CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY (PIA)--Aiming to strengthen data management, the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Field Office 10, through its Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI-CIDSS) Regional Program Management Office, convened its municipal database managers (MDMs) in a three-day conference, March 20–22.

The Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E) Unit gives MDMs the tools and applications they need to ensure quality data encoding, along with the data and information they need to track the program's key performance indicators (KPIs).

KALAHI-CIDSS, which uses the Community-Driven Development (CDD) strategy in delivering basic services, puts a premium on collecting high-quality data and employing efficient data management to effectively gauge the progress of its development objectives of enhancing community participation in local planning and development.

Dealing with loads of data and means of verification within the Community Empowerment Activity Cycle (CEAC) for every subproject implementation, the M and E has tapped into information technology, developing strategic tools and applications for efficient data handling and processing.

M and E Unit Head Jay Jul T. Delima says that accurate and complete data are important from the time they are collected until they are coded. "Atong encoding dapat naa'y standards; dili lang compliance," he said.

The MDM conference focuses on the launch of the PMEX-DRS, or the Project Monitoring and Evaluation Region 10 Data Quality and Quantity Checker Resource System. This system will help MDMs check for data errors and inconsistencies at their level. The application scans and provides automated findings out of inconsistent data sets that need compliance, minimizing the workload of monitoring officers at the regional level who used to give feedback manually. MDMs came to grips with the application through actual simulations during workshop sessions.

MDMs also went through a refresher course on KALAHI-CIDSS Project Information Management System (PIMS) and shared good practices to replicate in their localities. Top-performing MDMs and MDMs who have been in the program for as long as seven years were recognized.

"This is a significant activity. We’re aiming to reach our deliverables by the end of this year as we close the NCDDP Additional Financing," Delima said.

By the end of December 2023, the KALAHI-CIDSS National Community-Driven Development Program Additional Financing (NCDDP AF) will have done what it set out to do: provide basic services that were needed during the pandemic.

KALAHI-CIDSS thanks all local government units for their help with the program through MDMs, who are very important to how the program is run as a whole.

Monitoring and evaluation, which bank on high-quality data, are integral to KALAHI-CIDSS to make data-driven decisions, improve project management, and assess outcomes. (DSWD-10/PIA-10)