THE National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) has introduced its three banner programs that aim to alleviate and reduce poverty in the country.
In a press conference last Tuesday, January 29, in Cagayan de Oro City, NAPC Secretary and lead convenor Noel Felongco presented the agency's three banner programs: "Sambayanihan, Serbisyong Sambayanan" or SSS; Provincial Consultative Body; and Actionable Development Agenda for Poverty Transformation or ADAPT 40/10/10.
The Sambayanihan or SSS program, according to Felongco, answers the need to alleviate and reduce poverty and is premised on developing rural and urban agriculture and industry as the most important preconditions for overcoming extreme poverty.
The basic components of SSS, he added, involve providing informal settlers and urban poor with basic services and access to climate-responsive dwelling, livelihood and employment; developing innovative infrastructure and financing mechanisms to rural poor; strengthening rural-urban agro-economic value chains; securing the health and general well-being of poor communities; enhancing food security; and Mindanao Special Development Program.
The Provincial Consultative Body, on the other hand, is a convergent consultative mechanism at the provincial level that serves as an avenue for collaboration and coordination between government agencies, primarily the local government units and the communities as well as mainstream the participation of people and civil society organizations in recommending, implementing and monitoring anti-poverty programs and service.
Meanwhile, the ADAPT 40/10/10 intends to help poor communities across the country adapt to the effects of climate change.
"The 40-10-10 denotes a list of 40 provinces, based primarily on poverty incidence, from which the 10 poorest municipalities per province and the 10 poorest barangays per municipality will be selected," Felongco said.
This amounts to a total of 4,000 barangays nationwide which will serve as adapt 40-10-10 target areas over the plan period. All other areas will be considered as service areas of the NAPC.
These programs, according to Felongco, will help achieve their goal to reduce the country's poverty incidence from 21.6 percent in 2015 to 14 percent by 2022, which is equivalent to around 6 to 8 million Filipinos to be lifted out from poverty, and to attain the zero poverty target by 2040.
"What we are trying to do is to break the cycle of poverty in the country. We will break the cycle of poverty by attacking the systemic causes of poverty. Karamihan sa causes of poverty are structural and systemic in nature. And thus, our programs will attempt to break off strategically or change strategically these structures," Fernando Cao, head of the Research and Operations Unit of NAPC, said.
"NAPC is very much willing to help our local government units and all stakeholders in implementing poverty alleviation activities, projects and programs. So let us join hands in this endeavor and together we will win our fight against poverty," Felongco added.
The NAPC is the social reform and poverty alleviation arm of the government that aims to ensure the continuity of social reform that addresses the basic inequities in the Philippine society.