“The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) continues to enhance the convergence strategies it employs with the help of its partner-national government agencies (NGAs) to ensure that the poor have access to social protection programs.”

This was the core message of DSWD Undersecretary for Operations and Promotive Programs Malou Turalde-Jarabe  during a recent forum organized by the Department to showcase the good practices and learnings of the convergence initiatives implemented by different National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Local Government Units (LGUs) with the overall goal of strengthening the DSWD’s convergence strategies for poverty alleviation and social protection.

According to Usec. Turalde, the DSWD has adopted an overarching poverty reduction strategy and framework to maximize the impact of its major social protection programs and to put into place the building blocks for a more coherent social protection system to address the multiple dimensions of poverty.

“The seven years of implementation of this poverty reduction strategy and framework has laid down the foundation for the Department’s convergence strategy. Ngunit hindi po dito natatapos iyon (But this doesn’t stop here). We shall continue to improve it with the help of our partner agencies and our implementors on the ground,” she explained during the forum.

The forum, held at the DSWD Central office, served as a venue for the sharing of good convergence practices, challenges, and other experiences by the LGUs and NGA-members of the government’s Human Development and Poverty Reduction Cluster (HDPRC) in their implementation of different convergence initiatives to address poverty in the country.

It aimed to adopt possible evidence-based practices for DSWD replication and to provide possible policy recommendation inputs to strengthen convergence among the HDPRC member-agencies implementing social protection programs.

Sharing of good practices

During the event, Department of Agriculture (DA) Officer-in-Charge Assistant Director Edna D. Samar shared the National Convergence Initiative on Sustainable Rural Development (NCI-SRD) of the DA, Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR), Department of Environment and National Resources (DENR), and Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG).

NCI-SRD is a complementation strategy implemented by the four rural development agencies with the common goal of poverty reduction and sustainable countryside development. The initiative aims to provide integrated delivery of services and programs to rural farming, fishing, and upland communities of the country.

To give the participants a glimpse of the impact of the NCI-SRD implementation, Piddig, Ilocos Norte Former Mayor and Engr. Eduardo G. Guillen shared his experience in leading the implementation of the initiative in the town and how it was able to help the residents of the municipality.

National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) Director Ferdinand B. Hombrebueno, on the other hand, discussed the convergence initiatives being carried out by NAPC, including the Kilos Sambayanan, a flagship campaign for the fulfillment of the ten basic needs of the people; and the Convergence Initiative on Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the Cordillera Administrative Region, which aims to rehabilitate and conserve rice terraces for food security while upholding the protection of IP rights on ancestral lands.

Meanwhile, Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP) Assistant Secretary Yeshter Donn P. Baccay shared the Payapa at Masaganang Pamayanan (PAMANA) project, the national government’s peace and development convergence program in support of the Six-Point Peace and Development Agenda; while Jose Dalman, Zamboanga del Norte Barangay Captain Evangeline G. Campos discussed the Pera sa Pawis, a source-based and a community-driven project aiming to address the gaps on employment, income, employable skills, and nutritional status of the DSWD Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) families through the involvement and participation of other partner stakeholders.

After the knowledge sharing, former DSWD Secretary Judy M. Taguiwalo and University of the Philippines National College of Public Administration & Governance, Associate Professor Ebinezer R. Florano, who were invited to be the reactors of the forum, gave their insights on the convergence projects presented and provided suggestions on how the agencies could further improve the implementation of the programs and projects.

“Poverty is a complex and multidimensional challenge. This is why we, in the government, need a more strategic way to effectively tackle it. Convergence is one of those strategies that we have employed in order to have a more holistic approach to improving the well-being of our fellow Filipinos,” Usec. Turalde said. ###