In development work, “IEC” (Information, Education, Communication) is critical. It is that stairway that connects the heavens to the earth. It pulls you to the ground and helps you optimize the limitations of your audience. The World Health Organization defines IEC as “an approach that seeks to change or reinforce a set of behaviors in…
Warning: The following is based on my own understanding of the presentation. For validation, visit the website of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA). Call me an idiot for starting a column with a “warning”, but I rather be safe than sorry. Last week, I was in Manila for the Knowledge for Development Community…
Social media has seen the peak of citizenship participation. It has challenged barriers to the full exercise of freedom of speech. What on one end is a platform for self-expression is a catalyst for community action on the other. Social media has become a convenient internet street to where citizens actively take their issues and…
Many misconstrue consumer activism for radicalism. It is not. One serves to increase awareness and initiate action for common good; the other can be considered blind adherence to principles often depicted as misguided and self-absorbed. In a consumer summit I attended in Manila sometime November this year, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) highlighted…
John Garrison, civil society specialist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, made a good point. He said when he started working in the Bank, he was always corrected as regards his take on curbing poverty: “Reduce, not eradicate.” Those two words (“reduce” and “eradicate”) might seem the same. After all, either way, the intent…
My 2 cents: Question: There may be constraints that hinder considerations for investments in structural and non-structural measures. Cities that have not been able to prepare themselves for the effects of extreme weather have suffered severe disruption that will take decades to overcome. No action means the expected costs to cities will be high. The…
John Garrison, civil society specialist at the World Bank in Washington, DC, made a good point. He said when he started working in the Bank, he was always corrected: “Reduce, not eradicate” poverty. Those two words might seem the same. After all, either way, the intent remains: to do something about poverty. However you look…
What is a civil society organization (CSO)? I can’t say I know. I continue to struggle to define it. Some conveniently associate it with a non-government organization. It can be an indigenous peoples group, a faith-based organization, a trade union or a university. Their creation can be incidental or responsive. Not all may even know…
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