GENERAL SANTOS CITY — Recognizing that effective agricultural development relies as much on clear messaging as it does on material resources, frontline personnel of the Department of Agriculture-Special Area for Agricultural Development (DA-SAAD) Program here in Eastern Visayas were empowered to become strategic development communicators during a five-day Development Communication (DevComm) Training held from July 13 to 17, 2026, in General Santos City.
The regional delegation, consisting of area coordinators and information officers, joined PRDC teams from SAAD and BFAR nationwide to strengthen the connection between government interventions and grassroots behavior change.
Expert resource speakers from the Department of Communication and Development Studies of Central Luzon State University (DCDS-CLSU) equipped the delegates with advanced communication frameworks.
To ensure the practical application of these frameworks, every lecture was immediately followed by a targeted hands-on workshop, starting with Communication Planning to lay the strategic groundwork for regional messaging, then transitioning to Monitoring and Evaluation, where delegates applied new tools and methods to track the real-world effectiveness of their campaigns.
The training then progressed through Pretesting, emphasizing the critical need for local stakeholders to evaluate IEC materials before mass production.
Knowledge Management was also covered to explore best practices for handling and passing on institutional knowledge to sustain long-term initiatives, before concluding with Social Marketing, where delegates drafted a comprehensive Policy Brief to advocate for targeted agricultural interventions.
Now fully equipped with these dynamic communication strategies, the unified PRDC and AC team is prepared to launch cohesive, multimedia-driven stories and campaigns across Eastern Visayas.
This training is the third conducted for DA-SAAD Phase 2 as part of the capacity-building program established in 2024.
Writer: Dean Brando M. Cinco, Associate Project Officer I