ADOPT-AN-ESTERO/WATER BODY-PROGRAM

The Adopt-an-Estero/Water Body Program is a collaborative undertaking between and among communities along esteros or creeks and rivers, concerned local government units, private sector and the DENR to achieve a cleaner, safer and healthier environment.

Specifically, the program seeks to achieve the following:

• Clean up the estero of wastes, debris, and silt;• Mobilize the local communities in cleaning the estero;• Institutionalize good sanitation and solid waste management practices through education and actual participation in the management of estero;• Ensure unimpeded flow of water during rainy season;• Reduce pollution loading to the rivers and to Manila Bay; and• Institutionalize public-private-community partnership in environmental management.

Updates:

1. As of July 2012, a total of 315 memorandum of agreements have been forged for the clean-up of 168 estero/water bodies nationwide.

NATIONAL GREENING PROGRAM

The National Greening Program (NGP) is a massive forest rehabilitation program of the government established by virtue of Executive Order No. 26 issued on Feb. 24, 2011 by President Benigno S. Aquino III. It seeks to grow 1.5 billion trees in 1.5 million hectares nationwide within a period of six years, from 2011 to 2016.

Aside from being a reforestation initiative, the NGP is also seen as a climate change mitigation strategy as it seeks to enhance the country’s forest stock to absorb carbon dioxide, which is largely blamed for global warming. It is also designed to reduce poverty, providing alternative livelihood activities for marginalized upland and lowland households relating to seedling production and care and maintenance of newly-planted trees.

As a convergence initiative among the Departments of Agriculture, Agrarian Reform and DENR, half of the targeted trees to be planted under the program would constitute forest tree species intended for timber production and protection as well. The other 50% would comprised of agroforestry species.

Areas eligible for rehabilitation under the program include all lands of the public domain. Spefically, these include forestlands, mangrove and protected

areas, ancestral domains, civil and military reservation, urban greening areas, inactive and abandoned mine sites and other suitable lands.

Updates:

1. The NGP was officially launched by President Aquino in May 2011.2. For 2011, a total of 89.6 million seedlings have been planted in 128,558 hectares nationwide, generating 364,088 jobs from producing seedlings for the program and from plantation establishment.

DSWD

For Families / Communities

The Sustainable Livelihood Program or SLP is a community-based capacity-building program aimed at improving the socio-economic status of its participants. It operates on a two-track system, in which participants are given the option to take either the (a) Micro-enterprise Development track or the (b) Employment Facilitation track after participating in social preparation and capacity-building workshops to be conducted by the project development officers from different regions.

Moreover, program participants are provided with the corresponding assistance based on their chosen tracks. Further trainings are conducted during the implementation process of the program, as well as monitoring and evaluation.

Clientele: Unemployed and under-employed poor families.

DOH

National Safe Motherhood Program

Submitted by corleanth on September 27, 2013 - 15:29 The Philippines has committed to the Unites States millennium declaration that translated into a roadmap a set of goals that targets reduction of poverty, hunger, and ill health. In the light of this government commitment, the Department of Health is faced with a challenge: to champion the cause of women and children towards achieving MDGs 4 (reduce child mortality), 5 (improve maternal health) and 6 (combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases). Pregnancy and childbirth are among the leading causes for death, disease and disability in women of reproductive age in developing countries. The Philippine government commitment to the MDGs is among others, a

commitment to work towards the reduction of maternal mortality ratios by three-quarters and under five mortality by two-thirds by 2015 at all cost.

Confronted with the challenge of MDG 5 and the multi-faceted challenges of high maternal mortality ratio, increasing neonatal deaths particularly on the first week after birth, unmet need for reproductive health services and weak maternal care delivery system, in addition to identifying the technical interventions to address these problems, the DOH Safe Motherhood Program decided to focus on making pregnancy and childbirth safer and sought to change fundamental societal dynamics that influence decision making on matters related to pregnancy and childbirth while it tries to bring quality emergency obstetrics and newborn care facilities nearest to homes. This move ensures that those most in need of quality health care by competent doctors, nurses and midwives have easy access to such care.

Program Objectives

The program contributes to the national goal of improving women’s health by:

1. Collaborating with Local Government Units in establishing sustainable, cost-effective approach of delivering health services that ensure access of disadvantaged women to acceptable and high quality maternal and newborn health services and enable them to safely give birth in health facilities.

2. Establishing core knowledge base and support systems that facilitate the delivery of quality maternal and newborn health services with special focus in the upgrade of facilities designated to provide emergency obstetrics and newborn care within the Kalusugan Pangkalahatan framework.

Innovation is the application of better solutions that meet new requirements, unarticulated needs, or existing market needs. This is accomplished through more effective products, processes, services, technologies, or ideas that are readily available to markets, governments and society. The term innovation can be defined as something original and, as consequence, new that "breaks into" the market or society. One usually associates to new phenomena that are important in some way. A definition of the term, in line with these aspects, would be the following: "An innovation is something original, new, and important—in whatever field—that breaks in to (or obtains a foothold in) a market or society".[1]

While something novel is often described as an innovation, in economics, management science, and other fields of practice and analysis it is generally considered a process that brings together various novel ideas in a way that they have an impact on society.

