he city government of Legazpi, as the pilot area in Luzon, will formally accept their local engagement in the implementation of Urban Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS) with the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) in December 5, 2012.

The Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) will be signed between Mayor Geraldine Rosal and DSWD Director Remia T. Tapispisan at Legazpi City Hall. Gov. Joey Sarte Salceda is expected to join the said activity with other key local government unit (LGU) officials.

The Urban CDD Program was previously implemented in the National Capital Region (NCR) specifically in Malate, Manila and in the province of Cavite. The target roll-out for Legazpi City will be on January next year.

Selection Process

Based on the data from National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB) in 2009, Legazpi City with 30.7 poverty incidence (PI) has the highest among the component cities in Luzon qualifying for the Urban Kalahi-CIDSS implementation.

After the consultation dialogue between DSWD and key government officials and stakeholders during the preliminary validation, the urban barangays of Rawis and Bitano were identified to implement the said project considering the factors of income vulnerability, disaster risks vulnerability and land tenure issues. According to the 2010 data from the National Household Targeting System (NHTS), both Rawis and Bitano have been listed with high magnitude of poor households in Legazpi City.

Grant Funds and Community Subprojects

The barangays of Rawis and Bitano will receive one million each from the World Bank with a complementing counterpart of 30 percent of the indicative total project cost provided by the city government of Legazpi.

The project management team of DSWD expects that community enterprise and livelihoods are considered to be the major sub-project category in Urban Kalahi-CIDSS.

What is CDD?

CDD is the mechanism used Kalahi-CIDSS which has been proven effective in reducing poverty in the country and in Bicol region. Through CDD, the people in the community play a direct role in a research to identify existing needs, project design and development to address these needs, project implementation, setting-up community associations, and management and operation and maintenance of completed sub-projects.

Kalahi-CIDSS is the flagship poverty-alleviation program of the Philippine government aimed at empowering the communities by honing their skills to participate in their local development process. It is one of the core social protection programs of DSWD along with Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipno Program and Sustainable Livelihood Program targeting the poorest households.###jmarbella