The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) is accelerating its services through the ongoing digitalization of its social protection delivery systems. This effort, announced by Assistant Secretary for External Assistance and Development Juan Carlo “JC” Marquez, aims to make the agency’s services more efficient and responsive.
The Beneficiary Fast, Innovative, Responsive, Service Transformation (BFIRST) Project, a collaboration between the DSWD and the World Bank, is at the forefront of this digital transformation. “The BFIRST project seeks to strengthen the DSWD’s social protection delivery systems, making them more adaptive and efficient,” Marquez stated during the DSWD’s Thursday Media Forum.
The BFIRST project comprises two main components. The first, already completed, supports the cash grants of the Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps), the DSWD’s flagship anti-poverty program. The second component focuses on enhancing social protection delivery systems and project management.
One such system is the Integrated Grievance Redress Management System (IGRMS), an online mechanism for efficiently monitoring and managing complaints from beneficiaries and the public regarding DSWD programs and services. The DSWD’s National Household Targeting Office (NHTO) has also implemented ‘i-Registro,’ a dynamic social registry (DSR) or online registration tool. This tool features self-service registration and data authentication for potential beneficiaries and aims to expedite the updating of program profiles for existing beneficiaries.
In July, the pilot implementation of i-Registro took place in Pateros, Floridablanca in Pampanga, and Cordova in Cebu. This pilot updated the beneficiary profiles of 4Ps households with pregnant and nursing women and children aged 0 to 2 years old, in preparation for the First 1,000 Days (F1KD) conditional cash transfer program set to launch next year.
By 2025, the i-Registro system will expand to cover 235 local government units (LGUs), focusing on areas with high rates of stunting and malnutrition among children. This expansion is part of the DSWD’s broader strategy to enhance its social protection delivery systems and better serve its beneficiaries.