One in Uplifting Lives
Philippine Business for Social Progress strives to eradicate poverty by providing self-sustaining programs for the poor
The Philippines may now have a burgeoning economy marked by a strong GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth averaging 6.3% (based on the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Asian Development Outlook report 2014) but extreme poverty still remains a critical challenge.
The reason is caused by many factors. For one, 7.3% of the 100 million population are multi-dimensionally poor while an additional 12.2% are near multi-dimensional poverty, according to the Philippines’ Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI).
Fishermen, farmers and children remain the poorest basic sectors, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) July 2014 report, which is at 39.2%, 38.3%, and 35.2% respectively. This is followed by the self-employed and unpaid family workers, women, youth, migrant and formal sector, senior citizens and individuals residing in urban areas.
In the ADB Inclusive Business Study Philippines 2012 report, more than 62 percent of the population with a monthly family income and expenditure of PhP18,000 belongs to the Base-of-the-Pyramid and spends only US$2 a day or Php157,000 per year per household.
While 1.1 million jobs or 2.8% were generated in the first few months to July 2014, the unemployment rate reported by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA) is still at 6.7% from 7.3% in the same period in 2013. Underemployment is at 18.3% as of July 2014, which is slightly lower than the 19.2% recorded in the same period last year.
As the nation commemorates today, the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (Oct. 17), a global awareness campaign of the United Nations, Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP) underscored the need to support the cause of poverty eradication in the country which has been its mission and purpose since its inception.
It recently held a media roundtable discussion to urge the private sector to help address the plight of the poor to be able to meet the UN Millennium Development Goals, and to share the substantial gains of its continuously evolving work in social development.
MORE WORK NEEDS TO BE DONE
Economic Planning Secretary Arsenio M. Balisacan in his report last August during the launch and press conference of the 2014 Human Development Report and 5th PHL Progress Report on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), stressed the need to accelerate action on poverty eradication and maternal health, among other MDGs which are supposed to be met by next year (Year 2015). On the first goal of eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, he reported that there is a medium probability that the Philippines will reduce by half the incidence of extreme poverty by 2015.
Hence, PBSP realizes the need for a concerted effort from the business sector and government to scale up its campaign for this purpose.
“With today’s challenging problems, it is imperative for the private sector to come together to solve it using their various expertise and new strategic approaches and solutions. Only then can we truly make more substantial contributions in eradicating poverty in the country,” said PBSP Executive Director Rafael C. Lopa.
COLLECTIVE IMPACT
PBSP was established in 1970 by 50 of the country’s top business leaders as the business sector’s collective approach to address social concerns. Over the years, it has evolved into the largest business-led social development organization in the Philippines committed to poverty reduction. With more than 250 large, small and medium-scale companies as members, PBSP serves as a bridge of the business sector to the marginalized, uplifting lives through social development programs on Health, Education, Environment, and Livelihood & Enterprise Development (HEEL).
PBSP has been working with the Philippine business community to integrate CSR practices into their core businesses and advocating the application of business strategies in addressing poverty. In 2012, PBSP began looking at the concepts of Inclusive Business and the need to use the Collective Impact framework when tackling big societal challenges. Over the years, PBSP has developed the capacity to plan, develop, implement and monitor social development projects for companies, Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) agencies, and other grant-giving organizations.
With the support of its member-companies, aid agencies, and partners, PBSP has been making great strides in its projects in the four focus areas of Health, Education, Environment, and Livelihood and Enterprise Development (HEEL).
TB CONTROL AND TREATMENT
PBSP is one of the major partners of the national government in its campaign on the control and treatment of Tubercolosis, one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the country.
Through efforts of the government, international health organizations and the private sector, including PBSP, TB incidence rate were reported by Sec. Balisacan to have “decreased from 393 cases per 100,000 population in 1990 to 270 cases per 100,000 in 2011. The mortality rate for TB likewise declined from 58 deaths per 100,000 population in 1990 to 29 deaths per 100,000 population in 2011.”
The Global Fund-New Funding Model (GF-NFM) project assists the Department of Health (DOH)’s National TB Program in reducing TB prevalence and mortality beyond 55% by 2016 from the 1990 baseline in support of the MDGs for poverty alleviation. The project aims to achieve 90% case detection rate and treatment success rate for all forms of TB as well as 40% case detection rate for MDR (Multl-drug resistant) TB cases and 75% treatment success rate for MDR TB cases.
The Innovations and Multi-sectoral Partnerships to Achieve Control of Tuberculosis (IMPACT) Project, on the other hand, provides technical assistance to both public and private sectors at the national level and in project sites to detect and successfully treat TB cases.
