Representatives of national government agencies and their development partners attended a workshop at the Astoria Plaza in Ortigas Center, Pasig City on August 14 to 15 to discuss how the community-centered programs of each department will be able to better respond to the needs of the people.

The workshop, which was entitled “Validation Workshop on Initial NCDDP Harmonization Study Findings”, looked into how the National Community Driven Development Program (NCDDP), an initiative of the Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster and being facilitated by the  Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) can complement and be synchronized with other community-based programs and with the Bottom Up Planning (BUP) strategy of the Philippine government in order to provide villages the resources they need to develop.

The discussions were anchored on the initial results of the study being conducted by a team of DSWD consultants, led by Camilo Casals, on the similarities and differences between the community-focused programs of the government agencies.

Community-driven development (CDD) is an approach that empowers ordinary citizens through direct participation in local governance by identifying their own community needs, planning, developing, implementing, managing, and sustaining projects together to address local poverty issues.

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.

DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman emphasized the need for CDD, reiterating the Department’s thrust to leave no one behind. “Kailangan ng boses at partisipasyon ng mamamayan .  We have the opportunity now. This has opened the door for genuine people participation.”

She also pointed out that CDD increases transparency in governance. “The more people we have at the start , the less likely the chances of corruption, dahil mas madami na ang nakatingin .”

Secretary Soliman concluded, “I think the vision is what we’re calling ‘open governance’, wherein citizens have control over their lives with government acting in the interest of its citizens rather than planning and implementing for them. It’s concretizing ‘Kayo ang boss ko’, referring to the administration’s thrust to become focused on the citizenry.

Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) is the CDD program of DSWD. The project, which started in 2003, is one of the three core anti-poverty programs of the Department. NCDDP, also under DSWD, is the scaling up of the CDD approach at the national level, the principles and practices of which will be based on what was gleaned from Kalahi-CIDSS. As Secretary Soliman pointed out, “The harmonization workshop is important so that we can learn from the lessons of the past to truly make the citizens our bosses.”

Edgar Pato, the Director of the CDD Program of DSWD, described the workshop as similar to completing a jigsaw puzzle, with each national agency carrying a puzzle piece.  “The challenge is very big, but the opportunity is very promising,” he said.

Attendees of the workshop included representatives from the DSWD, Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), Department of Health (DOH), Department of Energy (DOE), Department of Agriculture, Department of Budget and Management (DBM), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), and the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC). Representatives of the World Bank and the Millennium Challenge Account-Philippines (MCA-P) of the Millennium Challenge Corporation also attended the event. ###