OPHI-CBMS collaboration underway in the Philippines

PHI has begun collaborating with the Community Based Monitoring System (CBMS) research network in the Philippines on an 18-month project funded by AusAID that will collect census data on OPHI’s ‘Missing’ Dimensions of poverty and propose new indicators to inform future CBMS work. CBMS seeks to gather extensive local-level data in order to drive local government actions, and to empower communities to participate in the process. Currently work is underway to design an integrated questionnaire; it will then be piloted in two communities in the Philippines in early October. The census will cover about 1000 households and will be accompanied by qualitative interviews and participatory focus groups. CBMS will then explore uses of the OPHI indicators in program formulation and implementation at the local level. CBMS already routinely collects data on 11 indicators of poverty in the communities in which it works; this research aims both to validate OPHI’s new survey modules and to provide CBMS with new indicators they might adopt in future work.