Chairperson’s Report to the CODE-NGO 17TH General Assembly

 

CODE-NGO Chairperson Andrea Maria Patricia M. Sarenas presented CODE-NGO’s accomplishment report for FY2012-2013 to its 17th General Assembly, citing stories of Hope and Strength and Courage in the face of many ‘storms’ that the coalition has faced the past year. These stories of successes, and of learning from mistakes, would not have been possible without the help of CODE-NGO’s partners in development – from government, fund donors, other CSOs, partner communities – and the development professionals and volunteers of its member networks and base organizations that make up the coalition.

 

 

 

 

Good afternoon. Allow me to begin my report with the context by which we as a coalition pursued our work for development this year.

In November 2012, CODE-NGO successfully conducted its 5th National Congress when we celebrated our efforts and triumphs of the past five years and approved our Strategic Plan for 2013-2017. We were joined in our celebration by our development partners, including those from academe, donor agencies and government, with President Benigno Aquino himself delivering the keynote address.

Soon after our joyous 3-day celebration, the southeastern part of the country was buffeted by Typhoon Pablo which flattened to the ground many municipalities in Davao Oriental, Compostela Valley and Caraga on December 4. Just a year before in 2010, also in December, Typhoon Sendong inundated many areas in Northern Mindanao. In the southwestern part of the country, we saw a man-made calamity that also caused so much devastation as the 3-week crisis resulted in several barangays in Zamboanga being razed to the ground.

Just last month, an intensity 7.2 earthquake hit Bohol, which was felt all over Visayas and even outside the islands. Thousands of Boholanos are still staying in evacuation centers. As we come together again this year, we have feelings of sadness because Typhoon Yolanda, the strongest storm in the history of the country, or of the world, hit the Visayas on November 8. It left such widespread devastation, with so many lives, properties and livelihoods lost.

Indeed, this year saw us weather many ‘storms.’ But we have feelings of joy, too, for we have reasons to be happy, to be proud of what we have done this year 2012-2013 inspite of the ‘storms.’

The environment by which CODE-NGO pursued its work this year saw a great demand from national government agencies for a massive citizen participation in governance, with the implementation of various reform programs, such as the expanded Bottom-up Budgeting (BUB) process, the expanded National Community-Driven Development Program (NCCDP), and others. We were able to facilitate the participation of more CSOs and our communities in these programs, journeying with them through the sometimes difficult and ever-changing processes.

At the mid-term of this administration and of the civil society’s constructive engagement with this government, it is time to take stock on whether or not there have been real, concrete gains towards reducing poverty and inequality in society and promoting genuine people’s empowerment, especially among marginalized communities. The inclusiveness of our economic growth in the past years as reported by government still remains in question. What role do CSOs play in sustaining economic growth and in ensuring that development is felt and supported by all sectors in our communities? How do we make it our mantra to help build resilient communities – resilient to all kinds of shocks – climatic, economic, political?

Given the current political situation, where prospects for a reform-oriented successor to national leadership in 2016 is still blurry – development-oriented CSOs feel the need to clarify and implement actions as early as now to ensure that the reforms initiated towards strengthening democratic institutions and citizens’ participation in governance will be sustained beyond this administration.

In the meantime, our member base organizations around the country continue to work towards improving the lives of the communities they serve. Their approaches have been varied, as you have seen in the past days that we were participating in our Social Development Celebration 2013 events. Many of us have been into community organizing – educating marginalized communities about their rights to basic social services and empowering them to claim such rights. An important advocacy is demanding for more transparent, accountable and participatory governance so that people would know where public funds go and whether their use have been effective or not. Where it is possible or where private business and government sectors were unable to deliver, many of our member organizations have helped in empowering communities economically through social enterprises and livelihood projects. We have facilitated training on climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction and management (CCA-DRRM) and worked to have members of our communities actively participate in local disaster risk reduction management councils and in other community-based environmental programs.

On the continuing discourse on linking the issue of peace and development to people’s empowerment and structural changes, MINCODE, our member-network in the south, who together with peace advocates, have been in the forefront this year in the not-too-easy task of pushing for the signing of a Peace Agreement between the GPH and the MILF that will pave the way for the creation of the Bangsamoro entity that will take the place of the ARMM.

