NGOs commend DSWD’s project

CEBU, Philippines - Four Cebu-based non-government organizations commended the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) for making easy access the list of poor families that they will serve.

These NGOs include the Outreach Program on Training Integral Organizing and Networking for Solidarity (OPTIONS) Inc., Alay Lakad Foundation Inc. in Cebu City, Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc. (RAFI) and Euphrasia Parents Association and Development Inc., which signed a memorandum of agreement for data sharing and utilization.

Kerwin Macorpia, DSWD-7’s information officer for the NHTS-PR project, told The FREEMAN that these NGOs are thankful that DSWD created a profile of the poor.

He said the project would help these organizations obtain a reliable list of people in need of help.

These NGOs can now save time in field data gathering compared before when they had to do hands-on data gathering in identifying the poorest of the poor, Macorpia said.

Aside from the four NGOs which are accredited by DSWD, there are also 118 local government units out of the 132 all over the region, which also signed the MOA to access the database identifying who and where the poor are in the country, Macorpia said.

“We also encouraged our other NGO partners and from other stakeholders to secure a MOA for the accessibility of the system. We have to use the database since we really underwent a process and statistical formula before coming up with the list,” Macorpia said.

The database is based on their first cycle survey from 2009 to 2011.  The second cycle will start by the end of the year. —/LPM (FREEMAN)