New DSWD data system to track antipoverty plans

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman: Transparency through Pims. FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) has launched a database to keep track of the progress of all antipoverty projects in the country.

Called the Project Information Management System (Pims), it will be placed under the DSWD’s Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan-Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS), a poverty-alleviation program that uses a community-driven development (CDD) approach.

The Pims will serve as a database system for the project staff—from the national to the regional levels—to upload, access and analyze data.

Aside from data storage, the system can also be used for map production, geo-tagging and spatial analysis. It also has web and short message service applications.

Social Welfare Secretary Dinky Soliman said Pims would help make project implementation more efficient as the information would be integrated for all units at different levels, from the national down to the barangay (village) levels.

Through Kalahi-CIDSS, the poorest villages in the country would be able to identify their primary needs and implement projects that would respond to their problems.

The geo-tagging feature of the Pims can be used to tag the location of small infrastructure projects. The progress of projects currently being constructed could also be followed using this system.

Soliman said this feature of the Pims would help ensure transparency.

“Pims helps ensure the integrity of the project by making the data transparent at all levels. Since more eyes will now be looking into the progress of the projects, the possibility of committing fraud is minimized even more,” she said.

Through Pims, Kalahi-CIDSS implementers will be able to better track the progress of the projects, allowing them to better respond to issues and concerns that may be flagged by any of the staff, Soliman said.