PBSP Executive Director Elvin Ivan Uy and Senior Program Officers Jay Presaldo and Juliet Labayan with delegates from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), DILG - Bureau of Local Governance Development(BLDG), and the rest of the consortium members paid a courtesy visit to executives and Officials of the DILG Region 5 and Albay Provincial Capitol on September 13, 2022 in preparation for the three-day SHIELD Program - Scoping Mission in Albay.

SHIELD or the Strengthening Institutions and Empowering Localities Against Disasters and Climate Change Programme is a six-year(2021-2028) program with grant funding of AUD18 Million from the Australian Government’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) that aims to build institutional and community resilience to hazardous events and effects of climate change. It is designed to scale-up resilience-building efforts at the local level through collaboration with multiple stakeholders to unlock financing and implement risk-informed and inclusive resilience actions.

The programme will be implemented in 11 disaster-and-climate change-vulnerable provinces in the country namely, Albay, Cagayan, Pampanga, Pangasinan, and Quezon in Luzon, Cebu, Eastern and Northern Samar in Visayas, and Agusan del Norte, Agusan del Sur, and Davao Oriental in Mindanao, and to special regions like NCR and BARMM.

SHIELD is being implemented through a consortium led by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). Other members include the UN-Habitat Philippines, the Philippine Business for Social Progress (PBSP),National Resilience Council (NRC), and the Consortium of Bangsamoro Civil Society (CBCS), in partnership with the Department of Interior and Local Government Office of Civil Defense (DILG-OCD), and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

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