The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) signs a memorandum of agreement with the Department of Energy (DOE) for their partnership in the implementation of the National Intensification of Household Electrification (NIHE) project.

NIHE is project that intends to provide basic electricity services to poor households with no access to electricity. This initiative by the DOE is in line with the implementation of their 2014-2017 Household Electrification Development Plan (HEDP), which aims to achieve 90% household electrification by 2017.

As a partner agency, the DSWD shall provide a list of potential household beneficiaries for the NIHE project using the Listahanan, or the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR).

Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are. It makes available to implementers of social protection programs a comprehensive socio-economic database of poor families identified through objective and verifiable means.

Based on the 2011 data of Listahanan, at least 2.6 million poor households nationwide have no access to electricity.

“We deemed that the said database is a powerful tool in the efficient targeting of beneficiaries for the electricity connections under the NIHE Project,” DOE Secretary Carlos Jericho L. Petilla said.

DSWD Secretary Corazon Juliano-Soliman added, “This is an opportunity for the DSWD and the DOE to converge their efforts and resources to improve the lives of the poor.”

The NIHE program, which will run from 2015 to 2017, will prioritize 450,000 poor households who are residing in forty-six (46) selected provinces and are also beneficiaries of the DSWD’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program. ###DSWD Listahanan Social Marketing Service