the ministry’s ongoing activity on CDF funded programmes being implemented within the 50 constituencies. With financial support from government in 2021 for Monitoring of CDF projects, it enabled officers to carry out the activity which focus mostly on projects funded by the Solomon Islands Government (SIG) including the Peoples Republic of China (PRC) CDF funded projects for 2020,” a statement from the ministry said.
The statement said that relevant data/information collected will support the ministry in its undertaking to assess status of projects and impact’s the fund (CDF) have on the lives of constituents.
“Not only the data collected is important but gathering evidences on the ground by officers that constituencies utilized the funds as intended is paramount. There are positive and negative responses we have received and that is the main purpose of the activity, to get comments/feedbacks, so that we can draw up recommendations for improvement and consider a way forward to guarantee every Solomon islander participated meaningfully in socio-economic development activities.”
MRD thanked the CHC administration office, beneficiaries of the fund and communities in the constituency for the support rendered towards officers that resulted in the success of the monitoring survey.
Given the challenges CHC office faced in relation to its growing population and budget constraints to fully assist the development initiatives within the constituency, the team however, witnessed important infrastructure and socio-economic developments evolving within in the constituency.
Some of the development initiatives witnessed by the M&E team include;
- Construction of a permanent guest house for Matariu SSEC Church.
- Development of a standard soccer field, 40mx80m at Jericho 2. Work in progress.
- Construction of a water supply project for Yellow Bamboo Community at New Zealand Camp.
- Supports livelihoods by assisting constituents with financial support to engage in small income generating projects such as canteen, poultry, piggery, fishery, transport, tailoring as well as education (school fees) to name a few.
Similar activity was conducted in Ngella Constituency in Central Island Province and Gao-Bugotu Constituency in Isabel Province. However, due to the recent unrest in Honiara City, East and West Honiara Constituencies, Savo-Russell Constituency, Central Guadalcanal and Northeast Guadalcanal Constituencies in Guadalcanal Province as earlier planned for the M&E has been halted for this year 2022 on a date yet to be confirmed and will be covered with the remaining constituencies across the country.
Hon. Alfred Efona is the current Member of Parliament (MP) for CHC. He replaced former MP John Moffat Fugui who lost the seat through a petition in the high court of Solomon Islands in early 2020. Efona was the petitioner.
The Government through MRD supported the M&E activity.
SIG CDF allocation for Central Honiara Constituency for year, 2020 was 3 million. Allocation by sectors showed $1,171,385.00 allocated for General, which include Administration and Logistics, Education, Empowerment of Women, Youths, Sports, Medical/health and General Assistance while, $1,828,615.00 apportioned for Infrastructure/Housing Scheme which include housing Hardware Materials plus Poly pipe rolls of different sizes.
