Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) Secretary Rolando Joselito D. Bautista and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) Secretary Ramon M. Lopez recently held an exploratory meeting for a possible partnership to provide livelihood opportunities to families and individuals to help them cope with the socio-economic shocks brought about by various kinds of disasters.

During the meeting, both agencies agreed to initially develop a program that will benefit individuals and families affected by recent fire incidents in the National Capital Region (NCR). Salient agreements were also reached in terms of complementation of programs, projects, and activities between DSWD and DTI.

Secretary Lopez said that DTI shall provide technical and financial support for the scaling-up of micro-enterprises of various DSWD Sustainable Livelihood Program Associations (SLPAs) through the provision of additional capitalization or seed capital fund under its Pondo sa Pagbabago at Pag-Asenso (P3) program. He also gave his go signal for DTI to provide shared service facilities (SSF) for food and non-food processing and relevant capacity-building activities focusing on product development and business coaching and mentoring.

Also present during the meeting were DSWD Undersecretary for Disaster Response Felicisimo C. Budiongan, Assistant Secretary for Specialized Program Rhea B. Penaflor, and SLP Director Restituto B. Macuto. -30-