DSWD FO-III

Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Assistant Secretary Parisya H. Taradji presented recently the Pantawid Pamilya Thrusts and Directions for the year 2011 held at the Marcian Business Hotel in this city.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Taradji said, is one of the major supports in the social contract of the Aquino administration in addressing the poverty situation in the country. For 2011, the program will focus on strengthening the programs systems and components to effect responsive and timely delivery of services to the beneficiaries and to ensure its transparent and just implementation, Asec. Taradji added.

According to Taradji, one of the major priorities of the Pantawid Pamilya this year is the completion of the 2.3 million household beneficiaries from 936 municipalities, 74 cities in 79 provinces nationwide with a total geographical target of 1,010 municipalities and cities covering 62% out of the 1,634 nationwide.

Another focus is the enhancement of software, module and strengthening of policies and procedures on three integral systems comprising the program’s monitoring system; the Beneficiary Update System (BUS), the Compliance Verification System (CVS) and the Grievance Redress System (GRS) to ensure timely and just disbursement of grants and attending to grievance and complaints.

Monitoring of compliance to supply side requirements of the program in terms of staffing, facilities, materials requirements from the LGUs and partner agencies will also be prioritized, Taradji added.

To further enhance monitoring and evaluation on the program, the DSWD will create an Independent Advisory Committee and will put in place an internal and external monitoring of the program through spot checks on regular basis. Qualitative impact evaluation of the program will be conducted. Database will be upgraded including the hardware and software to become flexible in responding to operations immerging issues and concerns.

Conduct of Family Development Sessions (FDS) in close coordination with key stakeholders and establishment of a pool of resource persons at the provincial and municipal/city level will be strengthened including the functionality of the program operations unit from municipal up to regional level.

The Department will also focus in facilitating timely payment of cash grants every two months, timely processing of cash card and payments of cash grants to the beneficiaries through the fastest means of cash deliveries in partnership with Land Bank and other conduits.

Capability building is another major concern which will be addressed for the year that includes training of newly hired workers, orientation and consultation workshops with partner agencies and other key stakeholders at the national, regional, provincial and municipal levels, training of parent leaders and development of easy to read program materials for workers, partner agencies and parent leaders and enhancement of modular guides for FDS.

Forty percent communication for development and 60 % advocacy is tasked to social marketing and advocacy component which includes the continuous strengthening of partnership and collaborative effort with media, internal and external stakeholders and the development of gender sensitive information, education and communication (IEC) materials and those which respond to the emerging needs in the area of program implementation.

For this year, the program will ensure the continuous empowerment of Indigenous People (IPs) and their mainstreaming in the regular communities through the development of IP and gender sensitive program, policies and procedures including the hiring of IP and Gender Specialist at the national and regional level.

To maximize the impact of the major programs of the DSWD, the Department will reinforce the complementation of the pro-poor programs composed of Pantawid Pamilya, Self Employment Assistance (SEA-K) and the KALAHI CIDDS. Convergence laboratory areas for 4Ps beneficiaries will be identified in order to hasten their graduation from the program and will strengthen implementation and accessing of support services as part of the exit procedures of the program.

To ensure quality delivery of services to the beneficiaries, the Department will further strengthen its networking and partnership with International Organizations like World Bank, AusAID, Asian Development Bank, and UNICEF.

Pantawid Pamilya will also intensify the implementation of case management system for the beneficiaries through SIPAG (Sustaining Intervention on Poverty Alleviation and Governance); strengthening the functions of the Task Force on the Promotion of Child’s Rights; and implementing effective and efficient graduation strategy of Pantawid beneficiaries and ensuring the graduation of around 700,000 household beneficiaries by 2013 and subsequently graduate the remaining beneficiaries by 2016.

Another major concerns of the Department include the Updating of the Operations Manual of the program; improvement of the absorptive capacity in the program implementation; creation of a Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) Secretariat with the Departments of Health (DOH) and Education (DepEd) that will oversee the implementation of CCT and ensuring the submission of program’s report to the Senate, House of Representatives and the Office of the President on the release of funds, funds utilization and status of implementation per region, Asec. Taradji concluded.