Browse our documents and publications covering G-Watch Monitoring Manuals, Governance Reform Studies, Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER) Publications, and Vertical Integration Research.
This think piece shares key lessons of G-Watch from the Making All Voices Count (MAVC) experience in the Philippines based on a learning process with the MAVC grantees from March to August 2017, which focused on the role of strategic action and adaptive learning on the issue of sustainability. Alongside this piece are two case studies on two selected MAVC grantees, one focusing on when and how digital technology works and the other on how learning for a strategic shift happens which are to be published separately by MAVC.
"In anticipation of the 2016 election, the third Philippine action plan sought to institutionalize existing OGP participatory mechanisms and largely continued expanding the scope of activities from previous action plans. While general awareness of OGP remains low, the passage on an Executive Order on Freedom of Information and inclusion of new commitments on improving public service delivery indicates sustained energy on areas with immediate impact on citizens’ lives."
On August 17, Government Watch (G-Watch) organized and facilitated a forum-workshop aimed to discuss and reflect on the key lessons learned, evidence and gains on adaptive learning, strategic citizen action and use of digital technologies generated through Making All Voices Count (MAVC) support in the Philippines and other related initiatives. Around 40 MAVC grantees, key G-Watch leaders all over the country and other relevant partners of G-Watch in governance reform attended to reflect on their initiatives.
The Philippines has a long history of state–society engagement to introduce reforms in government and politics. Forces from civil society and social movements have interfaced with reform-oriented leaders in government on a range of social accountability initiatives – to make governance more responsive, to introduce policy reforms, and to make government more accountable.
A new generation of strategies for government accountability is needed, one that fully considers entrenched, institutional obstacles to change. Vertical integration of coordinated civil society policy monitoring and advocacy is one such strategy. Engaging each stage and level of public sector actions in an integrated way can locate the causes of accountability failures, show their interconnected nature, and leverage the local, national and transnational power shifts necessary to produce sustainable institutional change.
This case study summary reflects on some of processes, mechanisms, actors and activities at play at various stages and levels of the programme, which made it possible for civil society monitoring to cover all the Textbook Delivery Programme’s possible vulnerabilities to corruption and inefficiency. It attempts to unbundle processes at every level, and measure the intensity of the actions/tactics per level using vertical integration as a framework for analysis.
Indigenous peoples have a rich and long history of struggle, and the case study of campaigning for indigenous peoples’ rights examines the work of the Teduray Lambangian Women’s Organisation Inc. (TLWOI), a federation of community-based organizations which is fighting for the rights of indigenous women in Mindanao.
The case study focuses on the organizing efforts of two national agrarian reform networks, the Rural Poor Institute for Land and Human Rights Services (known as RIGHTS Network) and the Movement for Agrarian Reform and Social Justice (Katarungan), and their campaign with local farmers’ organizations on the Bondoc Peninsula.
The case study examines the work of the Reproductive Health Advocacy Network (RHAN) to push for the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill, despite stiff opposition from the highly influential Catholic Church.
The case study looks at the work of Damayan ng Maralitang Pilipinong Api (DAMPA, Solidarity of Oppressed Poor Filipinos), a network of more than 90,000 poor urban households, which works to provide “viable solutions to basic poverty problems endemic to the urban poor” (DAMPA 2004).