This Technical Support on Enhancement of the Existing Information System for the ARBs in the Philippines is supported by the Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and aims to defeat hunger and improve family income by way of delivering data-driven support services to ARBs.

The Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) is implementing the “Kumustasaka” initiative to validate, update, and establish the socio-economic profile of 2.8 million agrarian reform beneficiaries (ARBs). The initiative will use the DAR Database System (DDS), a web-based approach, to achieve its objectives.

One of the main goals of the initiative is to validate and account for the 105,551 ARBs who received their Certificate of Land Ownership Award (CLOA) during the last three years of the Duterte administration (2016-2019). Additionally, it aims to monitor the socio-economic status of the 2.8 million ARBs found in the Emancipation Patent (EP)/CLOA-IS of the DAR through continuing data initiatives using the DDS. The DDS will provide reliable and timely data and information, including important statistics for sound decision-making.

This system will enable DAR to design and implement a research study on the ARB profile, which will provide new policies, interventions, and program recommendations on agrarian reform. To enhance its existing information system, DAR has requested the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to provide the necessary expertise and technical support through a Technical Cooperation Programme (TCP). The collaboration will also include capacity building on the use of the upgraded system.

For this TCP, DAR has proposed to implement the project in selected pilot areas in Region I or III particularly where the World Bank (WB) Support to Individual Titles Project or “Project SPLIT” is being piloted. Under Project SPLIT, a total of 817 collective CLOAs have been validated from March to September 2021. This involves 6 864.032 hectares allotted to 4 640 ARBs. The validation activity under the SPLIT is being done to confirm the presence or absence of the collective CLOA (CCLOA) recipients. However, this WB-supported project does not cover the technical support to DAR on database/information system development/ enhancement.

The proposed TCP on the enhancement of the existing “Kumustasaka” Information System is a catalytic project with the goal of scaling it up nationally in the future to cover all the 2.8 million agrarian reform beneficiaries.