Butuan City – The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) will launch on April 5, 2016 the latest database of Poor households identified by the Listahanan project.

The said activity will be spearheaded by DSWD Secretary Corazon “Dinky” Soliman and will be attended by all regional directors of the 18 regions in the country.

According to DSWD-Caraga Regional Focal Person for Listahanan, Fe Balason, through the Listahanan’s database, it will be easier for the Non-Government Organizations (NGOs), National Government Agencies (NGAs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to deliver their social protection programs to the poorest of the poor in Caraga.

Balason reiterated that the said database is accurate and can be trusted as strongly stated in its tagline “Kumpleto, Sigurado at Totoo”.

“The assessment had different cycles namely, preparatory, data collection and analysis phase, validation and finalization. The Family Assessment Form (FAF), containing 52 variables was used and these underwent encoding, thorough verification and results were analyzed through the Proxy Means Test (PMT),” she added.

DSWD-Caraga will also hold a regional launching of the said database tentatively scheduled this coming June.

The Listahanan is a special project of DSWD which identifies who and where the poor are in the country. Last year, it conducted the 2nd round Family Assessment saturating the rural and urban areas even far-flung communities resided mostly by Indigenous Peoples (IPs). In Caraga, 931 field staff were mobilized to man assessment in the region.###(ABEGAIL R. ALVAREZ/Social Marketing Unit/DSWD Field Office Caraga)