Development Communication: The KALAHI Program

 Development Communication: The KALAHI Program

"All in one boat: Our programs are united under the KALAHI", said Raul Banias, the jolly Mayor  of the Municipality of Concepcion, Iloilo.  He smiled with the same enthusiasm and continued;  "My vision is zero poverty in Concepcion by the year 2020. I persisted, deploying vans with loudspeakers, and finally won the people over. Now they are on fire. The people felt that the projects were truly theirs."

Take one of their projects as an example: Barangay Dungon’s new public utility boat. The people of Dungon needed water transportation to ferry students, workers, entrepreneurs, and their sick. They formerly used a small pump boat that could take 10 passengers at most. It was available on market days only: twice a week. On the other days the owner used it for fishing. Passengers could try hitching a ride on other fishing boats, but they did not have regular access to them and riding them was not always safe. In fact, to protect their safety, a national Executive Order banned fishing boats from accepting passengers.

The new KALAHI boat was 18 meters long and 2 meters wide. It could carry 40 people, including the crew. Its design followed the specifications of the Maritime Authority, but the project team made a few changes that were approved by the municipal engineer: a larger hull, motor, and propeller. The vessel was made of hardwood, and its sidings were bolted and nailed together to ensure durability.

In February 2004 the subproject committee turned over the vessel to the village council for operation and maintenance. The council in turn created the Dungon Pump Boat Association with its own technical management team. The pump boat association set the schedules, fares, discounts, rental fees. Because of the KALAHI vessel, residents’ incomes have risen as they have greater market access for their products. More employment was created. Their transport expenses went down, and they could attend social events in town more often. School enrollment rose and fewer students dropped out.

"In the municipal hall, I did much to oversee projects like those of Dungon. I linked up the municipal agencies into a coordinating committee, which met regularly. The agencies helped ensure the added funds, materials, and people needed to make the projects work (e.g. teachers for a new school). We also assigned staff to the KALAHI villages to give technical support. Then I commissioned a municipal-wide survey on minimum basic needs. We wanted to create a pool of data that would help measure the impact of the KALAHI. My local government also installed a data board in every village of Concepcion. The bottom-up KALAHI system is now integrated into our planning cycle. I used our success with the KALAHI to get resources from other donors for our social programs." The mayor readily described.

"We thought of them as “convergence partners.”The poor discovered that they could make a change in their lives. In Concepcion, 375 people had gone through the training sessions. They could now analyze their community needs, prepare formal proposals, and demand infrastructure from their politicians. They have learned how to access funds. That capability will remain long after the KALAHI is gone."

 The Municipality of Concepcion, Iloilo has 34,000 residents and it is relatively isolated because it includes 16 islands. The efforts on reforms, education and development, livelihood programs and health services remain are fragmented, focused on their own targets, and limited in resources. In Concepcion, getting the people on board KALAHI was difficult. The villages were cynical about the whole program. The officials and volunteers complained about the heavy work load—their schedules had become hectic. And the executive had to contend with misinformation, he had to use innovative communication tools to educate and inform people of how the project will go. Everyone called it kalaha, a “frying pan”, because so few people wanted to get into it. The people hesitate every time it involves a newer idea. The mayor, at a period of time, used loud speakers to bombard everyone with information regarding DSWD’s KALAHI project. (For ease of reference, from here on the text will refer simply to the KALAHI project—a Filipino acronym that stands for “linking arms against poverty”.)

The communication among the Concepcion local government took a while however; KALAHI, after a while, has provided them with a road map, a coherent framework for integrating all these projects into one grand community plan. Formerly, local councils in the Philippines did little to involve the people in the planning process. The KALAHI is a great opportunity to encourage local governments to get the people involved in community planning.

The KALAHI-CIDSS is a community-driven development (CDD) project that aims to empower communities through their enhanced participation in community projects that reduce poverty. Within 6 years, the project aims to cover 25 percent of the poorest municipalities in the poorest 42 (out of 79) provinces of the Philippines, equivalent to more than 4,000 villages in 182 municipalities. It strengthens community participation in local governance and develops local capacity to design, implement, and manage development activities. Community grants are used to support the building of low-cost, productive infrastructure such as roads, water systems, clinics, and schools.

The project is implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development with the World Bank providing financial support to the project. The total project cost is US$182.4 million: US$100 million from the World Bank; US$31.4 million from the national Government; with villagers and their local governments contributing US$51 million as cash or in-kind contributions.

The project is part of the overall KALAHI framework, which is the Government of the Philippines’ overarching program for a focused, accelerated, convergent, and expanded strategy to reduce poverty. The KALAHI program aims to provide interventions on asset reform; human development services; capacity building; and participation in governance.

CIDSS is a CDD program in the Philippines that focuses on 3 villages per target municipality, in particular, on the most disadvantaged families within the said villages. It stresses the convergence of various agencies and their social services. The projects currently being implemented have estimated economic rates of return of 17% to 53% for the villages, very high for social development projects, and indicating the responsiveness of the projects. The KALAHI is providing services that villagers have often been waiting for decades. Village projects are approved, designed, and constructed within only 3 to 6 months.

References:    www.dswd.gov.ph

                        Kalahi toolkit

                        Ateneo School of Gov’t – Kapihan 2010

Development communication is the art and science of human communication applied to the speedy transformation of a country and the mass of its people from poverty to a dynamic state of economic growth that makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfillment of the human potential.  - Nora Quebral

Two years ago, I was a participant of the World Bank Kapihan Sessions for 100 young leaders of the country. The forum was organized with a lot of ambitious intentions; from sharing ideas and programs on how to develop the lives of community, to the roles of politics and governments in these plans and programs. We met with leaders from different regions and from different institutions; NGOs, media, the Academe and some young politicians. In our dialogues, the poor’s knowledge to most development programs has become a dominant concern. The DSWD, for instance, as an administrative arm of the government lacks manpower or the number of driving personnel to address or implement the programs that will supposedly benefit the poor. The poor on the other hand remain in the void of lack of information on these programs that seek to benefit them. Evidently, communication applies not just to the target audience who are the poor, but it also needs the participation of Local Governments; in the province, municipality, and even in the barangays.

Nora Quebral mentioned that development communication is supposed to be an “art” and a “science” of human communication. Mayor Raul Banias, finding the KALAHI project to be beneficial to his town drove him to use “loud speakers” and attended numerous speeches to let his constituents know about the intention of the program and how his people could be part of it. A review shows that most of his constituents were hesitant at first because they think that it will fail, and because most local officials are afraid of the paper works. In this modern world, every project will need “paper works” – draft plans, project proposals, project studies, and resolutions from the local officials. The continuous encouragement of the executive head taught them to try and become part of the drive towards the intention of the program. One project for instance, the ferry boat, which was realized, gave them not just commercial edge on trades but also, it also transported their children to school. Hadn’t the mayor convinced his people to try and cooperate with the DSWD’s KALAHI program then they will still be maintaining a low potential in developing their town and their lives.

Of course even this is only a story of one town. Implementation of the KALAHI began early in 2003 in only six villages. After the pilot phase of 6 months, the project expanded to 201 villages in 11 municipalities in 11 provinces. One year later, it was being implemented in 1,505 villages in 67 municipalities in 22 provinces. Clearly, this reflects Quebral’s musings of using “human communication to the speedy transformation of a country and its mass of its people from poverty to dynamic state of economic growth..” As long as human communication is both applied to the government and its people, programs will materialize. Programs that “makes possible greater social equality and the larger fulfillment of the human potential.”