The Philippines continue to score higher compared to its neighboring Asian countries in the 2016 Civil Society Organizations Sustainability Index (CSOSI). In the recently released study conducted by the Caucus of Development NGO Networks (CODE-NGO), supported by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and Washington-based Management Systems International (MIS), Philippine CSOs sustainability scored an overall of 3.3 where 1.0 is the highest and 7.0 is the lowest. It has maintained a rating of 3.3 for the past 3 years and has remained the highest rate in Asia since 2014. Bangladesh CSOs remain at second rank with the score of 3.6 and Thailand is at the lowest rank scoring 4.7.

The Seven Measures of Sustainability 

The CSO sustainability is scored by a panel of experts using seven dimensions – legal environment, organizational capacity, financial viability, advocacy, service provision, infrastructure and public image. A score of 3.3 means that the CSO sector’s sustainability is “evolving” or moderately high but does not assume a forward trajectory and may actually represent both improvements and regression in the dimensions.

The legal environment dimension has been steadily going down from 3.2 in 2014 to 3.4 in 2016 due to inaccessibility of registration offices in the regions, increasing difficulty in accessing government funds, and the perceived attempts to silence human rights groups who are critical of the government’s approaches on curtailing illegal drugs. However, the dimension with the highest drop in rating is the advocacy which slid down from 3.0 in 2014 and 2015 to 3.3 in 2016. The decline was due to 2016 being an election and transition year when former CSO champions in government have either exited from service or were no longer as vocal of CSO issues. It brought about challenges in coordinating with new heads of agencies and suspension or modification of some government programs or processes that were means for CSOs to participate in governance like the Bottom-up Budgeting Process (BuB).

Dimensions like organizational capacity (3.4) and service provision (3.0) rated the same over the past 3 years. Financial viability (4.0), infrastructure (2.9), and public image (3.2) increased since 2014 but financial viability remained the lowest rating dimension for Philippine CSOs. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and corporate philanthropy continues to grow, moving from public relation endeavors to creating greater social impact and making businesses more inclusive. It can be seen that in 2016, there was an increased local resource mobilization among community-based organizations and church-based groups, and an influx of grants for disaster response continued. However, a majority of the CSO sector is still largely reliant on international and local donor grants and there was increasing concerns in the decline of international funding from the European Union (EU), United Nations (UN) and United States (US).

The Way Forward 

The study gives CSOs the chance to examine their weaknesses and find ways to address them. The sector has continued to struggle with recovering costs for the work that it does, finding ways to diversify its income sources, and learning how to communicate more effectively to the public. It has yet to leverage its strong points in advocacy work, service provision and infrastructure support to contribute to boosting its financial viability. The prospects of civil society sector to partner with businesses and the youth in the development work that it does has not reached its full potential. CSOs must gear up, buckle up, and power up its sustainability in these challenging times of protecting our freedoms while contributing to nation-building. 

CODE-NGO has recently concluded its 2017 assessment of CSO sustainability and will be releasing the results later this year. How the 2017 political circus affected the sustainability of the civil society sector remains to be seen.

The full CSOSI 2016 report may be download from:

https://www.usaid.gov/sites/default/files/documents/1868/2016-Asia-CSOSI-Report.pdf

Tanya Zaldarriaga is the Acting Deputy Executive Director of CODE-NGO.