Making aid work for sustainable coastal governance through conservation partnership agreements (CPAs): the experience of the Sagip Lingayen Gulf Project (SLGP) in mainstreaming academic knowledge and technologies for coastal community development [Bolinao, Pangasinan, Philippines]

The Philippines is one of the largest island-groups in the world. However, despite its vast and rich coastal resources, about 80% of the municipal fishing families still live below the poverty line. Over exploitation of resources, environmental damage both from marine and terrestrial origins, and increasing population contribute to a declining economic status of coastal fisherfolks. Sustainable and balanced development of coastal communities remain a challenge to most foreign-aid projects such as the Sagip Lingayen Gulf Project (SLGP) which is an Integrated Conservation and Development/Coastal Resources' Management (ICD/CRM) project funded by the Netherlands. SLGP developed models for co-management of the coastal environment leading to sustainable coastal resources, water quality and livelihoods. Its interventions include marine protected areas (MPAs) and mangroves management, high value invertebrates' restocking, mariculture and water quality management, coastal law enforcement and direct legal assistance, resource-linked livelihood development and institution-building for local coastal governance. These are operationalized through a pioneering management and budgetary framework called The Conservation Partnership Agreement (CPA). The CPA internalizes a set of working principles and strategies in making aid utilization for resource conservation and rural development more relevant, effective and efficient. Further, the CPA represents an important paradigm shift towards output-orientation, contractual accountability and rationalized cooperation. With CPAs, the SLGP partners who are permanently mandated institutions to undertake coastal resources management (CRM) buy into the implementation of CRM strategies developed jointly with and advocated by the SLGP, to further their own CRM programmes. The SLGP and its partners, Alaminos, Bani, Bolinao and Anda, San Fernando City and the province of Pangasinan, Philippines and a number of people's organizations shared 15 months of experience in joint CPA implementation. This experience is shared in this paper for its instructive value to future ICD/CRM programming; it emerges a very specific set of insights from the field about 'what CRM intervention strategies work, how, why and under what specific set of conditions'.