{"id":8795,"date":"2019-11-25T02:32:13","date_gmt":"2019-11-24T18:32:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/?p=8795"},"modified":"2020-02-05T04:07:54","modified_gmt":"2020-02-04T20:07:54","slug":"attacks-on-civil-society-compromise-me-and-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/attacks-on-civil-society-compromise-me-and-development\/","title":{"rendered":"Attacks on Civil Society, M&E, and Democracy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Statement delivered by IBON Foundation, representing the Reality of Aid-Asia Pacific, in the closing panel of the 8<\/em>th<\/em><\/sup> Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) Forum organized by the M&E Network Philippines and NEDA, with support from UNDP in the Philippines<\/em> (November 19 and 20, 2019<\/em>) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\nare varied stakeholders from government, development partners, civil\nsociety, academe and the private sector. Since yesterday we have been\nchallenged to reflect on how to locate and improve our practices\nwithin the larger monitoring and evaluation (M&E) ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ntheme of this 8th<\/sup>\nM&E Forum of putting \u201cWe\u201d\nin M&E<\/em> is clear\nand very welcome. We want to stand united to strengthen national\ncapacity for evidence-based decision-making. The last two days have\ninvolved rich discussion on how to improve our tools for M&E.\nThese are very important for our varied efforts to achieve\ndevelopment. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If\nonly improving tools was the only thing that mattered. This closing\npanel is the appropriate time to raise a disturbing\ngovernance-related trend that compromises not just the tools we have\nbeen talking about but the very development we all aspire to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From\n\u201cWe\u201d in M&E there is increasingly an \u201cUs\u201d in M&E.\nThis is because, in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world, the\nalarming adverse trend in governance is: \u201cIf you\u2019re not with us,\nthen you\u2019re against us\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\necosystem analogy is very appropriate. In high school, we are taught\nthat biodiversity plays an important role in the functioning of every\necosystem. Ecosystem processes are driven by the abundance of\nspecies, by the individual characteristics of species, and by the\nnumber of each species. The dynamism of ecosystems comes from\nconstant disturbances including from the different species\ninteracting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet\nin governance today and in our M&E ecosystems, our biggest\nchallenge is increasing official hostility to diversity. In\nparticular, the political climate is becoming more and more hostile\nto civil society organizations (CSOs). \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is widely recognized that civil society has a key role in meeting the ambitious sustainable development goals (SDGs). Yet the trend globally and, unfortunately, even nationally, is that civil society space is shrinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, civil society space is closing or under attack in 111 of 196 countries surveyed around the world by Civicus. Freedom of association, freedom of assembly, and freedom of expression is under attack in essentially six out of 10 countries worldwide. It is outright closed in 20 countries including Eritrea, Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, and others. It is under attack in 91 countries such as the Philippines, in nearby Indonesia, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Brunei, in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and in so many others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Reality of Aid (RoA) network has 172 member organizations including over 40 international, global and regional networks of NGOs and CSOs and 21 development cooperation agencies from donor countries of the OECD, Europe, Americas, Africa and the in the Asia Pacific. RoA member organizations here in the Philippines, such as IBON Foundation, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia and South Asia are among those under attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sadly,\ngovernments themselves are behind these. In too many countries around\nthe world, Rightist populist leaders have come to power and use the\nvast material and coercive resources of government to promote\nself-serving interpretations of the \u2018national interest\u2019. They\nhave attacked a wide range of CSOs from human rights defenders to\nhumanitarian responders. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Increasingly,\ncivil society is working in an atmosphere of fear and violence or, at\nthe very least, of suffocating legal and regulatory mechanisms.\nAttacks on civil society impede the proper functioning of democracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some\nfinal thoughts. We give such importance to M&E systems because we\nknow that information is power. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet\npower is nothing without control. When it comes to information, the\nmost important control we have to make sense of a potential glut of\ninformation is context and perspective. Civil society exists in the\nM&E ecosystem not just to add to the information available but\nalso to contribute its understanding of the development context and\nits own perspective of development issues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Critical\ncivil society is particularly important to add to the diversity of\nviews of development stakeholders and contribute to a more nuanced\nunderstanding of the social problems we face. Multiple perspectives\nare not just democratic but essential to understanding development\nprocesses and progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And if information is power, unfortunately it is also true that disinformation is power. No development stakeholder has a monopoly on truth. Too often though, the powers-that-be dis-inform or misinform for narrow self-serving ends. By its institutional nature, civil society has historically proven to be an important source of critical views to check such disinformation or misinformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lastly,\nas information is power then so too is denial of information\ndisempowering. Governments have the responsibility to ensure that\ninformation flows freely even to those \u2013 or indeed perhaps\nespecially to those \u2013 who may be coming from a different\ndevelopment experience and perspective.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The M&E ecosystem is not just about the enabling environment, institutional capacities and individual capacities. Real democracy here, as elsewhere in society, spells the difference between a desolate landscape and a lush, thriving environment. The most urgent challenge we face now is not our M&E tools needing sharpening, but the backsliding of democracy that threatens the very functioning not just of the M&E ecosystem, but of our societies. ###<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In governance today and in our M&E ecosystems, our biggest challenge is increasing official hostility to diversity. <\/p>","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":8796,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"single-withbanner.php","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_expiration-date-status":"saved","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"categories":[2048,14,961],"tags":[2105,2109,347,2110,116,2108,2112],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8795"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8803,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8795\/revisions\/8803"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibon.org\/tl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}