| What does "Gotong Royong" mean? |
"Gotong Royong" is a concept familiar to many parts of Indonesia and Malaysia. Translated into English, it evokes the concepts of "reciprocity" and "mutual aid".
We use the term "Gotong Royong" to refer to the idea of doing things together and helping each other in the spirit of goodwill. |
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| Dear Maricel, |
Welcome to ANGOC Gotong Royong, the e-newsletter of the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC).
We welcome your feedback on any of the articles that appear here. We also invite you to send updates on your programs and on the socio-political situation in your country, as well as developments in agrarian reform, sustainable agriculture, and participatory governance, among others.
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Food crisis, WB-CSO engagement tackled at WB workshop
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Around 40 civil society organizations (CSOs) that participated at the East Asia Pacific World Bank-CSO Regional Workshop held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 18-20 June 2008 proposed specific recommendations to the World Bank on four major areas, namely: (1) the Food Crisis in the Region; (2) the World Bank's Regional Strategy in the East Asia Pacific Region; (3) Modalities of Engagement between CSOs and the World Bank; and (4) Youth Unemployment and Job Creation. The following is a list of CSO recommendations on the food crisis and the World Bank's regional strategy in the East Asia Pacific Region. CANGO, PhilDHRRA (as represented by CARRD), Star Kampuchea and ANGOC participated in this event.
On the Food Crisis
- Determine the root cause of the food crisis in the region, whether it is caused by the unavailability of food or by imperfect food distribution policy;
- Acknowledge that majority of Asia's rural poor are still landless or do not have access to productive land (these landless poor are the marginalized farmers and tenants), and the fact that governments tend to favor large-scale commercial agriculture and not smallholder agriculture; help improve access by Asia's rural poor to land as a key component of the strategy to address the food crisis and ensure smallholder viability;
- Review policies that abet the shift in land use in agriculture from food to non-food crops and from agriculture to commercial or industrial use, and conduct this review in the context of agrarian reform; and
- Assess the costs and benefits of increased bio-fuel production, which is one of the factors behind the surge in food prices.
On the World Bank's East Asia Pacific Regional Strategy
Supporting Middle Income Countries
- Influence emerging official development assistance (ODA) players in the region (China, India, Korea) to increase the political space for CSOs. The Bank should also promote government compliance with OECD standards on operational issues (such as on procurement, environmental-social safeguards, gender, etc.);
- Incorporate CSO input in project decision making (such as through a steering committee mechanism). This should be part of the loan arrangement, especially in countries where the political space is restricted;
- Sustain engagement with CSOs on country and regional strategies (such as through an advisory committee at regional level);
- Include stronger equity based performance indicators; and
- Engage religious leaders, academic institutions, and the media to address issues of development values amidst economic growth.
Supporting Low-Income Countries and Fragile States
- Take the local context into consideration in providing support to countries;
- Support the private sector, both the informal sector and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), by helping create an enabling business environment as well as by providing technical assistance support;
- Support a positive engagement between CSOs and governments at all levels on access to land and agrarian issues. The World Bank, governments, and CSOs should engage in the discussion about land administration;
- Support the sharing of lessons learned among CSOs in the region;
- Support regular joint analysis of economic and social conflict across the region;
- Set up a regional program for the next generation of CSO leaders;
- Support CSOs in performing a watchdog role on public financial management;
- Update indigenous political structures and adapt these for rural communities;
- Strengthen and facilitate access to funding for CSO activities;
- Address women/gender issues in its assistance strategies;
- Reinforce and strengthen the application in-country of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Beijing Platform for Action;
- Ensure that its regional strategy addresses the vulnerabilities facing women and children, especially in fragile states and post-conflict situations;
- Promote participatory approaches to development (both in planning and implementation stage) at the community level;
- Support the increased participation of women in the decision making process;
- Advocate for the right to access information, especially of rural communities;
- Strengthen access to mass media as a channel to communicate to rural and remote communities; and
- Work more closely with other donors to prioritize the issues of the respective countries, and thereby promote greater effectiveness of aid.
