Because resources are limited, their use on programs that seek to reduce poverty will have less impact and will be wasted if they do not reach the poor who need them the most. A unified set of criteria for identifying the poor would enable convergence and complementation of social protection programs in addressing the different dimensions of poverty. This will maximize the impact of social protection programs and, at the same time, minimize wastage of resources.

The poor ultimately benefit from the use of Listahanan as it is used by government agencies and other organizations that deliver social protection programs and services. Everyone can access the Listahanan for purposes that aim to assist the poor, subject to DSWD’s data sharing guidelines.

It is by Executive Order 867, Series of 2010 that gave this responsibility to the DSWD. As the leader in social protection and the implementer of key government social assistance programs, it is the Department’s duty to implement policies and programs in the most effective and efficient manner.

Having a targeting system that is based on a scientific, objective, and standard set of criteria to identify the poor is important to achieve DSWD’s goal and mandate.

The mandate of the PSA, then National Statistics Office (NSO) and National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), is to provide general-purpose statistics that are relevant at the aggregate level. They produce poverty estimates for the region or province, but they will not be able to pinpoint every poor household in that province. This is because the PSA is bound by a confidentiality clause under Section 4 of the terms and conditions of the Commonwealth Act No. 591 (August 19, 1940), which states that the “data furnished to NSO will be kept strictly confidential…”. They cannot disclose who the poor families are in the province and their exact locations, which is what program implementers need in order to extend assistance to these poor families.

The PSA is also a member of the National Technical Advisory Group (NTAG).

The NHTO enlisted the assistance of the PSA in the development of its data collection tool and enhancement of its enumerators’ manual. The variables that the Listahanan use to identify the

• Identification of potential beneficiaries for social protection programs. The Listahanan can be used as a planning tool. With the available socio-economic information, data users can see which households are in need of a specific intervention.

• Validation. The Listahanan data can also serve as a mechanism for validating data on poverty produced by other sources such as the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) or other locally-driven data collection activities, especially when they cover the same areas and contain similar sets of data for the same timeframe.

• Research. The Listahanan can also be used as a data source and reference for research and studies.

Check this for the complete list of available datasets from the Listahanan 3.

The DSWD National Household Targeting Office and its regional counterparts in all the field offices of the Department nationwide, National Household Targeting Sections (NHTS), facilitate the sharing of Listahanan 3 database with all eligible social protection stakeholders and other interested researchers.

They comply with the Data Privacy Act of 2012, other data security policies, and government laws in processing requests.

Check this for Listahanan’s data sharing protocols.