To further improve citizen and community involvement and participation in the development process, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), through the Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS) is set to turn over at least 600 sub-projects to community-recipients within the first quarter of 2022.

With more than P558.7 million funds utilized, these community sub-projects will be turned over to the different localities in Ilocos Region, Cagayan Valley, CALABARZON (Cavite, Laguna, Batangas, Rizal, Quezon), MIMAROPA (Oriental Mindoro, Occidental Mindoro, Marinduque, Romblon, Palawan), Central Visayas, Zamboanga Peninsula, Northern Mindanao, Davao Region, and SOCCSKSARGEN from January to March 2022.

The sub-projects include construction of multi-purpose buildings, barangay health station, disaster response facility, isolation facility, corn and rice mill building, improvement of the water system, provision of COVID-19 kits and medical tools, and installation of communication devices, among others.

The KALAHI-CIDSS sub-projects aim to serve about 236,000 households in the said regions to empower the communities to achieve improved access to social services, by involving its members in more inclusive local planning and giving them control over decisions and resources.

KALAHI-CIDSS is a program that uses a community-driven development strategy to ensure people-centered development by providing assistance, capacity-building, and implementation support to poverty-disadvantaged and disaster-affected municipalities.

Through the program, community members actively participate to identify and prioritize their community’s problems and allow them to design, implement, and manage solutions to their priority problems

Meanwhile, the DSWD targets to cover new areas, especially in poor and marginalized communities across the country, through the additional financing allotted to the program.

The additional funding of KALAHI-CIDSS has an added layer aimed towards addressing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This step will pave the way to increase the scope of the program, covering 676 poor municipalities in 59 provinces across 15 regions.

Of this total number of localities, 14 percent will be newly covered areas.

The additional funding for KALAHI-CIDSS is set to provide community grants to enable target municipalities to efficiently implement programs, projects, or services that will help their communities cope with the adverse effects of the pandemic.