National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction

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National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction
Talaan ng Sambahayan
Government Project overview
HeadquartersBatasan Complex, Constitution Hills, Quezon City
Minister responsible
Government Project executives
Parent Government Project DSWD
Website nhto.dswd.gov.ph

The National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR) is a data bank and an information management system that identifies who and where the poor are in the Republic of the Philippines. [1] Data collection began in response to findings by the National Statistical Coordination Board that 30% of Filipino families have an income below that needed for "basic requirements". [2] It is intended to inform government departments and policy-makers on the socio-economic status of nearly 400,000 households. [3]

Socioeconomics is the social science that studies how economic activity affects and is shaped by social processes. In general it analyzes how societies progress, stagnate, or regress because of their local or regional economy, or the global economy. Societies are divided into 3 groups: social, cultural and economic.

Contents

Outcomes

The use of the NHTSPR has led to 4.4 million poor households being enrolled in Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program or the Philippine conditional cash transfer program, and the poor elderly receiving social pensions. [4] It has also led to 4,000 health cards being distributed which provide state-run health insurance for poor families. [5]

Conditional cash transfer (CCT) programs aim to reduce poverty by making welfare programs conditional upon the receivers' actions. The government only transfers the money to persons who meet certain criteria. These criteria may include enrolling children into public schools, getting regular check-ups at the doctor's office, receiving vaccinations, or the like. CCTs seek to help the current generation in poverty, as well as breaking the cycle of poverty for the next through the development of human capital. Conditional cash transfers could help reduce feminization of poverty.

A social pension is a stream of payments from state to an individual that starts when someone retires and continues in payment until he/she dies. It is a part of a pension system of most developed countries, specifically the so called zero or first pillar of the pension system, which is a part of state social security system. The social pension is different from other types of pension since its eligibility criteria do not require former contributions of an individual, but his citizenship or residency and age or other criteria set by government.

Health insurance is an insurance that covers the whole or a part of the risk of a person incurring medical expenses, spreading the risk over a large number of persons. By estimating the overall risk of health care and health system expenses over the risk pool, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to provide the money to pay for the health care benefits specified in the insurance agreement. The benefit is administered by a central organization such as a government agency, private business, or not-for-profit entity.

Current operations

The database has identified a total of 5.25 million households below the poverty threshold of their respective provinces. With such information, national government agencies, local government unit, and non-government organizations can direct resources to the ones who need them the most. With the use of the database, projects like electrification can be concentrated on areas with high incidence of poverty, uplifting the community economic sustainability and reducing poverty. The system can also correlate other poverty related problems like human trafficking in order to prevent them from even happening.

Driving mechanism

Since the NHTS-PR is technically an information management system, it is very reliant on technology. It uses Open Technologies as the primary software backbone and the latest multiple processor servers available at the time. A major challenge inherent to data sharing is porting since different agencies are using different proprietary software. To overcome such challenge, data porting software are developed in-house from existing Open Source systems.

In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program was originally designed for. The term is also used when software/hardware is changed to make them usable in different environments.

Related Research Articles

Social security action programs of government intended to promote the welfare of the population through assistance measures

Social security is "any government system that provides monetary assistance to people with an inadequate or no income". In the United States, this is usually called welfare or a social safety net, especially when talking about Canada and European countries.

Welfare state in the United Kingdom

The welfare state of the United Kingdom comprises expenditures by the government of the United Kingdom intended to improve health, education, employment and social security. The UK system has been classified as a liberal welfare state system.

Welfare is a type of government support for the citizens of that society. Welfare may be provided to people of any income level, as with social security, but it is usually intended to ensure that people can meet their basic human needs such as food and shelter. Welfare attempts to provide a minimal level of well-being, usually either a free- or a subsidized-supply of certain goods and social services, such as healthcare, education, and vocational training.

Poverty reduction Measures to reduce poverty permanently

Poverty reduction, or poverty alleviation, is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty.

Department of Social Welfare and Development

The Philippines' Department of Social Welfare and Development is the executive department of the Philippine Government responsible for the protection of the social welfare of rights of Filipinos and to promote social development.

Poverty in India

Because India is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world, poverty has been on a decline in this country, with close to 44 Indians escaping extreme poverty every minute, as per the World Poverty Clock. India has been able to lift a significant percentage of its population out of poverty, but many still live in it. India had 73 million people living in extreme poverty which makes up 5.5% of its total population, according to the Brookings report. In May of 2012, the World Bank reviewed and proposed revisions to their poverty calculation methodology and purchasing power parity basis for measuring poverty worldwide. It was a minimal 3.6% in terms of percentage. As of 2016, the incidence of multidimensional poverty has almost halved between 2005–06 and 2015–16, declining from 54.7 percent to 33.8 percent.

Despite being a developed country, those who are living at the lower end of the income distribution in the United Kingdom have a relatively low standard of living. Data based on incomes published in 2016 by Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) show that, after housing costs have been taken into consideration, the number of people living in the UK in relative poverty to be 13.44m. In 2015, a report by Institute for Fiscal Studies reported that 21.6% of Britons were now in relative poverty. The report showed that there had been a fall in poverty in the first few years of the twenty-first century, but the rate of poverty had remained broadly flat since 2004/5.

Oportunidades is a government social assistance program in Mexico founded in 2002, based on a previous program called Progresa, created in 1997. It is designed to target poverty by providing cash payments to families in exchange for regular school attendance, health clinic visits, and nutrition support. Oportunidades is credited with decreasing poverty and improving health and educational attainment in regions where it has been deployed. Key features of Oportunidades include:

In China today, poverty refers mainly to the rural poor, as decades of economic growth have largely eradicated urban poverty. The dramatic progress in reducing poverty over the past three decades in China is well known. According to the World Bank, more than 850 million people have lifted themselves out of extreme poverty as China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms.

