World Bank okays $100-M loan for DSWD welfare program

STAR Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Some financial relief is on the way.

The World Bank (WB) on Tuesday approved a $100 million loan to help the Philippine government provide basic education, health and nutrition, shelter, potable water, sanitation and electricity to the country’s poor.

More than 5,300 poor barangays in 193 municipalities in 40 of the country’s poorest provinces are expected to benefit from this development project, the WB said in a statement.

The program will be overseen by Kapit-bisig Laban sa Kahirapan and the Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) of the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD).

The Kalahi-CIDSS will oversee the redistribution of land to the poor and projects to boost agricultural and fisheries production while providing seed money for micro-enterprises and small businesses.

Beneficiary communities will participate in their own development by prioritizing their development needs, designing activities, seek technical expertise and make informed choices on how resources will be used for sustainable and continued poverty reduction.

"The Kalahi-CIDSS project will promote good governance, transparency, participation with local level decision-making and increased accountability, as villagers gain hands-on experience in managing projects," said Cyprian Fisiy, WB Task Team Leader for the Kalahi-CIDSS project.

The loan matures in 20 years, with a grace period of eight years.

Core project principles include:

• Localized decision-making. Decisions on community sub-projects will be made by barangay residents and their representatives.

• Transparency. Every aspect of decision-making will be known to local communities and each peso spent will be accounted for on public information boards and independently monitored by non-government organizations (NGOs) and media groups.

• Social inclusiveness. The entire community, not just a few families, will have the opportunity to be involved in planning and the decision-making process.

• Competition. Participating barangays will submit project proposals to an inter-barangay forum for selection based on criteria, such as the number of poor beneficiaries and the technical soundness of the proposal.