At least three municipalities in the Province of Nueva Ecija are now beneficiaries of the Kalahi-CIDSS-National Community Driven Development Program, Director Adelina S. Apostol of the Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office III (DSWD FO III) said during the project orientation held recently in Angeles City.

The block grants from KC-NCDDP amounting P37.9-million will fund various development projects in the municipalities of General Mamerto Natividad, Quezon and Talugtug, Apostol added.
In his presentation, Deputy National Program Manager Alexander Glova said that Cycle 1 of the project will benefit some 94,671 households in the 64 barangays in the three target municipalities.

KC-NCDDP, a poverty alleviation program of the National Government implemented by the DSWD, is supported by the Philippine Development Plan (2011-2016). The expansion into a national scale of the operations of community driven development (CDD) was approved on January 18, 2013. The strategy has been tried and proven effective in Kalahi-CIDDS (Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services), the parent project of KC-NCDDP.

KC-NCDDP aims to empower local communities, improve local governance, and reduce poverty by providing funds for community infrastructure, common service facilities and capability building. The Project is designed to enable the poor to participate in community development.

To be implemented by the DSWD and the local government units, KC-NCDDP will enable the communities of targeted municipalities become empowered to achieve improved access to services and to participate in more inclusive local planning, budgeting, and implementation.

What makes the project unique Apostol stressed is that it is corruption free because the grant goes straight from the DSWD Central Office to the community bank account. Every peso spent on the project is reported through a multi-level monitoring system. ### (Evelyn T. Manalo