DSWD holds national Project Lawa at Binhi summit in Davao City

The Department of Social Welfare and Development Field Office 11 (DSWD-Davao) is hosting a five-day national summit in Davao City on Project Lawa at Binhi, the agency's climate resilience program for farmers and fisherfolk, according to SunStar.

The Project Lawa at Binhi Resilience Impact Summit is being held at The Ritz Hotel at Garden Oases from October 26 to 30, 2026. About 230 participants from the DSWD central office and field offices across the country are taking part. DSWD-Davao said in a statement on Monday, October 26, that the gathering aims to review what the program has achieved since 2023, exchange best practices and strengthen collaboration.

Project Lawa, short for Local Adaptation to Water Access, builds and rehabilitates small water storage and rainwater-harvesting facilities so communities can keep supplying farms and households during dry spells such as El Niño. Its companion, Project Binhi, or Breaking Insufficiency through Nutritious Harvest for the Impoverished, channels the stored water into community vegetable gardens and tree planting to help avert food shortages. Farmers, fisherfolk and other vulnerable households who help build the facilities and attend trainings receive cash-for-work and cash-for-training assistance.

Rainhart Arce, the program's national focal person, said the effort is about more than reservoirs and communal gardens. He said the goal is to give communities dependable water, enough food and sustainable livelihoods so they can stand on their own even without government help.

Maria Isabel Lanada, director of the DSWD Disaster Response Management Bureau, called on implementers to prepare communities ahead of disasters to prevent displacement and hunger. "We are the duty-bearers, and the Filipino people are the rights-holders," she said. Lanada also pushed for stronger agriculture, traditional farming practices and the revival of Indigenous water-conservation methods.

According to the national accomplishment report for 2023 to 2026 presented by Arce, the program had set up 2,775 Lawa sites nationwide as of October 15, with a combined storage capacity of about 2.49 million cubic meters irrigating 10,390 hectares of farmland. Some 111,198 partner beneficiaries have received a total of ₱1.04 billion in cash assistance, while Binhi gardens have produced harvests with an estimated gross market value of ₱84.15 million.

The report also showed that DSWD 11 has served all 5,200 of its partner beneficiaries for 2026. The regional office presented its digital monitoring and reporting system as one of the program's best practices.