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The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) National Community-Driven Development Program (NCDDP) highlights its pilot “Barangay Talakayan” activity for the year in the town of Binuangan, Misamis Oriental, September 13, specifically in Barangay Kitambis.

DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS staff, community volunteers with the barangay officials of Kitambis, Binuangan, Misamis Oriental (R. Salvo, SMO I)

The DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS initiated the Municipal Talakayan back in 2015; the activity is a dialogue with the municipal local governments in Northern Mindanao. This generated significant lessons, learning, insights, views, suggestions and recommendations to improve the delivery of basic and social services to the communities.

The success of the conduct of these Municipal Talakayan activities led to the conception of the Barangay Talakayan to give the grassroots planners data-based information to help them layout their future and perhaps on-going projects. Presenting and discussing the community’s development situation with key stakeholders and hearing their voices are equally important in assessing the development context of the barangay.

Gemima Lopez, DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS regional monitoring and evaluation specialist, says “the volume of data gathered at the local level is very rich and can be used as vital information for the local government’s planning and budgeting.”

A worker from the Municipality of Binuangan assists in the preparation of the gallery of data. Part of the activity is a “gallery walk” where participants get to see all available data gathered. (R. Salvo, SMO I)

Lopez also says “the Barangay Talakayan is a pilot-initiative that will look at the development status at the barangay level that will measure the overall development status along governance, empowerment and poverty reduction and how these developments contribute to the overall municipal development.”

“Since the Talakayan is an assessment in nature, we want to see if Community-Driven Development or CDD is really at work at the barangay level and has contributed in the development of the barangay” concludes Lopez.

The Barangay Talakayan hopes to increase the local stakeholders’ awareness on the development status of their community, provide a venue for systematic face-to-face feedback between development program or project implementers and the beneficiaries and promote the use of information at the barangay level to support better planning and reporting of outcomes.

A Focus Group Discussion (FGD) facilitated by DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS for Volunteers, Kalahi-CIDSS workers and Barangay Captains during the Barangay Kitambis Talakayan in the Municipality of Binuangan, Misamis Oriental to discuss Barangay development and answer all the concerns regarding the status of Community-Driven Development implementation in the locality. (R. Salvo, SMO I)

Through the DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS Community-Driven Development experience and the valuable data will give the community members and its local government information in improving local governance, poverty reduction, and community empowerment.

Civil society organizations or CSOs are the partners of the DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS in this endeavor to serve as overall lead facilitator and documenter in all Barangay and Municipal Talakayan activities. The partner CSOs also process and analyze data and prepare the Talakayan presentations, feedback and turnover of Barangay Talakayan reports to Municipalities among others.

Participants to the DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS Barangay Talakayan in Kitambis, Binuangan, Misamis Oriental listen to the data presentations. (R. Salvo, SMO I)

To date, there are 604,048 community volunteers who worked together to complete the 26,828 community sub-projects nationwide using the Community-Driven Development approach. In the Philippines, the CDD approach to inclusive growth, social protection and governance is implemented through the DSWD Kalahi-CIDSS National Community-Driven Development Program. A bill seeking to institutionalize CDD is already filed in the 18th Congress by Mountain Province Representative Maximo “Maxi” Dalog. The CDD Bill is now known as House Bill 4407. Lanao del Norte 1st District Congressman Mohamad Khalid Q. Dimaporo also expressed his strong support in institutionalizing the Community-Driven Development approach.