2015 CSO Sustainability Index for Asia:

A report on the strength and viability of civil society sectors in 7 Asian countries

USAID has published its 2015 Civil Society Organizations (CSO) Sustainability Index for Asia, with CODE-NGO producing the report for the Philippines. The report says that the civil society sector in the Philippines “has the strongest overall sustainability among seven (7) countries participating in the study, followed by Bangladesh.  In the Philippines, CSOs benefit from a supportive legal framework that facilitates registration; ability to operate freely; various government grant programs; a variety of mechanisms to engage in policy-making processes; long-established networks that provide training and resources to other CSOs, and positive government perception of CSO work.”

The other countries which participated in the study include Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand. All countries are considered in the category “Sustainability Evolving.”

The CSOSI measures the strength and viability of the CSO sector in the following dimensions of sustainability: legal environment, organizational capacity, financial viability, advocacy, service provision, infrastructure and public image. The rating scale is from 1 (indicating a very advanced civil society sector with a high level of sustainability) to 7 (indicating a fragile, unsustainable civil society sector with a low level of development).

The chart below illustrates the overall rating of the Philippine CSO sector on these dimensions for 2015. Comparing the 2015 ratings below to the previous year, the overall rating on sustainability is maintained at 3.3 (Sustainability Evolving). Ratings slightly improved on Financial Viability, Infrastructure and Public Image, but slightly decreased on Legal Environment because of additional measures to accredit or monitor CSOs and increased harassment of human rights defenders and indigenous people’s groups.

The Philippine civil society sector’s highest score is on the dimension “Infrastructure” at 2.9 (an increase from last year and a movement to the ‘Sustainability Enhanced’ category. This is mainly because of increased coalition building among CSOs and with various sectors – government, business and academe – particularly in the areas of disaster response and in poverty reduction in the light of the Post-2015 development agenda or Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

However, the country’s CSO sector slightly decreased on ‘Legal Environment’ because of additional government measures to accredit or monitor CSOs and increased instances of harassment of human rights defenders and indigenous people’s groups.

Click to access 2015_Asia_CSOSI.pdf

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