What happens when an NGO’s project ends? If done well, it continues even without the organization’s supervision.

I was invited to the End-of-Project Workshop of the International Institute for Rural Reconstruction’s (IIRR) and the International Development Research Centre’s AQUADAPT project, which supports the small farmer’s adoption of nature-based aquaculture as an additional source of income in the Philippines and in Cambodia.

You’ll notice that I’ve been writing a lot about IIRR. Before this, all of it came from a trip to Guinayangan, Quezon, upon the invitation of IIRR’s Senior Asia Program Advisor Dr. Julian Gonsalves, who I met at the International Plant Breeding Conference in celebration of UPLB’s Institute of Plant Breeding’s 50th Anniversary at the Manila Hotel in 2025.

I’ve been interested in IIRR’s work because it deals with factors specific to most of the Philippine agriculture landscape, i.e. small farms. In short, it works with culture and not against it.

“[The project explored] how small-scale agriculture can become a more resilient, sustainable, and viable life in options for rural communities in the face of a challenging climate," said Ermita Monville Oro, IIRR’s Acting Asia Regional Director. “Just as importantly, the project has brought attention to the critical role of women in agriculture value chains.”

What interested me most about IIRR is its insistence that the local government be involved in all their projects to ensure its continuous adoption even after the project ends.

The program included a panel with three government officials from its Philippine sites: Hon. Mayor Lovell Anne Yu-Castro of Alangalang, Leyte; Municipal Agriculture Officer of Guniyangan, Quezon William Lopez Jr.; and Municipal Agriculture Officer of Hingyon, Ifugao Andy Dimoc, who all answered the question that, given the end of the project, “What would be needed to make this approach sustainable at the local level?”

Yu-Castro discussed how a lawmaker can implement a program past their term by using AQUADAPT as an example.

“We have seen the success stories of our farmers. This project is evidence based,” she said in Taglish. “What I'm thinking is for us to institutionalize AQUADAPT implementation in our programs, in our PPAs (Public-Private Partnerships). We will be institutionalizing the AQUADAPT budgeting, the program implementation in our agricultural development programs… We will make it an ordinance so that even with the change in local officials, the support for AQUADAPT will stay. It will always be supported because this program will be institutionalized in Alangalang. We’re going to do that with the help of IIRR and our representative from MAO.”

Dimoc agreed, adding that participant ownership and a definite delineation of responsibilities among partner farmers and organizations are also important. “I think that this is really needed, especially if we are going to use the government funds in all these nature-based solutions programs. And those ordinances should have… funds their own. In our (area), we have a memorandum of agreement with our partner organizations, with our farmers, so that at least this is binding to both parties, I think, because they do this and responsibilities will be spelled out, so they know what are their duties and responsibilities, and also on our end, we know also our duties and responsibilities as partner LGUs,” he said.

Lopez, whose work in Guinayangan I will be writing about in a later column, echoed Yu-Castro’s sentiment by emphasizing the importance of a mayor who is heavily invested in the growth of their municipality’s various agriculture industries.

“To sustain this program, we are planning to enhance the nursery and we will make it a learning site so that the other aquaculture farmers, they will learn in our local municipality,” he said, explaining that in Gunayangan, LGU support came in the form of two fishery technicians for program monitoring and evaluation, the allotment of part of the annual budget to the development of the program, the enhancement of their municipal hatchery, and the development of an organic tilapia feed production program.

“We are planning to provide an adequate source of water for the rice-tilapia-based aquaculture [in coordination with the] National Irrigation Association,” he added. “We also intensified the seaboard patrolling, since we have 15 barangays coastal areas. Before, we were focused on marine monitoring for illegal fishing, but because of the AQUADAPT, we've also monitored the mangrove areas and the conservation of the species.”

The panel’s experiences show that local government cooperation and support is an extremely important factor in determining the longevity and continuation of NGO-led small-scale farmer programs, especially after these programs end. After all, the proof of an NGO’s effectiveness is when a community doesn’t need them anymore.