“I believe that you will be the ones who will be able to make community-driven development work.” These were the words of Social Welfare and Development Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Juliano- Soliman during the National Community-Driven Development Program (NCDDP) Conference held on May 13 to 15 at the Crowne Plaza in Ortigas Center. One hundred forty-four mayors attended the event.
The conference was organized to get feedback from Mayors implementing Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) on key design elements of the proposed NCDDP.
Secretary Soliman’s sentiments were echoed by Department of Interior and Local Government Undersecretary for Local Government Austere Panadero. “You’re Kalahi-CIDSS mayors. You’re the first ones who can encourage that the system works.”
Secretary Soliman and Undersecretary Panadero served as panelists who provided their reactions to the inputs of the mayors. Other members of the panel included National Anti-Poverty Commission Undersecretary Jude Esguerra, Department of Agriculture Undersecretary for Operations Joel Rudinas, Department of Health Director Dr. Juan Antonio Perez, and Director Patrick Lim from the Department of Budget and Management. Members of the national government agencies (NGAs) served as panelists during the Conference to explain the major directions that the Aquino government wishes to pursue to reduce poverty and promote good governance thru more meaningful citizens involvement in decision making processes.
The LGUs are expected to play an important role in changing the way that government interacts with citizens. As pointed out by Secretary Soliman, “We need to come up with a consensus of NGAs, civil society organizations (CSOs), and LGUs so that the exercise of democracy is real.”
The panelists fully support the clamor of the mayors to push for the use of community driven development (CDD) as a strategy for poverty reduction. CDD gives control of decisions and resources to communities. They also acknowledged that CDD requires investments in time and resources. “CDD is a long-term process,” Director Lim pointed out. Secretary Soliman brought up the need for the local and national governments to work with the citizens in order to ensure the success of a national CDD program.
DSWD started CDD implementation in 2003 through the Kalahi-CIDSS, which is one of the department’s three core anti-poverty programs.
Studies have shown that the CDD approach is successful not only in alleviating poverty in the country’s poorest municipalities but also in promoting community empowerment and good governance. This has led the national government to prioritize the institutionalization of CDD as a national program.
The proposed national program will reach out to more than 800 poor rural municipalities in the country through capacity building support and grants to communities to undertake small scale but responsive projects that will help them address poverty issues. The NCDDP is proposing to consolidate current government efforts on poverty reduction with CDD features under an umbrella program and strengthen inter-agency collaboration in helping poor communities move out of poverty. ###
