Background and objectives:
The project Citizens Actions and Local Leadership to Achieve MDGs in 2015 - CALL 2015 - aimed to promote transparent and accountable governance in meeting the MDGs through the engagement of citizens, especially women, in instituting anti-corruption initiatives.
The project was expected to: - Organize and capacitate MDG integrity circles composed of local citizens’ groups especially local women leaders.
- Assist citizens-government face to face dialogue and voice mechanism.
- Demonstrate and replicate sound MDG practices that promotes anti-corruption practices.
The project was part of the UNDP-UN-HABITAT partnership to localize the MDGs and campaign for good urban governance among the cities. Localization primarily involves institutionalizing key processes in local governance: performance indicators, planning, target-setting, budgeting, gender-mainstreaming, and policy-making.
Activities:
The main activities included: - Organized and capacitated MDG Integrity Circles composed of local citizens group especially local women leaders.
- Established citizens-government dialogue and voice mechanisms.
- Adapted and replicated sound MDG practices that promote transparency and accountability.
Results:
The results achieved were: - Ten integrity circles organized and capacitated in the five cities:
- The following citizens-government dialogue and voice mechanisms were established:
- In Tuguegarao City, Barangay Tagga IC conducted poverty profiling using the Community-Based Monitoring System (CBMS) as basis for identifying the development needs and priorities of the Barangay. A CALL 2015 Information Corner was installed at the Tagga Barangay Hall as part of a participatory citizen watch mechanism.
- In the Science City of Muñoz, an Integrity Circle Covenant was developed and adopted by the IC members, mostly health workers, who committed to closely monitor the delivery of basic health services to the 37 barangays in the city.
- In Pasay City, the project strengthened the integrated HOPES program for out-of-school youth, and sustained the OSY program by the city through inclusion of a budget of Php500,000 in the city’s 2008 Annual Investment Plan (AIP).
- In Dumaguete City, a survey on the quality of government service was conducted and the results disseminated through participatory community validations. Experience and lessons from the project were incorporated in the curriculum of Silliman University.
- In Cagayan de Oro City, the project complemented and was integrated into Xavier University’s advocacy programs in the area of good governance. The data and experiences generated from the engagement was a concrete input to the first dialogue mechanism at the city level.
- The experiences of the five CALL 2015 cities have been documented and a CALL 2015 Manual has been published.
