NHTS-PR
Who are the Poor? DSWD has the Answer
Reports and studies on poverty focus on statistics, often dealing with mere percentages and estimates. various surveys say that more Filipinos are becoming poorer. But the question is, who are the poor and where are they?
The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) realized the urgent need to identify who and where the poor households are. Thus, it is launched and is now implementing the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) in 2009 as instructed by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. The President instructed the allotment of a P1 Billion budget for its implementation.
Social Welfare and Development Acting Secretary Celia Capadocia-Yangco explained that the main objective of the project is to create a system of identifying who and where the poor households are. It aims to generate a database of poor households, unify criteria for selection of the poorest population and reduces exclusion of poor and inclusion of non-poor in social protection programs.
"Knowing who the poor are is especially important in targeting the right beneficiaries for social protection programs and ensuring that the government funds are appropriately spent," Acting Secretary Yangco further explained.
On its first year of implementation, the targeting system has already assessed/enumerated 8,394,120 households nationwide.
The households were assessed through interviews by trained enumerators using a two-page Household Assessment Form (HAF). The HAF contains verifiable indicators that are good proxies of income such as family composition, employment, education of household members, housing conditions, access to basic services, ownership of assets, health condition and other regional variables.
After the assessment, the household data were subjected to the Proxy Means Test (PMT), which is a statistical formula used in determining the ranking, classification and prioritization of poor households.
Of more than million households assessed, some 3,171,292 had already been subjected to the PMT which yielded the identification of 1,665,503 poor households.
The Acting Secretary said that the other government agencies and organizations can use the database for their project development and selection of beneficiaries. The Department of Health (DOH) and the Philippine Health Insurance Corporation (PhilHealth) are among the agencies which have already entered into Memoranda of Agreement with DSWD to use the database for their programs.
Further, the National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) issued a Memorandum Circular "directing all anti-poverty programs and projects (APPs) to focus on the one million poor households as beneficiaries."
"Through this targeting system, the implementation of poverty reduction programs of the government is expected to be more effective," Acting Secretary Yangco stated.
"With the targeting system of DSWD in place, we now have the answer to the question "who are the poor?" and start providing programs and services to help the poor households enjoy better lives," Acting Secretary Yangco concluded.
Last Updated (Thursday, 25 February 2010 05:57)
Unemployed No More
Friday, 08 January 2010 14:50 | Written by Mary Honeylyn Joy Alipio |
Good news indeed travels fast. This is how Alces Dollano, 32, married and father to 2 toddlers, sums up his views to the news of National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) project of DSWD coming their municipality of San Agustin in Surigao del Sur. He heard about the mass hiring of Household Enumerators, Encoders, Field Supervisors and Area Coordinators, and Alces was one of the most eager to apply and thought this would be a grand opportunity for him to earn a substantial amount of income after being unemployed for more than a year. Alces has build the knack of cunning maneuvers to being a fisherman, an assistant in copra production, an encoder and layout designer of invitations, program leaflets, and other printing materials, yielding him a minimum of P100.00 a day. As luck would have it, Alces is a degree holder and has even pursued further studies in Theology. “I feel like breaking into tears whenever my wife and I have no money at all, and resort to asking for help from our relatives again and again.” Alces confesses. His town has been identified as one of the poorest municipalities in the CARAGA region, in fact, Surigao del Sur is the top 16 poorest province in thePhilippines based on the assessment of poverty incidence in 2006 by the National Statistics Coordination Board (NSCB). Alces got himself hired for the position of an Area Supervisor. He leads a team of 10 enumerators who conducted assessment of households along with other teams. He reviews the Household Assessment Forms to check the quality of data, troubleshoots problems encountered in the field, and huddles the enumerators for coaching and feed back. He said this is a remarkable experience for him, noting that before the project came into their municipality, he did not realize that his educational experience can indeed be a vehicle for data gathering. A data that reliably tells who and where the poor are, a data that would be of good use by the National Government Agencies, Non-Government Organizations, Local Government Units and institutions that plan to formulate poverty reduction projects and programs that are tailored for each of the poor groups – mother and children, solo parents, senior citizens, people with disabilities, indigenous peoples, farmers/fisher folks, etc.
Alces is just one of the 6,879 fieldworkers hired by the Department for the Phase 1 project implementation of the NHTS-PR to assess 2.6 million households. 6,879 employed Filipinos to help locating fellows in most dire condition. 6,879 fieldworkers who now bear own good news. Last Updated (Wednesday, 20 January 2010 08:07) |