Philippine CSOs present position at multi-stakeholders forum on aid effectiveness

Last June 2, Philippine Civil Society Organizations represented by AidWatch Philippines and the Council for People's Development and Governance (CPDG) were able to present their statement for the Busan High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness which will happen on November 29-December 1 this year, in the Multi-stakeholders forum on aid effectiveness.

The multi-stakeholders forum was facilitated by the Philippine Harmonization Committee on Aid Effectiveness and was attended by the National Economic Development Authority- Project Monitoring Staff (NEDA-PMS), Department of Finance, Representative Luzviminda Ilagan of Gabriela Partylist, a representative from the office of Kabataan Partylist Representative Raymond Palatino, donor agencies US Aid, World Bank, Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the German KFW Bankengruppe and the United Nations and CSOs.

In the statement presented by Jazminda Lumang of AidWatch, the CSOs calls were:

1. Fully evaluate and deepen the Paris and Accra commitments through ensuring reforms based on democratic ownership. This can be done through giving emphasis on the agency of citizens, communities and marginalized groups in constructing their own paths to development by giving more space for locally-defined goals and locally-led strategies that better reflect people’s aspiration, practices and knowledge and allow for greater democratic participation. We demand particularly the government for accountability mechanisms on ensuring that ODA and development programs reflect the interest and truly benefit the people especially the marginalized segments and in ensuring that ODA is free from corruption.

2. Strengthen Development Effectiveness through development cooperation practices that promote human rights and focus on the eradication of poverty and inequality. The government and development partners must commit to and implement rights-based approaches to development focusing their attention to the most marginalized people and people living in poverty; ensuring inclusive participation and empowerment and upholding of the right to development; promote and implement gender equality and women’s rights; and implement a decent work (and decent wage) agenda.

3. Affirm and ensure the participation of the full diversity of CSOs in the Philippines as independent development actors in their own right in development cooperation processes.

• Enact and support House Bill 3230 which provides for greater democratic ownership in the country’s official development assistance and ensuring the role of CSOs in development cooperation.
• Recognize the Istanbul Principles as basis for context-specific assessment of CSO contributions to development.
• Commit to creating an enabling environment for CSOs for them to reach their full potential as development actors. Basic enabling mechanisms for CSOs must be in place in keeping with international human rights guarantees, including freedom of association, freedom of expression, the right to operate free from unwarranted state interference, the right to communicate and cooperate, the right to seek and secure funding, and the state’s duty to protect its people.

4. Promote an equitable and just development cooperation architecture that is inclusive, rights-based and democratic.

• Work for an inclusive Busan Compact for Development Effectiveness at the HLF IV – consistent with human rights conventions and covenants involving all stakeholders – governments, donors, multi-lateral institutions, parliamentarians, local governments and civil society.
• Recognize CSOs especially women’s organizations, social partners and grass roots organizations as full members in the formal structures of a new development architecture, along with governments and other defined development stakeholders.
• Create an equitable and inclusive multi-stakeholders forum for policy dialogue enabling and supporting situations where people can exercise sovereignty over their own process of development, where the voice of the marginalized groups are given space and heard, supporting and ensuring economic, social, political and cultural institutions are accountable, inclusive, participatory and democratic.

(Please read the whole statement here.)

Aside from AidWatch, CPDG and the Reality of Aid, the CSOs present were  the Council for Health and Development, Health Alliance for Democracy, Community Medicine Development Foundation, Ecumenical Institute for Labor Education and Research, Center for Women's Resources, Citizens Disaster Response Center, AGHAM (Advocates of Science and Technology for the People), Kalipunan ng mga Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMP), NARS ng Bayan, Med-herbal Pharmacy and the Center for Development Programs in the Cordillera.