DITTE FALLESEN | CAMILA LINNEMAN | MARIA LORETO PADUA | APRIL 25, 2021

October 2020, COVID-19 response facility in Barobo, Surigao del Sur. ©Department of Social Welfare and Development

When COVID-19 hit the Philippines and the country began community quarantine in March 2020, the National Community Driven Development Project (NCDDP) was in its final phase of implementation. The project quickly triggered its Disaster Response Operations Modality (DROM) to support communities with COVID-19 response and early recovery. The DROM allowed the communities to reallocate $24 million for these purposes, supporting around 631,000 households across 2,158 barangays (communities) in 136 of the country’s poorest municipalities between May 2020 and the closing of the project in December 2020.

NCDDP is delivering targeted support to many poor communities, which are often located in remote areas, and has achieved a 65 percent participation rate from marginalized groups like women and indigenous peoples. To date, the project has mobilized around 1.89 million community volunteers with women holding 63 percent of leadership positions in the community volunteer committees.

 

Container vans converted into COVID-19 isolation facilities in Mapanas, Northern Samar 

 

The DROM is a modality that adapts the community-driven development (CDD) process to support community recovery in disaster-affected areas. In the first two years of NCDDP, the DROM was tested in 554 municipalities affected by Typhoon Haiyan between 2014 and 2016. Through DROM, the project delivers larger block grants, allows for an extended menu of basic services and facilities, and has more flexible financial management and procurement procedures.

The mobilization of the DROM for COVID-19 allowed the program to respond to changing community priorities. Before the pandemic, communities prioritized basic service sub-projects that built community infrastructure like access roads and drainage canals. In response to COVID-19, communities shifted their focus on establishing or upgrading isolation facilities in accordance with Department of Health protocols, personal protective equipment, medical equipment, and improved water and sanitation facilities.

In one municipality, 11 barangays agreed to pool their grant funds to finance a health facility, constructed in line with the Department of Health’s standards. The DROM for COVID-19 response also provided temporary employment, through a cash-for-work scheme, for more than 38,000 community workers, 39 percent of whom are women. A total of 2,399 community sub-projects were financed in support of COVID-19 preparedness and early recovery.

On December 16, 2020, the World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved an Additional Financing (AF) of $300 million for NCDDP to scale up the response and recovery support to COVID-19 and future disasters in 676 poor municipalities. The operation will reach an estimated total of four million households. The AF will continue supporting communities through the DROM and its focus on investing in an early and equitable COVID-19 recovery.

A recent World Bank survey in the poorest communities in the Philippines found that more than 50 percent of communities are experiencing severe employment and income losses, especially in the construction and transport sectors. In response, the project will include support for local economic development and maintain its focus on vulnerable and marginalized groups, including indigenous peoples and women.

Amalgamation of Climate Risk Tools for Banking Sector with Case studies by UNEP

Amalgamation of Climate Risk Tools for Banking Sector with Case studies by UNEP

 

 

 

Recording

Community-driven development (CDD) programs put citizens at the center of designing their own solutions to development problems by fostering partnerships between communities and governments.  CDD programs have increased livelihood opportunities for women, have delivered quick relief following natural disasters, and have helped close last-mile gaps in service delivery and infrastructure provision in some of the most remote and insecure parts of the world.  So where do we go from here?  How can we address new problems, from pandemics to conflict to climate change, and build stronger partnerships between communities and the state?  How do we maximize the use of new technologies, and create economic opportunities in lagging regions? 

Join us on December 8 from 9:00-10:30 am for a high-level panel featuring Paul Collier and senior representatives from government and civil society to explore these questions and help us set out the agenda for the next generation of programs. 

Follow the conversation on Twitter at @WBG_Inclusion and through the hashtag #EveryoneEqual.

