Coinciding with the DSWD’s 62nd anniversary celebration this January, Social Welfare and Development Secretary Dinky Soliman will lead the inauguration of the new office building of the National Project Management Office of Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS) on January 28, 2013.  The new 320-square meter building located at the Batasan Pambansa Complex in Quezon City was constructed through a grant from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) of the United States of America, amounting to P10.32 million. The building will house 65 KALAHI-CIDSS staff.

“We thank the MCC for supporting the construction of this building.

This new building will offer a better work environment for our KALAHI-CIDSS workers. I hope that they will be more inspired to work and help achieve the goal of alleviating poverty in the country,” Secretary Soliman said.

The partnership of DSWD KALAHI-CIDSS and MCC, which started in 2011 and will end in 2016, was formed to reduce poverty through the use of the community-driven development (CDD) approach.

CDD is a poverty alleviation strategy that puts power back in the hands of the people by giving them the opportunity to have active control in deciding which projects will be implemented in the communities.

It has been tested and proven effective in easing poverty in the poorest provinces. KALAHI-CIDSS is one of the core social protection programs of the DSWD along with the Conditional Cash Transfer Program (Pantawid Pamilya) and the Sustainable Livelihood Program.

KALAHI CIDSS seeks to empower ordinary citizens to actively and directly participate in local governance by identifying their own community needs, planning, implementing, and monitoring projects together to address local poverty issues.

At present, KALAHI-CIDSS is gearing up to launch CDD as a nationwide strategy for poverty alleviation.

It aims to cover 900 poorest municipalities in 16 regions, including the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM). ###