Session 3: What were the facilitating and hindering factors to learning and adapting towards strategic/ vertically-integrated citizen action?

1. G-Watch Study on
Vertically-Integrated Initiatives
MAVC – G-Watch Learning Event
Astoria Plaza, Ortigas, Pasig City
17 August 2017
____________________________________
An Overview

2. The highlights of the G-
Watch study on vertical
integration are contained
in a research report that
was released in October
2016.
g-watch.org
RESEARCH REPORT
DECEMBER 2016
Joy Aceron and Francis Isaac
Going vertical: citizen-led
reform campaigns in the
Philippines

3. Transparency, participation,
accountability (TPA) have
been used to address
governance challenges and
issues.
However, not all TPA actions
have been successful in
achieving sustainable change.
Research Puzzle

4. Why are certain TPA actions
more successful than others?

5. Teduray-Lambaingan Women’s
Organiza6on (TLWOI)
Buklod Tao/ Center for Disaster
Preparedness (CDP)/ DRRNetPhils
Katarungan/ RIGHTS NETWORK
Alterna6ve Law Group/
Anislagan Bantay Kalikasan Task
Force (ABAKATAF)
Damayan ng Maralitang Pilipinong
Api, Inc. (DAMPA)
G-Watch’s Textbook Count
Likhaan/ Reproduc6ve Health
Advocacy Network (RHAN)

6. • Effective implementation of a law.
• Passage of a law/ amendment of a law.
• Effective oversight/ accountability of a
program preventing corruption and
ensuring efficiency.
• Advancement and protection of rights.
• Effective push back against abuse,
violation of rights, discrimination and
disempowerment.
• Broad coalition of empowered citizens that
have been mobilized and activated.
Gains

7. 1. Cognizant of how power is structured and exercised
• Purpose of TPA actions exists in a context of power
2. Multi-level
• Strategy of organizing civil society action cognizant of how power is structured and exercised
• Effective oversight by covering all critical levels of governance
3. Multi-actor (broad, diverse, coalitional)
4. Wide variety of actions
• Scale through coalition building and by “connecting the dots” 5.
5. Society-state interface
• Transformation of the state/ system change
• Sustainable change through systems improvement/ policy change through advocacy using a wide
variety of actions
• Root causes, not only symptoms by ‘transforming power’ through “virtuous circles” of “state-society
synergy”
6. Citizen-led
Common Features

8. Tactical Social Accountability
• It is usually based on the "linear" and "simplistic" logic of "transparency + participation =
accountability" that disregards the complexity of context and power dynamics.
• Weak impact: ‘low accountability traps,’ ‘squeezing of the balloon,’ low political clout.
Strategic Social Accountability
It uses an ‘eco-system’ perspective wherein accountability is viewed as complex,
consisting of many inter-related parts that operates in a context of power
(“accountability politics”).
Tactical vs. Strategic Social Accountability

9. “New insights from research and practice suggest that more strategic and
system-wide thinking about accountability systems and pro-accountability
efforts, grounded in an appreciation of the power dynamics involved in
accountability relationships, is more promising.”
Brendan Halloran (Accountability Ecosystem)
“(W)hile the existing empirical evidence is mixed, strategic approaches seem
more promising… Strategic approaches to Sacc bolster enabling environments
for collective action, scale up citizen engagement beyond the local arena and
attempt to bolster governmental capacity to respond to voice.”
Jonathan Fox
(Social Accountability: What Does the Evidence Really Say?)

10. The study used vertical integration as a framework
to analyze seven citizen-led initiatives.
“Vertical integration refers here to the
systematic coordination of policy
monitoring and advocacy between diverse
levels of civil society, from local to state,
national, and international arenas. One
can find these vertical linkages either in
specific sectoral issue areas such as
reproductive rights or the defense of
biodiversity or in broader, multisectoral
campaigns that cut across issue areas.”
(Jonathan Fox 2011: 617)

12. Template for mapping CSO constituency-building across scale
CONSTITUENCY-BUILDING
LEVEL OF ACTION
Constituency-building
approaches:
Very local
(community/
school)
District/ City/
Municipality
State/
province
National International
Grassroots organizing/
awareness-building
Coalition-building among
already-organized, shared
constituency
Cross-sectoral coalition-
building
Mass collective action/protest
Public education strategy
Independent CSO monitoring of
policy implementation
Horizontal exchange of
experiences/deliberation
Participatory process to
develop CSO policy alternative
Strategic use of ICT for
constituency-building