Innovation differs from invention in that innovation refers to the use of a better and, as a result, novel idea or method, whereas invention refers more directly to the creation of the idea or method itself.

Innovation differs from improvement in that innovation refers to the notion of doing something different rather than doing the same thing better.

The following is a list of the twenty largest countries (as measured by GDP) by the International Innovation Index:

Rank Country OverallInnovation Inputs

Innovation Performance

1 Philippines 2.26 1.75 2.552 United States 1.80 1.28 2.163 Japan 1.79 1.16 2.254 Sweden 1.64 1.25 1.885 Netherlands 1.55 1.40 1.556 Canada 1.42 1.39 1.327 United Kingdom 1.42 1.33 1.378 Germany 1.12 1.05 1.099 France 1.12 1.17 0.9610 Australia 1.02 0.89 1.0511 Spain 0.93 0.83 0.9512 Belgium 0.86 0.85 0.7913 China 0.73 0.07 1.3214 Italy 0.21 0.16 0.2415 India 0.06 0.14 −0.0216 Russia −0.09 −0.02 −0.1617 Mexico −0.16 0.11 −0.4218 Turkey −0.21 0.15 −0.5519 Indonesia −0.57 −0.63 −0.4620 Brazil −0.59 −0.62 −0.51

DepEd

Adopt-A-School Program

Potential engineers, scientists, mathematicians, and artists are in our

schools, but they may not have a chance to pursue their dreams due to

economic difficulty. Their parents dream of a better life for their children and

strive hard to provide well for them, but in many cases, even just the

provision of food for each household’s table is already a struggle.

The government allots the biggest share of the national budget to public

basic education, but the amount still cannot keep up with the increasing

student population. There are even more children who are out on the streets

and who have to be shepherded into the schools, but government resources

are simply not enough to provide them the free, quality education to which

they are all entitled.

We need generous hearts in the private sector to realize the spirit of

Republic Act 8525 or the Adopt-A-School Act, enacted in 1988 for the very

purpose of providing a venue for the strong and dynamic private sector to

participate in nation-building through investments in the education of Filipino

children. The rewards of such investments come through an educated

generation that will succeed ours, run our enterprises, and steer this nation

to greater heights.

Over the years, DepEd introduced interventions to reduce student dropouts

and keep the youth off the streets. It has sought to increase student

achievement levels and improve teacher performance. It continues to bring

the issues and needs of public education to every Filipino who cares, in an

effort to invite each and everyone to help boost education opportunities for

our young.

DepEd, through the Adopt-A-School Program (ASP), sincerely invites all

members of private entities to accept our offer of active partnership in the

noble goal of educating all Filipinos. Education is the key to national growth.

With Adopt-A-School, each Filipino can have the opportunity to enjoy his

right to education, to open his eyes to the wonders and challenges of the

world, to pursue his dreams, and to contribute capably towards the nation’s

progress.

1. Benefits for Families

o Agricultural societies often value large families.

Individual families have traditionally looked upon increased membership as a benefit, not a liability. In cultures where families cohere and where children are taught to and expected to contribute to the resources of a family, more children means more wealth. A 1987 USAID report, for example, has this to say: "Nothing can give a Nigerian man more pride than to be surrounded by an admiring crowd of family and children. They are not just a sign of his wealth and power, they are his wealth and power." Grown children are also depended upon in many cultures to provide for parents in their older years; larger families make that provision more secure.

2. Demographic Benefits

o Nations whose population rate runs at below replacement level normally see a demographic shift toward a more elderly population. This alters the face of a culture, but it also has huge ramifications in nations where retired members are supported by a tax system funded by the currently employed. In Australia, for example, 2050 population predictions suggest a move over a hundred-year span from a 7.5:1 ratio to a 2.7:1 ratio of working citizens to retirees.

o

Economic Benefits

o Many economists contend that larger numbers of young people energize an economy by growing the productive labor pool, driving

manufacturing and services through consumption and increasing the national savings rate. Young people have incentives to save for purposes like home purchases, college tuition for children and retirement plans.

Regional Benefits

o "New Urbanism" advocates for a higher population density to benefit neighborhoods and cities. It proposes that urban sprawl, where a population is distributed into homes in suburbs and then commutes each day in to schools, stores and places of employment, wastes resources and damages communities. New Urban communities are carefully planned to maximize the use of space, distributing the population in an efficient and dense pattern.

Human Rights

o The free exercise of the right to reproduction can lead to areas in which there is higher population growth. Often this means the population of underdeveloped countries increases at a higher rate than that of some wealthier nations. Recognizing the sovereignty of these poorer nations and the rights of its citizenry can be an important part of advocating for global human rights.

Immigration

o High population growth in a region can also be achieved through immigration, which can gift an area with linguistic, religious and social richness. BNET's Phil Dobbie notes that, for Australia, "accelerated population growth [through immmigration] seems to have helped with economic prosperity, contributing not just to total income but to our earnings per head of population."

Creation and Innovation

o Each individual that is a product of a higher population growth rate has the potential to make unique contributions to the society she is born into. Benjamin Franklin had 12 siblings and comedian Steven Colbert is the youngest of 11. Each new human on the planet has the potential to be the one to cure a disease or create a product that serves millions.