The Government of Nepal will send a delegation to the Philippines to learn from the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s (DSWD) experience in implementing the National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR), also known as the Listahanan. The study visit will be conducted from March 9 to 13, 2015.

Listahanan is an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are. It makes a comprehensive database of poor families available to national government agencies and other social protection stakeholders to serve as basis in identifying beneficiaries of social protection programs and services.

In 2009, the Listahanan conducted the first nationwide assessment that resulted to the identification of 5.2 million poor households out of the 10.9 million households assessed.

These poor households have since become beneficiaries of national social protection programs and services such as the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, Philhealth Indigent Program, and Social Pension, among others.

The Listahanan is currently preparing for the 2nd round of nationwide assessment with 15.3 million target households.

A field visit has also been scheduled for the Nepalese delegates to observe the screening and hiring of applicants for the Listahanan field staff positions.

Nepal’s targeting system is being managed by the Poor Household Identification and Identity Card Management and Distribution Coordination Board Secretariat under the Ministry of Cooperatives and Poverty Alleviation.

They have assessed nearly 1.3 million households in 25 out of 75 target districts in Nepal and are set to undertake the second phase of their implementation that will cover the remaining 50 districts in 2015-2016.

“It will be good for us to share our knowledge and expertise [so] that we can enhance our skills and knowledge to forward this challenging task,” said Chintan Poudel, Executive Vice Chairperson of Nepal’s Poor Household Identification Board. ###