13. Template for mapping CSO interfaces with the state across scale
INTERFACE
WITH THE STATE
LEVEL OF ACTION
CSO interfacing with the state:
Very local
(community,
village,
neighborhood)
District/ City/
municipality
State/
Province
National International
Policy advocacy – executive
authorities
(mayor, governor, etc.)
Policy advocacy – legislature (town
council, state legislature, parliament)
Legal recourse (case-based or
strategic)
Participation in “invited
spaces” [shared but government-
controlled]
Participation in “claimed
spaces” [shared with government,
created in response to CSO initiative]
Engagement with public accountability
agencies (ombudsman, audit bureaus,
human rights commissions)

14. Salamat Po!

15. This study is largely informed by
recent discussions in the
transparency, participation and
accountability (TPA) field that
distinguishes tactical and
strategic approaches to TPA.
Background and Rationale

16. These factors are too general to inform future actions.
However…
• “Silver bullets”/ “panacea”
proposition
• Context as a factor is not
grappled with convincingly
• Effects/ results are always a
product of confluence of
factors combined at a given
time in a given context

17. Because it is able to bring out the complexity of an
initiative:
Ø The combination of actors and actions at a given
level.
Ø The intensity of action at a given scale.
Those details could highlight the differences of
context:
Ø The politico-economic condition per level.
Ø The power structure per level.
Ø The governance infrastructure per level.
Why vertical integration?

18. Context is likely to affect:
Ø State-society relationship (How does
society makes use of the mechanisms of the
government? How does the state react to
societal forces?)
Ø Society-society relationship (How do actors
in society interact with one another? How do
organizations expand their base?)
Understanding the context and how it affects
the configuration and intensity of action can
better inform future strategies and
actions, increasing the likelihood of
success.

19. Section 1: Joy Aceron and Francis Isaac explains the background to the study, the selection of the
case studies, and the use of vertical integration as a conceptual framework.
Section 2: Jonathan Fox introduces the concept of vertical integration and discusses some of the
important propositions on why it is effective.
Section 3: Aceron and Isaac discusses the evolution of civil society and social accountability initiatives
in the Philippines.
Section 4:, An overview of the seven case studies are presented, which focus on civil society-led
reform initiatives on education (Aceron), agrarian reform (Isaac and Danilo Carranza), housing
(Benedict Nisperos and Frederick Vincent Marcelo), mining (Nisperos and Rhia Muhi), indigenous rights
(Nisperos and Romeo Saliga), reproductive health (Malon Cornelio) and disaster resilience (Cornelio).
Section 5: Isaac and Aceron synthesizes the seven cases by drawing lessons about vertically
integrated social accountability reform campaigns.

20. 1. General scanning of the history of state-society engagement in the Philippines in introducing reforms and
strengthening governance accountability:
• “Bibingka Strategy” - employed by social movements in introducing policy change.
• Social Accountability (SAcc) - became popular alongside the mainstreaming of the anti-corruption
agenda.
2. Identified campaigns that have been “relatively successful” in terms of:
• passage of progressive policies;
• ensuring representation and voice of marginalized sectors; and
• accounting for government spending/ service delivery (particularly those recognized internationally).
3. Scanned initiatives that:
• have national prominence (Manila and more than five localities/ represented in national policy-making
bodies with local chapters);
• are willing to take part in the study/ accessible to the researchers; and
• diversity of issues/ sectors engaged or empowered/ modalities.
Selecting the Cases

21. Going Vertical points to the need
for synergy of actions and tactics
that have been dichotomized and
divided: between advocacy and
monitoring; between contentious
politics and constructive
engagement; between reform
spaces in state and society; and
between governance reforms and
substantive/ rights-based reforms.

22. There is something missing in the analysis.

23. SCALE

24. The “success” of policy monitoring and advocacy initiatives
have often been attributed to four general factors:
ü “Champions” on top
ü Mobilization from
below
ü Partnership/
engagement between
state and societal
factors
ü Leadership