Quezon City – The DRRM Fund Watch is a Making All Voices Count (MAVC) funded project of CODE-NGO. The project was conceptualized to include citizen participation in monitoring public funds most specially those used for disaster risk reduction and management (DRRM). Last May 1 and 2, 2017, partner local civil society organizations (CSOs) from Partnership of Philippine Support Services Agencies (PhilSSA), Central Visayas Network of NGOs (CENVISNET), Mindanao Coalition of Development NGO Networks (MINCODE), Eastern Visayas Network of NGOs and POs (EVNet), and Coalition for Bicol Development (CBD) met together for the National Conference of the project to share success stories, gains, and areas for improvement of the project.

The involved CSOs all agreed that the biggest factor that contributed to the success of the project is the relationship built with the local government units (LGUs) which they monitored. They although expressed that there are much more things to improve on especially on the data gathered by the CSOs since there seems to be a lack of a common and easily understood reporting mechanism of LGUs.

Joining the CSOs and engaging them into dialogue were representatives from the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) and the National Disaster Risk Reduction Management Council (NDRRMC) who acknowledged the results of the project and were able to give more insights. The event also gave way to the launch of the DRRM FundWatch Website, an innovative tool that will allow partner CSOs who are monitoring on the ground to easily upload and visualize their data, the data will also be available to the public via the website.

“If we have been working in communities for years, and those communities continue to be victimized by disasters, then we have failed in our work as development workers.” Roselle Rasay, Deputy Executive Director of CODE-NGO said during the closing remarks. The project is just one avenue of CODE-NGO to promote participatory governance and also to ensure that DRRM efforts are humanitarian and effective.

John Joel de Guzman is the Project Officer of the DRRM Fund Watch Project.