Poverty in South America is high in most countries. All of the countries in South America are greatly affected by poverty to some extent. From 1999 to 2010, poverty dropped from 43.8% to 31.8%. The countries that have the highest rates are Bolivia, Colombia and Venezuela. All of these countries are trying to reduce poverty, with varying degrees of effort and success. However, in recent years most South American countries have experienced great economic decline. Thanks to this improvement in the economy, action is being taken by most South American countries to reduce poverty and improve the life quality of the people. New infrastructure is being built and more housing is being provided. Education is also a major concern, and the governments are spending millions of dollars in funding schools.

Below Poverty Line (BPL)

Below Poverty Line is an benchmark used by the government of India to indicate economic disadvantage and to identify individuals and households in need of government assistance and aid. It is determined using various parameters which vary from state to state and within states. The present criteria are based on a survey conducted in 2002. Going into a survey due for a decade, India's central government is undecided on criteria to identify families below poverty line.

Causes of poverty is a highly ideologically charged subject, as different causes point to different remedies. Very broadly speaking, the socialist tradition locates the roots of poverty in problems of distribution and the use of the means of production as capital benefiting individuals, and calls for re-distribution of wealth as the solution, whereas the neoliberal school of thought is dedicated the idea that creating conditions for profitable private investment is the solutions. Neoliberal think tanks have received extensive funding, and the ability to apply many of their ideas in highly indebted countries in the global South as a condition for receiving emergency loans from the International Monetary Fund. The text below represents an analysis of the causes of poverty that ignores the role of capitalist social organization in generating and maintaining inequality.

National Social Assistance Scheme Centrally sponsored financial assistance scheme of Govt. of India

The National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP) is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Government of India that provides financial assistance to the elderly, widows and persons with disabilities in the form of social pensions.

The poverty alleviation programmes in India can be categorized based on whether it is targeted either for rural areas or for urban areas in the country.

United Kingdom government austerity programme

The United Kingdom government austerity programme is a fiscal policy adopted in the early 21st century following the Great Recession. It is a deficit reduction programme consisting of sustained reductions in public spending and tax rises, intended to reduce the government budget deficit and the role of the welfare state in the United Kingdom. The National Health Service and education have been "ringfenced" and protected from direct spending cuts, but between 2010 and 2019 more than £30 billion in spending reductions have been made to welfare payments, housing subsidies and social services. The effects of United Kingdom austerity policies have proved controversial and the policies have received criticism from a variety of politicians and economists. Anti-austerity movements have been formed among citizens more generally.

Poverty in the Philippines

The poverty line for 2014 marked a per capita income of 100,534 pesos a year. According to the data from the National Statistical Coordination Board, more than one-quarter of the population fell below the poverty line the first semester of 2014, an approximate 78 percent increase since 2013.

As in many other developing countries, hunger and poverty in Vietnam has existed for a significant amount of time. Until the 1200’s, most of the Vietnamese population still lived under the poverty line. However, thanks to the political and economic reform in 1986 and the government's commitment, the status of poverty and hunger in Vietnam has been significantly improved. From one of the poorest countries in the World with per capita income below US$100 per year, Vietnam is now a lower-middle income country with per capita income of US$1,910 by the end of 2013. Thereby, the poverty rate decreases gradually from 58 percent in 1993 to 28.9 percent in 2002, 14.5 percent in 2008 and 12 percent in 2011. About 28 million people are estimated to have been lifted out of poverty over approximately two decades. The 2014 Global Hunger Index (GHI) Report ranked Vietnam 15th amongst 81 nations suffering from hunger, with a GHI of 7.5 compared with 27.7 in 1990 (country with extremely alarming, alarming or serious hunger situation. Achievements in poverty reduction and hunger eradication have been highly appreciated by the international community and viewed overall as successful in furthering economic development. However, Vietnam still has many tasks ahead in fighting against poverty and hunger, particularly for vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities, and the disabled.

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program conditional cash transfer program of the Philippine government

Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program, also known as 4Ps and formerly Ahon Pamilyang Pilipino, is a conditional cash transfer program of the Philippine government under the Department of Social Welfare and Development. It aims to eradicate extreme poverty in the Philippines by investing in health and education particularly in ages 0–14. It is patterned on programs in other developing countries like Brazil and Mexico (Oportunidades). The 4Ps program now operates in 17 regions, 79 provinces and 1,484 municipalities and 143 key cities covering 4,090,667 household beneficiaries as of 25 June 2014.

Poverty in New Zealand

Poverty in New Zealand deals with the incidence of relative poverty in New Zealand and its measurement. Between 1982 and 2011, New Zealand's gross domestic product grew by 35%. Almost half of that increase went to a small group who were already the richest in the country. During this period, the average income of the top 10% of earners in New Zealand almost doubled going from $56,300 to $100,200. The average income of the poorest tenth increased by only 13% from $9700 to $11,000.

Ration cards are an official document issued by state governments in India to households that are eligible to purchase subsidized food grain from the Public Distribution System. They also serve as a common form of identification for many Indians.

References

  1. "National Household Targeting System for Proverty Reduction". Archived from the original on 2009-04-03.
  2. "Feature: Identifying who and where the poor are thru the National Household Targeting System". PIA news daily. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
  3. "National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction (NHTS-PR)". Department of Social Welfare and Development. Archived from the original on 3 June 2011. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
  4. Gevera, Mai. "Town folks soon to get social pension". PIA daily news. Retrieved 23 April 2011.
  5. Bicarme, Thelma C. "4,000 more poor families to get health cards". PIA news daily. Retrieved 23 April 2011.