Browse our latest documents and publications covering G-Watch Monitoring Manuals, Governance Reform Studies, Political Democracy and Reforms (PODER) Publications, and Vertical Integration Research.
This report shares the highlights of the pilot implementation of the Strengthening the Sangguniang Kabataan (SK) as an Accountability Mechanism in Local Governance or the #SKasGWatch Project and the documentation of its final activity, the learning exchange in January 2020, that brought together the project team and lead volunteer-monitors in the three pilot sites for an assessment and reflection. Implemented from November 2018 to January 2020, #SKasGWatch is an initiative of Government Watch (G-Watch) in collaboration of Canada Fund for Local Initiatives (CFLI) and Accountability Research Center (ARC) that aims to enable the SKs in engaging key poverty reduction programs of the government to advance the accountability and responsiveness of poverty reduction programs.
This paper explains why and how a reform program that opened up spaces for participatory budgeting was ultimately unable to result in pro-citizen power shifts that transformed governance. The study reviews the design and implementation of Bottom-Up Budgeting (BuB), the nationwide participatory budgeting (PB) program in the Philippines, which ran from 2012 to 2016 under the Benigno Aquino government. The findings underscore the importance of institutional design to participatory governance reforms. BuB’s goal was to transform local government by providing more space for civil society organizations (CSOs) to co-identify projects with the government and to take part in the budgeting process, but it did not strengthen CSO or grassroots capacity to hold their Local Government Units (LGUs) accountable.
This short paper briefly looks at Balangay and how it was developed as a useful application of digital technology to address a specific governance problem of Legazpi City. It also examines the challenges that Legazpiitfaces in enabling strategic collective action to promote responsive and accountable governance.
In a nutshell, Balangay is a cloud-based information system that aims to provide “prompt, reliable and understandable information” regarding various natural disasters that may threaten the Legazpi City, such as typhoons, flooding, landslides, earthquakes,and volcanic eruptions. It comes in the form of a web and mobile app that is meant to help prepare the City’s residents for any possible calamity.
How can ordinary citizens pressure local officialstorespond to their demands? The people from the province of North Cotabato in Mindanao seemsto have found a solution and areisattempting to further enhance it.
This case is about how an organization attempts a strategic shift: from pressure/ protest-only approach to employing an integrated approach: pressure politics and constructive engagement. This case investigates what the enabling factors were of such a strategic shift and the challenges involved in going through with it. Since the strategic shift also involved the use of digital technology as facilitated by a global program (Making All Voices Count), the case also reflects on when and how digital technology worked (in this case, did not work) to support the work of an organization.
Going Vertical is a result of action-research collaboration between Government Watch (G-Watch) and the Accountability Research Center (ARC) on multi-level citizen action for accountability. This book investigates how one strategic approach to citizen accountability - vertical integration - enabled seven reform initiatives in the Philippines to gain meaningful results.