US funding agency visits Negros Oriental

From the Philippine News Agency (Mar 22): US funding agency visits Negros Oriental

Executive Director Andy Moll of the Millenium Challenge Account Philippines (MCA-P), the office that handles the funds of the Millenium Challenge Corporation, a funding agency created by the United States Congress, visited and inspected the community driven projects of the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan and Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) in the Municipality of Mabinay recently.

Kalahi-CIDSS uses a community-driven development (CDD) technology which harnesses the potential of people in the barangay to analyse their own situations, identify problems and issues in their communities and propose small-scale projects.

It is one of the flagship poverty reduction programs of the Philippine Government implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and has been internationally recognized as an effective strategy of reducing poverty, said Simeon Remata III of the DSWD Region 7 in a news release.

During the assessment meeting with Mayor Ernie Uy of Mabinay and his staff, Director Moll said that he noticed that the support of the local government unit of Mabinay is strong compared to the areas in other regions he has visited previously. “It is essential that DSWD and LGU, especially the beneficiary communities, have to closely work together as partners of the development process for the poverty reduction program to work – the LGU of Mabinay is a great model to that”, he said. He echoed the 3 major stakeholders of the Kalahi-CIDSS project which involves the social welfare agency, the LGU and the communities.

On the aspect of quality, Director Moll talked about sharing and learning the best practices from different areas. “Development is a continuous process and that there should be constant learning which will strengthen approaches and tactics in our social interventions”, he said.

One of the project sites the group visited earlier that day was Brgy. Samac which has a Water System Level II as community project that costs P6,824,689.00. Said Water System Project is the highest costing Water System Project out of the nine (9) Water System Projects currently being implemented in the province. The Water System project is projected to benefit more than four-hundred fifty (450) households in the barangay.

Samac Brgy. Capt. Ma. Rosario F. Ocay shared during the visit that the operation and maintenance of the water system project has also been deliberated by the community already even before the start of the construction of the community project.

“Part of the sustainability planning of our community project is to plant trees surrounding the reservoir to conserve and generate water”, she said.

Community Facilitator Maria Bermoy assigned in the said barangay said that the community had high participation rates during the barangay assemblies – a factor which helped the community get prioritized for the funding.

“They [community] initially had 92% participation rate in the first barangay assembly, 98 percent during the second assembly, and the preceding assemblies received 100 percent complete attendance of households in Brgy. Samac”, she said.

In the Kalahi-CIDSS Project, barangay assemblies are obliged to have at least 80 percent household participation rates to acquire the most urgent and felt needs of the barangay.

In Negros Oriental, there are currently fifty-six (56) sub-projects scattered in different municipalities being implemented which includes farm-to-market roads, water systems, school-buildings, foot-bridges, day care centres, barangay health stations, drainage and flood controls and even a rain-water harvester in Apo Island, Dauin.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=2&sid=&nid=2&rid=509872