Objective and Purpose of the Assignment
 | 1. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is providing technical assistance (TA) to support the Philippines Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to design and prepare the Panahon ng Pagkilos: Community-Led Climate Action Project. 2. The Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan – Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (KALAHI- CIDSS) is the Philippine government’s flagship community empowerment and poverty alleviation program implemented by the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) since 2002. The program employs a community-driven development (CDD) approach, where communities are trained and engaged alongside their local governments counterparts to identify, choose, design, implement, and manage development projects that address their most pressing needs. Through an open menu system, communities can fund a wide range of projects including water systems, school buildings, health stations, farm-to-market roads, bridges, daycare centers, post-harvest facilities, flood control systems, and disaster resilience infrastructure—all determined through a participatory, transparent prioritization process where community residents make collective decisions on which projects receive funding. 3. Municipalities participating in KALAHI-CIDSS are selected from the poorest provinces. The program pairs community training with block grants at the barangay level, which are meant to enable communities to address their self-identified development needs, largely through building public infrastructure. The KALAHI-CIDSS follows a formula considering the poverty incidence level and population of the municipality, with no municipality receiving below P2 million/$34,400 or more than P20 million/$340,000 in any given cycle. The program establishes robust transparency and accountability measures including the provision of community grants divided into tranches, co-signing requirements, public notice boards, grievance systems, local audits, and participation of barangay treasurers and development council members in oversight. 4. In 2025, the World Bank approved $700 million in financing for Phase 1 of the Panahon ng Pagkilos: Community Resilience Project(PPCRP) which aims to strengthen resilience using the community-driven development approach in 500 poor communities around the Philippines. The Government of the Philippines has requested $300 million in financing from ADB to support DSWD to expand ‘Pagkilos’ program, It is further proposed that ADB support for community resilience-building is focused on improving access to water supply in poor communities, which have previously identified access to clean drinking water as their priority need, through participatory consultation processes. Similar, to the World Bank supported project, communities will be prioritized for ADB support based on high poverty incidence, vulnerability to natural hazard and climate change risks and high levels of malnutrition. 5. The TA will support feasibility and due diligence assessments for the project. Assessments will include lessons learned from ongoing and past projects supporting DSWD’s KALAHI CIDSS program. The TA will also support technical design including helping to determine project scope, and criteria used to prioritize subprojects for ADB financing under the project. |
Scope of Work
| The TA seeks to engage a Project Coordinator who will help to liaise with DSWD to facilitate the delivery of the technical assistance and corresponding project preparation activities. The consultant will also support data analysis and technical design of the project, and coordinate/review inputs of other consultant. |
Detailed Tasks and/or Expected Output
| (i) Support coordination across government and development partners as well as the consultant team to review data, information, and reports for preparing due diligence for the ensuing project. (ii) Assist in the review of capacity needs, governance and implementing mechanism, integrity, and system risks, and coordinate closely with the team leader, financial management and procurement specialists in developing a risk profile and recommending mitigation measures. (iii) Review reports, surveys, and policies and strategies of the government on social welfare and development, community development, water supply and nutrition and health (iv) Interact, correspond, and coordinate directly with key stakeholders in government and other development partners, to ensure smooth project design and processing. (v) Assist in coordinating the tasks of all consultants to guide overall project design, due diligence, and implementation arrangements. (vi) Organize meetings and workshops in support of the project preparation. (vii) Provide critical inputs for preparing and finalizing the project administration manual (PAM) that will guide smooth implementation of the project and ensure roles, responsibilities, implementation arrangements, process flows, activities, costs, procurement procedures, safeguards, and other gender and social dimensions are clearly documented. (viii) Provide inputs to key project preparation documents including the sector assessment, summary poverty reduction and social strategy, risk assessment and management plan, economic analysis, and gender assessment and action plan. |
Minimum Qualification Requirements
| Experience in developing and implementing community development, nutrition, water supply and other social sector projects, with experience in project preparation, implementation, inter-agency coordination, and procedures of ADB and the government. Experience working with the Department of Social Welfare and Development would be preferred. Previous experience working with the Asian Development Bank would be an advantage. The specialist shall have a degree in economics, public policy/administration, social work, community development, or related field with at least 10 years of experience in operations, project management, and social sector projects, and 8 years of specific experience working on social development projects. |
