The National Anti-Poverty Commission (NAPC) is a government agency of the Republic of the

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

. It coordinates

poverty reduction Poverty reduction, poverty relief, or poverty alleviation is a set of measures, both economic and humanitarian, that are intended to permanently lift people out of poverty. Measures, like those promoted by Henry George in his economics classi ...

programs by national and local governments and ensures that

marginalized Social exclusion or social marginalisation is the social disadvantage and relegation to the fringe of society. It is a term that has been used widely in Europe and was first used in France in the late 20th century. In the EU context, the Euro ...

sectors participate in government decision-making processes. NAPC was created by virtue of Republic Act 8425, otherwise known as the "Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act," which took effect on June 30, 1998. NAPC is one of the 12 agencies, formerly from the Office of the President which was placed under the supervision of the

Cabinet Secretary A cabinet secretary is usually a senior official (typically a civil servant) who provides services and advice to a cabinet of ministers as part of the Cabinet Office. In many countries, the position can have considerably wider functions and powe ...

, based on Executive Order No. 1 issued by President

Rodrigo Duterte Rodrigo Roa Duterte (, ; born March 28, 1945) is a Filipino lawyer and politician who served as the 16th president of the Philippines from 2016 to 2022. He is the first Philippine president from Mindanao, and is the oldest person to assum ...

on July 4, 2016. On October 31, 2018, through Executive Order No. 67, the Commission along with the Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor and the

National Commission on Indigenous Peoples The National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) is the agency of the national government of the Philippines that is responsible for protecting the rights of the indigenous peoples of the Philippines. The commission is composed of seven comm ...

were transferred from the supervision of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary to the

Department of Social Welfare and Development The Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD; ) 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. History In 1915, ...

Mandate

RA 8425 institutionalizes the government's Social Reform Agenda (SRA), which enjoins NAPC to strengthen and invigorate the partnerships between the national government and the basic sectors. Through a systematic package of social interventions, the state hopes to ensure that social reform is a continuous process that addresses the basic inequities in Philippine society, and that a policy environment conducive to social reform is actively pursued. NAPC's specific mandates are as follows: * To act as the "coordinating and advisory body" that exercises oversight functions in implementing the SRA and ensure that it is incorporated into the formulation of national, regional, sub-regional and local development plans; * To institutionalize basic sector and NGO participation in managing the SRA cycle; * To develop microfinance by establishing the People's Development Trust Fund (PDTF) and strengthening the People's Credit and Finance Corporation as the forerunners for microfinance services; and * To strengthen LGUs so they can incorporate the SRA in their local development efforts of the Philippines.

Organizational structure

The

President of the Philippines The president of the Philippines (, sometimes referred to as ) is the head of state, head of government and chief executive of the Philippines. The president leads the executive branch of the Philippine government and is the commander-in-ch ...

chairs NAPC and is assisted by the vice-chairperson for the Government Sector (with 25 national government agencies and presidents of the 4 leagues of local governments as members) and another vice-chairperson for the Basic Sectors (with representatives from the 14 basic sectors as members). NAPC is supported by a Secretariat, which is currently headed by Lead Convenor Lope B. Santos III.

Basic sectors

A central aspect of NAPC's mandate is to strengthen partnerships between the national government and these key stakeholders. This is crucial so effective anti-poverty strategies can be crafted. The sectors are the government’s partners in reform and development, and are critical in helping to bring about better living conditions for the poor. RA 8425 divides the basic sectors into 14 main groupings: * Farmers and landless rural workers * Artisanal fisher folk * Urban poor *

Indigenous people There is no generally accepted definition of Indigenous peoples, although in the 21st century the focus has been on self-identification, cultural difference from other groups in a state, a special relationship with their traditional territ ...

and cultural communities * Workers in formal labor and migrant workers * Workers in the

informal sector An informal economy (informal sector or grey economy) is the part of any economy that is neither taxed nor monitored by any form of government. Although the informal sector makes up a significant portion of the economies in developing countri ...

* Women * Children * Youth and students * Senior citizens * Persons with

disabilities Disability is the experience of any condition that makes it more difficult for a person to do certain activities or have equitable access within a given society. Disabilities may be cognitive, developmental, intellectual, mental, physica ...

* Victims of

disaster A disaster is an event that causes serious harm to people, buildings, economies, or the environment, and the affected community cannot handle it alone. '' Natural disasters'' like avalanches, floods, earthquakes, and wildfires are caused by na ...

s and calamities * Non-governmental organizations * Cooperatives

References

External links

*{{official website, http://www.napc.gov.ph/ Department of Social Welfare and Development (Philippines) Welfare in the Philippines Government agencies established in 1998