The Philippines is home to some of the known approaches and innovation on Transparency-Participation-Accountability (TPA). It has received numerous international recognitions for its TPA work; and some of its leaders are known international actors in the TPA field.
Yet, sustaining the gains of TPA action remains a challenge in the Philippines and there is a feeling that efforts to reform/ transform governance and politics in the country are now stuck. Change takes a long time and for innovative solutions to take effect, what was started must be sustained. Sustaining the gains of TPA action until they achieve their desired impact and become irreversible changes in governance and politics is a challenge that must be grappled with in the Philippines to move forward in deepening democracy. Both government and civil society efforts confront peculiar challenges that have yet to be fully understood and addressed.
Making All Voices Count (MAVC) is a global program that supports innovation and use of technology that has the potential to support better governance. It also supports research and learning that help build a base of evidence about what works and why in using innovation for accountable governance.
G-Watch is formerly a social accountability program of a university founded in 2001 that is currently rebooting, in transition to being an independent national action research organization embedded in constituencies of civic and advocacy-oriented organizations all over the Philippines aiming to contribute in the deepening of democracy through the scaling of accountability and citizen empowerment.
G-Watch is currently undertaking an action research on the role of adaptive learning and strategic citizen action on sustaining reforms. In particular, it aims to write a think piece on how the ‘gains’ of the MAVC program in the Philippines can be sustained using an alternative approach or perspective on tackling sustainability premised on strategic citizen action.
The forum-workshop aims to discuss and reflect on the key lessons learned, evidence and gains on adaptive learning, strategic citizen action and use of digital technologies generated through MAVC support in the Philippines. It particularly targets MAVC grantees but are also inviting other relevant stakeholders as participants.
The output of the forum-workshop is a documentation report on the highlights of the discussion that will be used as reference to the research being conducted by G-Watch on the role of adaptive learning and strategic citizen action on sustaining reforms.