Knowledge Sharing
- Support development communications, especially in promoting behavioral change in regard to education and health-related issues;
- Provide a platform for knowledge sharing between itself and CSOs;
- Involve CSOs in monitoring and evaluation of World Bank projects. Otherwise, information would be restricted to the the project implementing units. Promoting transparency in World Bank-financed projects is in itself a form of knowledge exchange;
- Offer small grants to CSOs that support knowledge exchange and capacity building;
- Build capacity within academic institutions to enable them to reinvent themselves as centers of knowledge exchange;
- Replicate the Knowledge Development Centers (KDCs) -satellite network of the World Bank's Public Information Centers (PICs) - in the Philippines in other countries. These centers promote information and knowledge sharing at the community level; and
- Explore the possibility of establishing trust funds for CSOs. This may help build partnerships between CSOs and the different development partners. Government administered trust funds tend to exclude CSO participation.
On World Bank Engagement with CSOs
- Make provisions for World Bank-CSO engagement in Country Assistance/Partnership Strategies;
- Allocate funds for independent monitoring of projects financed by the World Bank;
- Establish mechanisms or use existing ones to: (1) enable World Bank-CSO engagement to move beyond consultation toward dialogue and partnership; (2) ensure that recommendations from civil society get followed up; (3) facilitate joint learning with CSOs, for example, through staff exchange programs; (4) enable public access to relevant Bank information; (5) promote the sharing of information, e.g., regular meetings
- Develop a long-term strategy to engage CSOs, especially those at grassroots level;
- Hold country-level dialogues to complement the World Bank's engagement with CSOs at the regional level;
- Ensure that mechanisms of knowledge sharing are as inclusive as possible yet are inexpensive, utilizing the web technology to access of information and feedback;
- Disclose information on loans marred by fraud and corruption, e.g., loans taken out by the Suharto government in Indonesia;
- Ensure that high-level Bank officials are involved in the engagement with CSOs, rather than just junior staff. Country offices should be adequately staffed to engage CSOs;
- In the interest of joint decision-making: (1) CSOs should be involved in policy-making, e.g., by enabling them to take part in designing the methodology, defining the scope of the problem, and developing the key questions, and assessing country-level problem; and (2) the Bank should hold a regional consultation, where findings would be discussed further. The regional strategy would be developed based on this consultation;
- Create opportunities for CSO involvement in overseeing the procurement process;
- Support CSO network strengthening at the national and provincial levels; and
- Build CSO capacity on internal governance; advocacy techniques.
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Make landlessness a poverty indicator, say CSOs to the ADB
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 "Access to land" was the focus of the dialogue between Asian Development Bank (ADB) officials and Land Watch Asia (LWA) partners held on 11 June 2008 at the ADB Headquarters in Manila, Philippines. The dialogue, organized by the Asian NGO Coalition for Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ANGOC), in partnership with International Land Coalition (ILC) gave the LWA partners in six Asian countries the opportunity to apprise the ADB of issues and challenges in their respective countries that have an impact on efforts to secure access by the poor to land, and to propose ways or modes of engaging with the ADB to address such issues.
ANGOC reported the findings of its initial study on ADB's policies that impact on access to land. Among the ADB policy documents reviewed in the ANGOC study were: Strategy 2020; Fighting Poverty in Asia and the Pacific: The Poverty Reduction Strategy; Gender and Development; Safeguard Policies; Forestry Policy; and the Country Partnership Strategies for the countries under LWA.
Four recommendations were put forward to the Bank, as follows:
- Enhance the engagement between the ADB and civil society organizations (CSOs) on land issues both at regional and country level by convening regular dialogues, conducting studies on land, and greater CSO involvement in monitoring ADB policies and strategies, including the Country Partnership Strategies (CPSs);
- Integrate landlessness as an indicator in poverty monitoring within the ADB;
- Convene regular workshops on specific topics, like the food crisis and land administration, in order to heighten the Bank's appreciation of land issues;and
- Continuously and constructively engage with CSOs to explore the possibility of formulating a land policy.
The LWA network was established, through ANGOC's initiative, to: (1) assess and analyze current issues affecting access to land; (2) enhance CSO advocacy strategies; and (3) act on emerging challenges and opportunities. LWA was forged among organizations advocating for access to land in six Asian countries, namely Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Nepal and the Philippines.
ANGOC members participated in this dialogue, namely, Star Kampuchea (Cambodia), AVARD and SARRA (India), Bina Desa (Indonesia), and PhilDHRRA (Philippines).
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ASEAN gets pointers from WB, ADB on engaging CSOs
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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is seeking to improve its relations with civil society organizations (CSOs), and held a workshop last 20 June 2008 in Jakarta to learn from the experience of the World Bank (WB) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in dealing with these groups.
