Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman received the Philippines’ Gold Open Government Award for Grassroots Participatory Budgeting (GPB) in the inaugural Open Government Partnership (OGP) Awards on September 24  at the United Nations Head Quarters in New York City.

The country was recognized for its outstanding efforts to deepen citizen engagement in the budget process. The other awardees were Denmark and Montenegro.

In receiving the award, Sec. Soliman stated, “This effort involved an estimated of 10,000  citizens’ organizations and civil society organizations (CSOs) in 1,590 cities and municipalities implementing 16,269 projects.”

“The constructive engagement of all stakeholders – citizens, CSOs, and government is key in the process; changing the ways we do project design, implementation and evaluation and audit trail are some of the challenges we continue to face,” Sec. Soliman added.

GPB, formerly known as Bottom-Up Budgeting (BUB), is an approach in formulating budget proposal of national government agencies, taking into consideration the development needs of poor municipalities as identified in their respective Local Poverty Reduction Action Plan (LPRAP) formulated with strong participation of local government units (LGUs), civil society organizations, and peoples organizations.

Sec. Soliman explained that the GPB deviates from the traditional budgeting process wherein government officials decide on what projects should be implemented in the grassroots level.

It seeks to make the national budget more responsive to the needs of the community, encourage local governments to implements reforms and ensure transparency in the budgeting process and to deepen citizen participation.

“For this scheme, ordinary folks have a say on what projects to propose for their own development which will then be included in the budget of implementing national agencies,” Sec. Soliman said.

Under the GPB, DSWD implements sustainable livelihood, small-scale infrastructures, and protective services for the marginalized sector.

In 2013, DSWD got P938.6 million for the implementation of 798 projects. To date, 381 have been completed and the rest are on-going.

For 2014, DSWD’s budget is approximately P3 billion for the implementation of 3,422 projects in 17,036 barangays in 704 municipalities in Regions I to XII, CAR and CARAGA. Social preparation is on-going in these areas.

The gathering was attended by various heads of state, including United States President Barack Obama, French President Francois Hollande, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, and Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudyohono. ###