Impact, diffusion and scaling-up of a comprehensive land-use planning approach in the Philippines – Results from a rigorous impact evaluation

Gerald Leppert, Lena Hohfeld, Malte Lech

DEval

Land is a vitally important resource. It is the foundation for socio-economic development and the functioning of local ecosystems. Comprehensive land-use planning and development is the instrument to secure the fair participation of all stakeholders and to ensure sustainable use.
The Philippines are facing a number of land-use related challenges that are relevant to many low- and middle-income countries, including an exposure to natural hazards and climate change, scarcity of land and other resources, endangered ecosystems and challenging socio-economic conditions.
In a rigorous impact evaluation, the authors assessed the impacts of a large-scale, multi-level and donor-assisted land-use planning intervention in the Philippines. The technical approach consisted of a bundle of measures and activities, including training schemes, technical assistance, and the development and implementation of processes and instruments for comprehensive and participatory land-use planning. The comprehensive approach aimed at reducing vulnerability to negative effects of uncontrolled development and to multiple hazards, including human-made risks, and climate change. The development intervention was implemented over ten years by the Philippine–German Cooperation and the Philippine planning authority, the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB). For the first time in the Philippines, the intervention encompassed all municipal ecosystems, “from ridge-to-reef”, as well as cooperation of municipalities in the “watershed”-approach. The development intervention, called “SIMPLE” (Sustainable Integrated Management and Planning for Local Government Ecosystems), was locally tested and then was later adopted by Philippine stakeholders as a national policy on enhanced land-use planning.

Event: Annual World Bank Conference on Land and Poverty 2019

Document type:Impact, diffusion and scaling-up of a comprehensive land-use planning approach in the Philippines – Results from a rigorous impact evaluation (419 kB - pdf)