The existing program control measures employed by Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) were found to be highly effective to curb corruption, according to a study conducted by a consultation team for the World Bank.

Kalahi-CIDSS is one of the anti-poverty programs under the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD). Aside from reducing poverty, the Project aims to empower communities by making citizens active partners in development and to improve local governance by improving people’s engagement with and access to their local government units (LGUs).

The consultation team, looked into the governance and anti-corruption (GAC) risks within the Kalahi-CIDSS process, known as the Community Empowerment Activity Cycle (CEAC). This is composed of five stages: Social Preparation, Project Identification and Planning, Project Prioritization, Project Implementation, and Transition.

Admitting that the study was essentially a “fault-finding mission”, the team said that the researchers employed different strategies in order to glean information on the GAC vulnerabilities of Kalahi-CIDSS.

Initial study results showed that the program control employed by Kalahi-CIDSS is highly effective in being free from corruption, due to the various levels of monitoring and evaluation built into the process, the existence and strict adherence to the Project’s guidelines, and the commitment of the staff and community volunteers, who serve as watchdogs against irregularities.

The team cited that while there have been attempts to commit anomalies at the local level, these have been quickly prevented due to the vigilance of communities against corruption.

The results of the study indicate the effectiveness of the community-driven development (CDD) approach, which is employed by Kalahi-CIDSS, in minimizing anomalies in the local level. CDD empowers ordinary citizens through direct participation in local governance by allowing them to identify their own community needs, as well as plan, develop, implement, manage, and sustain projects together to address local poverty issues.

According to Matt Stephens, Governance Specialist of World Bank, conducting the study is critical at this time given DSWD’s thrust to scale up Kalahi-CIDSS into the National Community Driven Development Program (NCDDP) by 2013. The national program is targeted to cover over 900 poor municipalities across the Philippines, some of which have already been previously covered by the parent project, KALAHI-CIDSS 1  and the ongoing expansion to 364 municipalities.

While the study has positive results, the team cautions the possibility of potential vulnerabilities emerging once Kalahi-CIDSS scales up, especially since the workers of the DSWD field offices, who will be directly implementing the program, will now have more areas under their supervision. The team recommends that care should be taken to ensure that the controls used by Kalahi-CIDSS would be maximized. Options to maintain quality of implementation coupled with strong anti-GAC mechanisms are being developed to enhance the design of the NCDDP.