Tacloban City — The first Joint KALAHI-CIDSS Implementation Support Mission of the World Bank and Millennium Challenge Corporation kicked off in Region Eight on September 20, 2011. The mission was led by Mr. Sean Bradley for World Bank and Mr. Andy Moll for Millennium Challenge Account Philippines.

The Mission started out with a dialogue held at the Leyte Park Resort Hotel with the Provincial Inter-Agency Committee members led by Leyte Provincial Governor Jericho Petilla. Governor Petilla, a staunch supporter of the KALAHI-CIDSS Program   welcomed the team and shared his experiences and recommendations to improve program implementation during the open forum held at the Leyte Park Resort Hotel.

This was immediately followed with a trip to Paranas, Samar for a dialogue with the Municipal Inter-Agency Committee led by Mayor Alfredo Babalcon, and Program partners and volunteers. An on-site visit to Barangay Pabanog, Paranas for an open forum with barangay officials and volunteers was the last stop for the first day of the mission.

According to Mr. Bradley, the mission is set out to accomplish two things – talk to the different program partners and stakeholders and look at the possible scaling up of KALAHI-CIDSS. This was backed-up by Director Moll who clarified that the dialogues aimed to get the partners’ views and recommendations to improve the KALAHI-CIDSS Program implementation.

The mission will be here in Region Eight from September 20-22. The visiting team will also visit Hernani, Eastern Samar a new KALAHI-CIDSS municipality funded by World Bank Additional Fund, and hold informal dialogues with the different partner agencies, civil society organizations, and private partners to wrap up the mission on September 22.

According to DSWD Regional Director Leticia Diokno, only two regions will be visited by the Mission, Region Eight and CARAGA. Hopefully, the infusion of more funds from the World Bank and Millennium Challenge will be realized because this will mean more municipalities benefiting from the Program.