Participatory poverty and livelihood assessment report, Kalahan, Nueva Vizcaya, The Philippines

Abstract

A participatory poverty assessment of the RUPES Kalahan Project was conducted to (1) establish the baseline for multi-dimensional indicat ors of poverty using participatory approach; and (2) identify and analyze constraints that hinder communities from effectively benefiting from rewards for environmental services (RES). Th is study closely followed the steps learned from the participatory poverty assessment traini ng of the RUPES sites’ team members held on November 2007. As a result, two overall observations where povert y dimensions co-vary with degradation (Van Noordwijk, et al., 2004) in Kala han were made, these are (1) people living in remote forest environments rich in all aspects of environmenta l services, but poor because of lack of public services (health and education) and low income but with enough to eat; and (2) people who lived in landscapes where rehabilitation starts to be successful have the prospects of reducing all dimensions of poverty. It was concluded that poverty in Kalahan is linked to the lack of access and/or underdeveloped public services such as market infrastructures, edu cation and health services while the focus of rewards for environmental services is recommende d in the provision of these public services. Once the reward is realized, special atten tion should be given to the communities from Barangay Unib, Malico and Sta. Rosa