 Dr. Surin Pitsuwan, ASEAN Secretary-General, said at the start of this workshop that "ASEAN needs the support [of] civil society to facilitate the transformation of ASEAN into a people-oriented organization." The ASEAN's efforts to re-style itself were apparently inspired by its ongoing collaboration with the WB in assisting the cyclone victims in Myanmar.
Joachim von Amsberg, the WB Country Director for Indonesia, said that the WB regards its partnership with CSOs as key to ensuring accountability of the government," and thus plans to expand its engagement with CSOs in order to assist governments in their national development.
Fr. Francis Lucas, ANGOC Chairperson, cited the lessons learned from ANGOC from its long history of critical engagement with organizations like the WB and ADB, pointing out the benefits of working with NGOs and CSOs, and proposed areas of cooperation between ANGOC and ASEAN.
Nhek Sarin, Executive Director of Star Kampuchea, an ANGOC member, made a number of recommendations to improve the relationship and engagement between Cambodian CSOs, in particular, and ASEAN. Among others, he proposed that the ASEAN encourages CSO participation in ASEAN's policy-making processes, and that ASEAN creates more opportunities for Cambodian CSOs to be involved in dialogue and cooperation projects of ASEAN.
Mr. Termsak Chalermpalanupap informed the workshop participants that the ASEAN is drafting the rules of procedure (ROP) for engaging entities associated with ASEAN. Among others, the ROP would be guided by the following principles and suggestions:
- Openness as the rule, and restriction, the exception;
- That the ASEAN Secretariat should "informally share" the draft ROP with the CSOs for their comments and suggestions; and
- Each ASEAN Member State may consult CSOs first before finalizing and adopting the ROP at the ASEAN level.
The workshop participants proposed the following measures to reform the ASEAN's CSO accreditation procedures:
- The accreditation guidelines are restrictive, and should be relaxed to create more opportunities for participation and engagement;
- The ASEAN Secretariat should include modalities of engagement in the Guidelines; and
- There should be channels and opportunities for those not affiliated with ASEAN but interested in ASEAN's activities to engage ASEAN.
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Philippine Catholic Church takes on role as pro-poor mediator
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A sustained role for the Catholic Church of intervening in issues that concern the rural poor was one of the recommendations that came out of the Second National Rural Congress (NRC-II) held on 7-8 July 2008 in San Carlos Seminary, Mandaluyong City, Philippines. The NRC-II was organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP), whose support for populist causes has been a decisive factor to the success of many advocacy campaigns. More than 300 participants representing the rural poor and the clergy participated in the NCR-II. The Co-Chair of the NRC-II is Archbishop Antonio J. Ledesma, S.J., former Chairperson of ANGOC. PhilDHRRA is an active member of the Rural Poor Solidarity (RPS), which provided technical support to the NRC-II Secretariat.
Among its priority recommendations, the NCR-II declared its support for the extension of the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program (CARP) with major reforms, and the enactment of a new land reform law.
On behalf of small fisherfolk, the NCR-II called for the strict implementation of the Fisheries Code, including a review of its provisions to plug loopholes in its implementation. The fisherfolk representatives to the Congress also identified specific issues such as landlessness and the use of destructive fishing methods, and proposed that measures be undertaken to enhance the capacities of the fisherfolk sector, including training, organizing, and partnership-building within the sector, to address these issues.
The indigenous peoples (IPs) appealed among others for recognition of their customary laws and culture, stricter enforcement and review of the Indigenous People's Rights Act (IPRA), which governs IP land claims.
The rural women asked all concerned agencies and institutions to provide more support to respond to the special needs of women, such as the issue of domestic violence, access to basic social services, livelihood, health, family planning and awareness-building on women's rights.
Other recommendations were put forward to address wide-ranging but distinctive concerns of the labor sector, informal urban settlers, persons with disabilities (PWDs), the elderly, small rural traders, migrants and their families, and the informal sector.
The consensus among the participants was that the Church should assume the role of facilitator - "a moderator or an intermediary that nurtures a platform for interaction among the rural poor, the government, civil society and the private sector."
An important proposal was the creation of an "institutionalized dialogue," or a process and venue where the rural poor can continually and sustainably interact with the Bishops and the Catholic Church. There was also a recommendation to activate specialized desks in the Church structure that may be able to specifically implement sectoral or thematic work at the parish, diocesan, regional and national levels.
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