This is a report of our members’ stories of commitment to “Make Participatory Governance Work.” We believe that there is no more opportune time than today to highlight the work of development CSOs amidst allegations of misuse of public funds, particularly of PDAF, which is the handiwork of some unscrupulous individuals using bogus NGOs in connivance with ill-intentioned public officials.

 

In terms of Influencing Public Policy:

Citizens’ Participation in Governance

From August 2012 to July 2013, CODE-NGO’s Participatory Governance (PG) projects – such as the Decentralized Governance or DG Project, the Citizens’ Monitoring of LGU Performance or CML Project, the Empowerment Project and the Sustaining Participatory Local Governance or SPLG Project – have collectively supported the conduct of 42 capacity-building activities and training programs on poverty analysis, understanding the local government participatory planning and budgeting processes, the national government’s bottom-up budgeting (BUB) process, citizens’ monitoring of government performance and assessing the implementation of government programs and projects. They also organized 152 consultations among CSOs and dialogues with government at the local and national levels. Collectively, these processes have mobilized 956 CSOs and basic sector groups in 45 municipalities in 19 provinces and in 9 regions all over the country, and involved at least 3,442 CSO leaders. While the local anti-poverty plans vary depending on the area’s conditions, the CSOs participating in these processes generally agree on the importance of influencing government to become more transparent and accountable, to improve the delivery of basic social services and to prioritize asset reform. They also agree that there is a need for CSOs to continue working together and building their capacities to understand and participate meaningfully in local government planning and budgeting process, as well as to demonstrate good governance practices in their own organizations. The members of CBD, CENVISNET, EVNET, MINCODE, PHILDHRRA and NCSD have been CODE-NGO’s partners in implementing these initiatives.

 

CSO Participation in PDP Review

CODE-NGO also participated in the review process of the government’s own targets as declared in its Philippine Development Plan (PDP). It commissioned members and partner organizations to conduct assessment studies of government performance against its own PDP targets on specific development sectors. CODE-NGO also assessed the government’s actions on the recommendations of the CSO-formulated Development and Reform Agenda (DRA) for 2010-2013. These assessments form the basis of CODE-NGO’s updating of its Development and Reform Agenda for 2013-2016 and participation in the PDP updating processes, as we sit in various Committees and Sub-Committees for the PDP Review.

 

Philippine CSOs and Post-2015 Agenda

Through its membership in the Asia Development Alliance (ADA), the Beyond 2015 Philippines and engagement with UN Philippine country team, CODE-NGO has also articulated its position on ongoing conversations on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), with only two years left for nations to catch up on lagging targets, and in shaping the Post-2015 agenda at the global and national levels. CODE-NGO has helped organize and facilitate 2 national and 4 sub-national consultations of Beyond 2015, which is led by the Philippine Social Enterprise Network. It has also submitted its inputs to consultations organized by NEDA and to its draft report on the position of the Philippines as a UN member state. Through these processes, CODE-NGO continues to push for the inclusion in the Post-2015 agenda of targets to address inequality and exclusion, to have a more holistic measurement of human well-being and to emphasize the role of civil society in the formulation, monitoring and accountability processes of the new development agenda.

 

PDAF Watch

For our PDAF Watch or Pork Barrel Watch project this year, we commissioned a study to analyse the trends in PDAF allocation per province and region and to raise awareness on how to advocate for a more effective and responsive use of PDAF, referring to the PDAF data posted on DBM’s eTails website. Our study reveals that 51% of PDAF in 2010 and 2011 went to infrastructure, while the second largest share is Financial Assistance at 18%. Projects under Financial Assistance usually goes to providing ‘private goods’ such as scholarships, payment for hospital bills, burial assistance and medical assistance. These types of projects allow legislators to maintain the loyalty of their voters, while purportedly responding to the needs of their constituents.

