Cabinet Secretary Karlo Nograles on Sunday government will be maximizing information and communications technology (ICT) tools in its initiatives to combat hunger, especially following a May 4 to 10 Social Weather Stations (SWS) survey that showed 16.7% of Filipino families having experienced involuntary hunger at least once in the past three months.
According to Nograles –– who last Thursday launched the SCAN (Supply Chain Analytics) dashboard and spent the weekend familiarizing himself with the IT ecosystem integrating all the government COVID-19 dashboards––many of the ICT tools established by the government to address the COVID-19 outbreak can be used by other government bodies like the Inter-Agency Task Force on Zero Hunger.
“Developing and maximizing ICT tools like SCAN are a huge part of this effort.”
“Malaki po ang tulong ng mga ICT tools tulad nito para sa mga policymakers at implementors, kaya sinisikap nating aralin ito ng masinsinan dahil malaking pakinabang ito sa ating tungkulin,” said Nograles in a Facebook post.
(ICT tools like these are a helpful resource for policymakers and implementors, which is why we are studying these properly as these can help us perform our duties.)
The Palace official, who heads the government’s Zero Hunger Task Force and is Co-Chair of the IATF, said that the results of the SWS survey were concerning as the data shows that “despite close to 100% of respondents saying they have received food assistance from government, 16% said they experienced hunger.”
Of the 4,010 respondents polled by SWS via mobile phones, 99% answered “yes” when pollsters asked “since the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis, did your family receive help like food to cope with the COVID-19 crisis?” The same survey showed that government was the most common source of food assistance, at 99%.
“From day one of the COVID-19 outbreak, food security has been one of the top concerns of government.”
“Sa isang banda, magandang balita na halos 100% ng na-survey ay nakatanggap ng ayuda mula sa gobyerno. However, if there are families that are still experiencing hunger despite the assistance being extended by government and other institutions, kailangan natin matumbok ang dahilan para agad ito matugunan.”
Nograles explained that ICT tools like SCAN could help government determine whether issues in supply chains as a result of the Enhanced Community Quarantine (ECQ) may have affected food availability, accessibility, and affordability.
“From day one of the COVID-19 outbreak, food security has been one of the top concerns of government. This is why we repeatedly emphasized the need for unhampered movement of cargo and introduced solutions like the RapidPass system,” explained Nograles.
Nograles added that government “recognizes that while we deal with this public health crisis and even after it passes, we will need to find ways to ensure that produce from our farms reaches consumers efficiently as this impacts food supplies and prices.”
“We want to continue to build on the progress government had made to reduce hunger before the COVID-19 outbreak hit. Developing and maximizing ICT tools like SCAN are a huge part of this effort.”