The Ministry of Human Settlements and Development (MHSD), the Housing Arm of the BARMM, strategically enhanced the working draft of the Bangsamoro Housing and Human Settlements Plan (BHHSP) to align with similar national and regional plans held at the Grand Summit Hotel, General Santos City on February 7-9, 2024.

The BHHSP will comprehensively guide the MHSD on how to improve the human settlements in the BARMM while opening the doors to participation from all Ministries and other significant partners. It will be anchored on a well-consulted framework where partners can review and be able to easily assess where they may be involved in terms of housing and human settlements.

The alignment sessions were spearheaded by the Housing and Human Settlements Division (HHSD) led by Chief Abdulhamid C. Alawi, Jr. with assistance from the Catholic Relief Services (CRS) represented by James Baay, Deputy Program Manager.

A team from the Ministry, composed of representatives from the different divisions and sections reviewed related plans from different sources and adopted contents that will apply to BARMM context and be useful to populate certain parts of the BHHSP for subsequent activities.

As significant components in ensuring the applicability and utilization of the BHHSP, Engr. Rafzan M. Mama of the Monitoring and Evaluation Division presented the data flow and reporting process map and monitoring strategies that may be applied.

On the other hand, Salembai A. Abdullah, Head of the Information and Communications Section, presented the proposed communication plan in awareness raising, provision of updates on the progress of the plan, gathering feedbacks and inputs, finalization and presentation, and finally in launching the plan.

Chief Alawi described the alignment sessions as a bottom-up framework that takes in cognizance the various commitments to various areas, mandated to the MHSD by the DHSUD in a very aggregate way. 

While putting together the contents, participants gave their general impressions on the commitments laid out in the plans and examined how the work was detailed by their source offices in an effort to ensure that the upcoming BHHSP be as inclusive as possible.

Suharto S. Wahab, Director II for Technical and Regulatory Services, actively participated in the alignment process and concluded the activity with joy that the MHSD’s mandate is slowly being grasped as the Ministry grows and produces more policies and plans.

Referenced plans during the workshops were the Pambansang Pabahay para sa Pilipino Housing (4PH) Program, National Urban Development and Housing Framework (NUDHF), Camp Transformation Plan and the Bangsamoro Development Plan (BDP).

Further alignment sessions are scheduled to be conducted at a later date.