 

Opening remarks: Yaye Seynabou Sakho, Director, Strategy and Operations LCR
Chair: Susan Wong, Global Lead, CDD

Fireside discussion:

• Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
• Alka Upadhyaya, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, India
• Rowlands Kaotcha, Global VP, The Hunger Project Malawi

Speaker Bios: 

Paul Collier, Professor of Economics and Public Policy, Oxford University
Sir Paul Collier is Professor of Economics and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government at Oxford University and Director of the International Growth Center.  In addition to his extensive academic experience, Dr. Collier served as Director of the Research Development Department of the World Bank from 1998 to 2003. He has written for the New York Times, the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post. His research covers the causes and consequences of civil war; the effects of aid and the problems of democracy in low-income and resource-rich societies; and changing organizational cultures. Paul has authored numerous books, including The Bottom Billion (Oxford University Press, 2007) which in 2008 won the Lionel Gelber, Arthur Ross, and Corine prizes His latest book, co-authored with John Kay, is Greed is Dead: Politics After Individualism. In 2014, Paul received a knighthood for services to promoting research and policy change in Africa.

Alka Upadhyaya, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Rural Development, India
Alka Upadhyaya is an Additional Secretary in the Ministry of Rural Development, Director General of the National Rural Infrastructure Development Agency, CEO of the National Rural Livelihood Mission, and Director General of the Council for Advancement of Peoples’ Action and Rural Technology.  Alka leads India’s biggest rural road construction and connectivity program, the Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY).  In this capacity, she introduced the construction of rural roads using plastic waste. She also leads India’s rural livelihood program which is based on deep community engagement to build skills of women and youth to create livelihood opportunities. Alka Upadhyaya has held senior positions as Secretary in the Department of Finance, Environment, Personnel, Health and was Mission Director in the National Rural Livelihood Mission.  Ms. Upadhyaya holds a master’s degree in Organic Chemistry, Economics, and Public Administration from Syracuse University.

Rowlands Kaotcha, Global Vice President, The Hunger Project
Rowlands Kaotcha is Global Vice President and the Southern Africa Regional Director for The Hunger Project.  He has previously served as the organization’s country director for Malawi and Mozambique. In Malawi, Rowlands and his team worked to mobilize over 2,500 communities, including training thousands of community leaders. Recently, Rowlands led The Hunger Project’s expansion into Zambia and also serves as the Southern Africa coordinator for the Movement for Community-led Development. Mr. Kaotcha earned a B.Sc. in Agriculture and an M.Sc. in Agronomy from the University of Malawi’s Bunda College of Agriculture, and an MBA from Eastern and Southern African Institute of Management in Tanzania.

Seynabou Sakho is the World Bank Director of Strategy and Operations for Latin America and the Caribbean. Sakho was most recently the Country Director for Central America (Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama). In her position, she oversaw the programs and TCs, research, and funding of the six nations.  Sakho, who is from Senegal, joined the World Bank in 2004. She has held several positions with the Bank, including as economist for Brazil, Jamaica, and Bolivia, economic advisor to the Operations Policy and Country Services Unit, and advisor to the Managing Director’s Office. Most recently, she served as manager of Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management for East and Central Africa. The new World Bank Director for Central America earned a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in finance and economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has also authored and co-authored several publications on economic growth, private-sector development, and the effect of financial restrictions on small and medium-sized enterprises.

Susan Wong is the World Bank’s Global Lead for Community-Driven Development (CDD).  She has led and worked on some of the largest CDD and local government programs in the world including in Indonesia, Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, India, Afghanistan, and Morocco. Her specialties are in the areas of: monitoring and evaluation, CDD and local governance, social safeguards, and operations.   Susan has published on topics related to monitoring and evaluation, political economy, and community-driven development, and led one of the largest randomized impact evaluations in the world from 2007-2010 in Indonesia. Susan joined the World Bank in 2002 and has served as Social Development Program/Sector Manager, Social Development Sector Coordinator in Indonesia, and Lead Specialist.  Prior to joining the institution, she worked on development programs for the United States Agency for International Development, US Department of State, United Nations Development Program, and United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. She has worked with several multilateral agencies, non-governmental organizations and academic research institutions in the U.S., Africa and Asia for the past 27 years.  

I would like to volunteer to help out for the rest of this FY year.   Please contact me by phone or email if I can be of any help - William Tarpai 951 288 6993   goglobal14@gmail.com