The USAID/Philippine-funded Private Sector Mobilization for Family Health Project Phase 2 (PRISM 2) assists the Department of Health (DOH), Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) and local government units (LGUs) to engage and mobilize private sector resources in delivering family planning (FP) and maternal child health (MCH) information, products and services to the public.
ADDRESSING CLASSROOM SHORTAGE
In the education sector, PBSP’s flagship projects are on classroom construction and capacity building of education stakeholders. For the latter part of 2013 until this year, it also concentrated on assisting the Department of Education in bringing back to normalcy the education of children in Typhoon Yolanda-affected areas in the Visayas region.
This is being undertaken by encouraging the business sector to pool resources to contribute to rebuilding schools and providing teachers with the necessary teaching materials that will enable them to start anew, as well as address some of the issues that hindered students from going back to school prior to the Yolanda disaster. Among these issues were the lack of food, and transportation money to go to school.
PBSP and its partners also conducted feeding programs in typhoon-affected schools and distributed starter kits for teachers.
With the help of the Australian government, PBSP was able to continue its goals to enhance educational systems by constructing classrooms, improving school governance infrastructure through capacity-building initiatives and provision of complementary inputs to enable children to stay in school.
ON SAVING MOTHER EARTH
PBSP’s Environment program promotes collective action along the areas of Water Security, Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation, Integrated Watershed and Coastal Resource Management, and Sustainable Production and Consumption.
It’s Water Security for Resilient Economic Growth and Stability (Be Secure) Project aims to improve sustainable water supply access through the development of water system infrastructures and the improvement of enabling environment for resilient economic growth and stability for the country. PBSP as a subcontractor generates support for the building of water systems, capacity development to improving water services and investments in water service provision. PBSP is also engaging companies to offer their technologies, expertise and volunteer time to help address water security, including innovative interventions on disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation. PBSP’s main goal is to be able to provide access to new or improved water supply to 200,000 individuals.
Technical Support to the Government of the Philippines (GoP) on Disaster Preparedness and Response, another project, aims to contribute to the reduction of mortality, protect lives and livelihood, and reduce the impact of natural disasters on the socio-economic well-being of vulnerable communities through improved productivity and efficiency of LGU personnel and strengthened capacity of local government units for effective disaster management. PBSP was engaged by the World Food Programme (WFP) for Phases 1, 2, and 3 to provide capability building support to strengthen the local disaster risk reduction and management councils/offices in Benguet, Cagayan, Laguna and Sorsogon, and 16 other municipalities.
Typhoon Yolanda Relief and Recovery in Northern Cebu, Iloilo and Capiz provinces in Panay supports and complements the International Rescue Committee (IRC), Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA) and private sector support for the environment, in particular, the installation of potable water systems, mangrove reforestation, and establishment of artificial reefs.
EMPOWERING THE MARGINALIZED
PBSP’s Livelihood and Enterprise Development programs are designed towards achieving collective impact in strengthening and upgrading the value chain of priority sectors, workforce development, corporate-community partnerships, social entrepreneurship and the Micro-Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) promotion and innovative financing.
Its Inclusive Business Imperative (IBI) campaign is a nationwide advocacy to promote and adopt Inclusive Business (IB) as a core business activity that embraces the poor within the company’s value chain as suppliers, distributors, consumers or employees in such a manner that creates shared value.
Project Bagong Araw launched early this year (2014) aims to revive the sari-sari store economy in Typhoon Yolanda-affected communities. Its goals are to stabilize retail prices of basic commodities and provide people in these areas with access to affordable consumer goods. The project targets the low-income women aged 20 to 65 who are micro-finance clients in Leyte.
The Small and Medium Enterprise Credit (SMEC) program which started in 1989 disburses funds to conduit thrift banks, rural banks and microfinance institutions to benefit micro and small enterprises and create and sustain jobs in the countryside.
REBUILDING LIVES
A key fundraising campaign that PBSP launched in June is Project New Dawn. It is PBSP and its partners’ collective response to the long term rehabilitation needs of the Visayas region after Typhoon Yolanda (International name: Haiyan) struck the region last November 2013.
Projects include classroom construction, repair of barangay health stations, provision of school supplies and other learning kits, provision of motorized boats, mangrove reforestation and installation of water systems, among many others (all under the HEEL framework). PBSP targeted an initial amount of Php160 million to rehabilitate these areas and was able to raise half of the amount as of September 2014.
“PBSP is now gearing towards strategic partnerships that will develop and implement new models, technologies and innovative ways of creating sustainable communities. Through this, I believe we can continue to achieve what our founding members have envisioned PBSP to be –
a force for change and an effective bridge of the business community to society,” said Lopa.