The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) through the Social Welfare Institutional Development Bureau (SWIDB) conducted consultation-workshops with 930 Local Government Units through the Local Social Welfare and Development Offices (LSWDOs) covering the provinces, cities and municipalities. Three sets of consultations were participated by LGUs coming from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao island clusters, which were conducted on 1-3, 15-17 and 22-24 April 2024 at the Widus Hotel, Clark Pampanga. This activity is aligned to the function of the Department by virtue of Republic Act 7160 or the Local Government Code of 1991, which is the provision of technical assistance (TA) to partner Local Government Units (LGUs) through the Local Social Welfare and Development Offices. While the Department has consistently been providing TA for the past three decades, there is a need to deploy more relevant and responsive TA to improve the capacity of LGUs to implement Social Welfare and Development (SWD) that will help the poor, marginalized and vulnerable groups. With this, it is important that these LGUs are engaged in a consultation dialogue to further contextualize the TA strategies by both DSWD and the LGUs being the implementer and manager of these programs.
In the opening message of Undersecretary Denise FB Bernos-Bragas of the Standards and Capacity Building Group, she highlighted the need “to reflect and do self-assessment (LGUs) on areas that impede and pose challenges in accomplishing an improved level of service delivery….This consultation will be mutually beneficial to us as we will be able to identify with you more relevant and responsive TA intervention and to you as you will be able identify as well, concrete and realistic LGU plan to address the challenges surrounding the inability to accomplish an improved level of service delivery. Because our clients deserve more and quality SWD services.”
Director Justin Caesar Anthony D. Batocabe of SWIDB emphasized the objectives of the activity, specifically, (1) present the results and findings of the National Service Delivery Capacity Assessment (SDCA); (2) gather feedback and insights from the LGUs who were subject of the assessment; (3)clarify the capacity requirements for improved functionality/capacity per domain; and (4) generate recommendations and intervention that are responsive to the level of capacity of LGUs.
The workshops were led by Assistant Secretary Janet P. Armas of the Standards and Capacity Building Group. It captured the concerns, challenges, efforts done by the LGUs, available resources, and technical assistance needed from DSWD.
In the plenary discussion, the LSWDOs expressed their gratitude to DSWD for providing the opportunity to listen to the concerns of the local government units. Through the activity, the LGUs shared both the difficulties and good practices that enriched the learning experiences of the local social welfare and development offices (LSWDOs). The outputs are critical in strengthening partnerships with the LGUs to sustain their commitment on providing quality service for the poor, vulnerable and marginalized sectors.
The Service Delivery Capacity Assessment is the tool that determines the level of improvement of the LGUs along areas of (a) Administration and Organization, (b) Program Management and (3) Institutional Mechanisms.