Then the scheme of the Napoles NGOs was exposed, tainting the image of legitimate CSOs. CODE-NGO defended the ranks of civil society through the media, carrying the message of the valuable work for development by legitimate CSOs even in the face of scarce resources. It also submitted its recommendations towards the transparent and accountable use of PDAF to DBM, the Senate and the House of Representatives. It joined the Million People March in Luneta, with contingents from PHILSSA, PHILDHRRA and NCSD and partners from the Right to Know, Right Now! Coalition, calling the government to stop the scams, prosecute the plunderers and pass the Freedom of Information (FOI) Bill. CBD and CENVISNET also led or joined parallel rallies to scrap the pork and make legislators accountable in their respective localities. With the abolition of PDAF, our chapter on PDAF Watch Project also closes. But we will continue to call for the prosecution of the plunderers and with greater vigilance to monitor government budgeting processes and implementation of programs and projects, particularly the BUB.

 

In terms of Strengthening the Capacity of Member Networks:

Strategic Plan 2013-2017

This year, we also completed our Strategic Planning process for 2013-2017, widely consulting our member networks by going around their assemblies. At the end of the process, we have agreed on the following thrusts for the coalition:
• Thrust 1: Strengthening of Member Networks – we commit to assist our member networks in:
o resource generation and
o capacity-building for governance, networking and local and sectoral advocacy effectiveness
• Thrust 2: Expanded Civil Society Influence –
o we will focus our priorities in the next five years on our 8 priority advocacies;
o Our new Knowledge Development and Management program will transform data and information on good CSO practices from members and various sources into useful knowledge that will inform our advocacies and programs, and will disseminate the same back to our members and the larger CSO community.

 

Capacity Building Fund

Our Capacity Building Fund (CBF), the successor to the Network Strengthening Fund (NSF), continued to support items that are not usually funded by traditional donors, such as operational expenses, general assemblies and strategic planning processes of our member networks. While the CBF will continue to support these types of activities, new features were added to ensure that it is responsive to the needs of members, including:
• CBF projects should be in line with the proponent’s Capacity Building Plan and CODE-NGO’s Strategic Thrusts, and
• A Technical Working Group evaluates the CBF proposals and may assist proponents in refining their project concepts.
Last year, the CBF approved a total grant of P3.8M to support the capacity-building activities of its 12 member networks.

 

Strengthening the Capacity of Philippine CSOs

CODE-NGO is also part of a consortium led by the Ayala Foundation and funded by the USAID in a 3-year project to strengthen the capacities of 130 CSOs all over the country, so that they will be able to achieve sustainable impact, be more accountable to their publics, and be able to effectively compete for and manage donor resources. Organizational development or OD interventions are being provided to participating CSOs on 5 Capacity Building Areas.

OD interventions are based on an organizational diagnostics and assessment of training needs using the Capacity Assessment Tool (CAT) and the organization’s own Capacity Building Plan. These include seminars and workshops, mentoring, peer-to-peer learning through an online Community of Practice via social media, internships and provision of templates.

Eight of CODE-NGO’s member networks – CBD, CORDNET, MINCODE, NATCCO, PHILSSA, PHILDHRRA, CENVISNET and WEVNET – and 50 of its member base organizations – are benefiting from such interventions. Two other member networks, AF and PBSP, are technical partners of the project. CODE-NGO is the technical partner of the project for ‘Building a Community of Practice’ among participating CSOs. It launched the CSOCommunity site at www.code-ngo.org/csocommunity, an online community and discussion forum on organizational development issues confronting Philippine non-profits. It now has 118 members, allowing participating CSOs to exchange on good practices, tips and techniques on OD matters.

CODE-NGO also provided such parallel OD interventions to CENVISNET, EVNET and NCSD, which are not part of the project. It has facilitated organizational diagnostics, capacity-building planning, strategic planning and review and revision of manual of operations of the organizations. It invited these 3 member networks to participate in the training programs of the project, and assigned mentors for each.

 

CSO Good Governance in Practice

As CODE-NGO and its member networks and base organizations demand accountability in public institutions, we remain committed to practicing good governance in our own organizations. 563 member base organizations or 35% of total membership signed the statement renewing commitment to the Code of Conduct. The Board also approved the minimum standards for CSO good governance that all members will have to subscribe to by the end of 2014. To date, an additional 120 CSOs did a self-assessment of their good governance practice, with 72% declaring that they all comply with these standards.

