Abstract:
Recent studies have focused on the role of Official Development Assistance (ODA) in financing infrastructural projects and rural development programs. This study demonstrates how Japanese and Filipino aid authorities facilitated a Japan ODA-funded Farm-to-Market Road (FMR) subproject as a solution aiming to achieve the Agrarian Reform Community’s (ARC) overall poverty reduction and rural economic growth agenda to contribute to this literature. Drawing on Foucault's governmentality, Escobar’s development discourse, and Li’s “The Will to Improve,” this study shows ODA as an alliance emphasizing power relations and analyzing processes and interactions within the ODA-funded FMR subproject management stages. This study also examines the impact of the completed FMR on project beneficiaries, especially agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs). Finally, it argues that while the FMR fostered mutual understanding, beneficial relationships, and more significant advantages among the non-poor sector, such as aid authorities, the poor sector, such as ARBs, clamor for further support to maximize FMR opportunities.
