NegOr mayors ink agreement for anti-poverty program

By Rachelle M. Nessia

Tuesday 17th of April 2012

DUMAGUETE CITY, April 17 (PIA) -- Mayors of 11 towns in Negros Oriental signed on April 17 a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) for the implementation of the national government’s anti-poverty program.

Said towns were earlier identified to benefit from the national government’s anti-poverty program, KALAHI-CIDSS or Kapit Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services.

The signing signals the start of a four-year implementation of social service projects in the towns of Ayungon, Bindoy, Jimalalud, Manjuyod, Vallehermoso, Mabinay, Basay, Dauin, Sta. Catalina, Pamplona, and Zamboanguita. Said projects include infrastructure such as waterworks system, construction of farm-to-market roads, road network repairs, and school buildings.

KALAHI-CIDSS is a poverty reduction program implemented by the national government through DSWD.

Negros Oriental was chosen as an expansion area of the program in 2012 with funding from the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), a foreign aid agency created by the US Congress to fight poverty at a global scale.

The total budget for the KALAHI-CIDSS implementation in all 11 towns is P103,050,000.

The respective funding for each town for each year will be based on the following formula: P450,000 multiplied by the LGU’s number of barangays, said Marilou Gallarde, DSWD-7 Deputy Regional Project Manager for KALAHI-CIDSS in an interview.

After the MOA signing, various public assemblies and consultations will be done in the barangays of said towns to determine the nature of the needed projects in their areas to be funded under KALAHI-CIDSS.

“Our approach is community-driven, so 80 percent of the decision-making on which projects will be carried out in the barangays will come from the residents themselves, not solely on the barangay and local officials,” said Gallarde.

DENR-7 director Evelyn Macapobre said the program has already served 12 towns in Bohol and two in Siquijor from 2003 to 2010. (RMN-PIA7, Negros Oriental)