 

Summer Youth Camp: Volunteering for Development

It is CODE-NGO’s desire to build a successor generation of leaders for the coalition and to encourage more young people to be part of its development work. Last summer, it organized a Summer Youth Camp for 14 young writers. After the workshop, the young writers were deployed to 10 host CSOs in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao for a 5-day participant-observation research and to write about the contributions of their host CSOs in empowering the communities they serve. The volunteers came back for a synthesis session and produced 30 articles and 2 case studies. The volunteer writers believed that the camp created a positive impact on their personal growth, increased their appreciation of development work and their passion to do positive change for the country.

 

Advancing CSO Engagement in DRRM-CCA (ACED)

The ACED is a 1-year training program for all the 12 CODE-NGO member networks to level-off and strengthen capacities on the roles of CSOs in DRRM-CCA, build a constituency of DRRM-CCA champions within the coalition. A training needs survey was conducted among 12 member networks prior to training module development. The survey reveals a wide disparity among member networks in terms of DRRM-CCA capacities and in engaging LGUs in DRRM-CCA policy and program advocacies. The first module development workshop was organized last July 2013. This will be followed by a revalidation of the training modules and roll-out of training in January 2014.

 

International Linkages and Networking

A new venture in terms of international linkages for CODE-NGO this year is its being co-convenor of the Asia Development Alliance (ADA), led by the Korean NGO Council for Overseas Cooperation (KCOC). The Alliance was formed to create a strong voice for Asian NGOs in influencing the formulation of the Post-2015 development agenda. More than 70 CSO participants across Asia gathered for the first meeting of ADA in Bangkok last January 31 to February 2, 2013, under the theme “Asian Voice for the World We Want 2015.”

CODE-NGO has also continued to be an active member of the Civicus World Alliance for Citizen Participation and the Affinity Group of National Associations (AGNA). It has also maintained its links with the National Platforms Coalition Asia (NPC Asia) and the International Federation of National Platforms (IFP). Our coalition also continues to convene the Philippines-Japan NGO Partnership (PJP) Network. CODE-NGO also participated in the founding assembly of the Asia Democracy Network (ADN) held last October in Seoul, South Korea. The ADN is a network of national CSO platforms and other groups advocating for democracy.

 

Resource Building

As part of its efforts to provide its members and the CSO community opportunities for raising and building resources for development work, CODE-NGO started working in August 2012 with PAKISAMA, AF, local funding institutions (LFIs) FSSI, FPE, PTFCF and PEF and other civil society leaders on a Civil Society Strengthening Fund (CSSF). The CSSF is envisioned to be a facility that is co-funded and co-managed by local funding institutions, possibly foreign donors and government. It would support community organizing and CSO organizational strengthening, which are rarely supported by traditional donors, but which are vital in sustaining active citizenship and ‘demand for good governance.’ By the end of 2012, the four LFIs and some government officials had already expressed support for the CSSF. However, talks on CSSF were suspended in 2013, following some confusion between the CSSF and the government’s Empowerment Fund (EF). CODE-NGO and other CSOs decided it would be better for government to clarify first its guidelines on the Empowerment Fund. Unfortunately, the EF guidelines have not been finalized by the end of July 2013.

 

Building Knowledge on Effective CSOs

CODE-NGO created its new program on Knowledge Development and Management, following the ratification of its Strategic Plan 2013-2017, citing it as an important thrust of the coalition. The program intends to build up and strengthen structures and coordination mechanisms for research, information management and knowledge development on the CSO sector. Among the key activities initiated for the program this year was the creation of the Communities of Practice for the coalition’s Membership and Advocacy Programs, more active use of social media in sharing the coalition’s stories about its advocacies and programs and the mapping of CSOs engaged in various advocacy areas.

These stories of successes, and of learning from mistakes, would not have been possible without the help of CODE-NGO’s partners in development – from government, fund donors, other CSOs, partner communities – and the development professionals and volunteers of its member networks and base organizations that make up the coalition. These are our stories of Hope and Strength and Courage in the face of many ‘storms’ that we face everyday. It is knowing that CODE-NGO, the Philippine national NGO platform, remains committed to uphold its development principles despite these ‘storms’ that keeps us together, that keeps us grounded, that keeps us hopeful!

Maraming Salamat!