Highlights Newsletter of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines
April 26 - June 20, 2014
ULAP bridges national and local programs, facilitates dialogues with LGUs The Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines (ULAP), in partnership with national government agencies and partners from the private and civil society sector, facilitated dialogues and assisted in the development of local alliances to help local government units (LGUs) in policy and program enhancements. EDUCATION ULAP concluded its project partnership with DFAT (formerly AustralianAID) – The Asia Foundation “Coalitions for Change (CFC) on Education” on its project on “Developing a Model of Expanding Local Resources for Education in a Provincial Government”, on May 30, 2014. The three-month project explored the Provincial Government of Bohol’s Education Development Center (EDC) and its programs on how the LGU facilitates the oversight, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation work on education. In the Lessons Learned Session on held on May 27, the ULAP project team shared how Bohol’s EDC absorbs the functions that are not traditionally covered by the mandates of the Local School Board, the LGUs, and the local DepEd, which in effect harmonizes the work of these three entities, and the work of the component municipalities. The output for this CFC project will be used as ULAP’s input to several policies, such as the revision of the Special Education Fund Use guidelines and the education components of the revision of the Local Government Code. The output will also be reference for further capacity-building interventions within the Depart-
ment of Education (DepEd), so that Divisions and District Heads may be able to work with LGUs better. The project is a continuation of ULAP’s engagement with CFC; in the first phase in 2013, ULAP mapped out the needs and issues of LGUs with regard to local education governance, and conducted a policy workshop wherein Local Chief Executives gathered to give their recommendations, and committed to improving education governance in their localities. ULAP, as DepEd’s advocacy partner, has helped the agency dialogue with provinces for the implementation of the “Abot Alam” program for out-of-school youth (OSY), and the SchoolBased Feeding Program (SBFP). “Abot Alam” is a priority project of the Human Development Cluster of the Presidential Cabinet which seeks to map out all the OSYs in the country, map out the programs and opportunities that are available to them locally, and match the demand with the supply. Meanwhile, the SBFP is an agency-level initiative which seeks to curb malnourishment at the “severely wasted” category among children in public schools. For both programs, DepEd en-
From top to bottom: ULAP’s project with the Coalitions for Change: Education Convergence Summit in Bohol (April 23); TAF Deputy Country Representative Ky Johnson in the Lessons Learned Session (LLS); and the LLS sharing of project findings.
2 ULAP Highlights
April 26 - June 20, 2014
ULAP at work. [Left-most] ULAP participates in the Open Government Partnership Regional Forum in Bali, Indonesia, May 6-7. [Center and right] ULAP co-organizes the Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM) Workshop, April 29-30, wherein provincial, city, and municipal Local Chief Executives and other LGU representatives outline their priority issues and recommendations for inputs to the Mining Industry Coordinating Council policy work, and the guidelines being developed for the oversight and implementation of ASM in localities.
courages the formation of local alliances, with the LGUs at the helm. These local alliances assist in the pooling of resources to provide counterparts to respond to the needs of the OSYs and the malnourished children. On SBFP, the local alliance will provide couterparts to cover the feeding of children under the “wasted” malnourished category. ULAP will continue its engagement with DepEd on these programs. OPEN GOVERNANCE Meanwhile, ULAP participated in the Open Government Partnership (OGP) Regional Forum held on May 6-7 in Bali Indonesia, as National Steering Committee Member representing local governments. OGP is an international initiative launched in 2011 that provides international platform for domestic reformers committed towards making their governments more open, accountable and responsive to citizens. The Philippines is a founding member and one of the 64 participating countries of OGP to date. In all of these countries, government and civil society are working together to develop and implement open government reforms. In the Forum’s Closing Plenary, ULAP Executive Director Czarina Medina-Guce stressed the importance of getting the buy-in of LGUs in order to make OGP happen and relevant to citizens, that the key to effective open governments is localized reform.
In this light, USAID-DAI (who also supported the participation of the Philippine delegates to the forum), is in talks with Steering Committee Members – Department of Budget Management, ULAP, InciteGov – for the organization of regional OGP fora to help engage LGUs and local CSOs for the localization of OGP initiatives, and to gather inputs for the next Philippine OGP Action Plan, which will be co-created by the national and local governments and civil society organizations.
the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), among other partners working on the extractive industries issue.
EXTRACTIVE INDUSTRIES
In the workshop, Local Chief Executives and representatives from provincial, city, and municipal governments, outlined their priority issues and recommendations for the policy and reporting guidelines on artisanal and small scale mining. The outputs of the consultation are carried by ULAP to the MICC for the formulation of policies that are responsive to the needs on the ground.
In its capacity as LGU representative to the Mining Industry Coordinating Council (MICC), ULAP co-organized the Artisanal and Small-Scale Mining Workshop, April 29-30, which was conducted with the support of the Philippine Poverty Environment Initiative, the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG),
Furthermore, ULAP also assisted the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) on its workshop held on May 15-16. The workshop was meant to introduce the reporting guidelines and other policies to the LGUs, in preparation for the first EITI report to be completed at the end of the year.
For more information on our programs and policy work, and for partnerships, please contact us through any of the following: UNION OF LOCAL AUTHORITIES OF THE PHILIPPINES Unit 2803 Summit One Tower, 530 Shaw Boulevard, Mandaluyong City Tel. Nos. (063-2) 718-1812, 717-1810, 534-6787 Telefax (063-2) 534-6789 Email ulapnatsec@gmail.com Website www.ulap.net.ph Facebook www.facebook.com/ulap.org.ph