The Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) through its Local Government Academy (LGA) yesterday launched a program that would enlist the active participation of civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-government organizations (NGOs) in local governance.
Dubbed as “Vigilance to Volunteerism: A Program Intensifying People’s Engagement in Local Governance (V2V PIPELOG)”, the program was launched with the signing of a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with program partners Caucus of Development NGO Networks (Code-NGO) and Philippine Partnership for the Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA) at the SEAMEO Innotech in Quezon City.
DILG Undersecretary for Local Government Austere Panadero representing DILG Secretary Jesse M. Robredo signed the MOA for the DILG.
The MOA was signed during the “Participatory Governance Forum” organized by Code NGO and attended by officials from the DILG, LGA, Code-NGO and PhilDHRRA and other development partners.
Panadero said the program aims to improve the state of local governance through integrating civil society organizations (CSOs) and non-government organizations (NGOs) in local government processes and enlisting their active participation in governance.
He said the project has four components to encourage inclusive and sustainable collaborations as follows:
1. CSO Mappingwill develop a baseline data of all CSOs working with LGUs.
2. Local Special Bodies (LSBs) Strengthening, orientation and collaborative activities with CSOs will be conducted to help increase their membership in local development council (LDC) committees.
3. Volunteerism Programwill encourage volunteerism among citizens and CSOs by participating in immersion activities in LGUs.
4. Guardians of Good Local Governancewill develop a performance evaluation and feedback mechanism that will help the national government assess LGU performance with CSOs as main partners of the government.
The project will bridge the gap to address the need to ignite culture of volunteerism and community involvement for sustainable and progressive development of local governments.
The V2V PIPELOG will focus on promoting NGOs and CSOs active engagement in local governance not just on local planning but through research study, institutional capacity building of CSOs and LGUs, policy reforms, volunteerism programs and technical assistance, network building and performance evaluation and feedback.
The V2V PIPELOG is also supported by some development partners such as the Agencia Espanola de Cooperacion Internacional para el Desarollo (AECID) of the Spanish Government and the European Commission (EC). ###
