Reform Advocacy Campaigns in the Philippines and Beyond

Since 2012, I have been providing advice and analysis to the Coalitions for Change (CfC) program in the Philippines, a program which operates through a partnership between the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and The Asia Foundation (TAF). Inspired by the ideas of 'doing development differently' and 'thinking and working politically' promoted by critics of mainstream development policies and programs, Coalitions for Change in the Philippines sponsors and supports a wide range of advocacy campaigns focused on reforms in a wide range of policy areas. CfC has sponsored or supported advocacy groups and coalitions working for various kinds of economic reform, education reform, electoral reform, housing reform, land governance reform, tax reform, transport and infrastructure reform, disaster risk reduction and management, and conflict resolution in the southern Philippines. 

My role in CfC has been that of 'action research' and provision of advice and analysis, undertaking periodic visits to the Philippines to examine ongoing reform advocacy initiatives and activities, to suggest ways to enhance tactics and strategies, to evaluate proposals for new reform initiatives, and to analyse -- both in medias res and retrospectively -- the conditions and processes which have variously enabled and constrained CfC's efforts to promote policy reforms in the Philippines. Here the goal is not only to assist CfC in its work in the Philippines but also to amplify the