WORKSHOP "Building an Asian community of practice on monitoring and budget analysis"

The workshop "Building an Asian community of practice on monitoring and budget analysis" was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 9 – 11 2007. The workshop was organized by SILAKA and Social Watch in collaboration with OXFAM- Novib/KIC, and brought together 23 participants from several countries in the region (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam).

Workshop documents

The workshop "Building an Asian community of practice on monitoring and budget analysis" was held in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, July 9 – 11 2007. The workshop was organized by SILAKA and Social Watch in collaboration with OXFAM- Novib/KIC, and brought together 23 participants from several countries in the region (Bangladesh, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam).

The workshop objectives were: To build capacities on budget monitoring, social indicators, rights-based approach, advocacy and networking. To strengthen participants’ skills to better understand and make use of monitoring and evaluation instruments. To create a space for the exchange of experiences and ideas on the topics of the workshop. And to promote joint work between the organizations and consolidate a sustainable network between Watchers and other CSOs or networks.

The workshop was based on the idea of learning from the exchange of experiences, and so the different sessions included presentations from the facilitators as well as intensive work in small groups discussing the practices brought to the workshop by the participants.

The first session on the ESCR approach was facilitated by Claire Mahon (Human Rights Trainer, International Service for Human Rights - OHCHR). The morning of the second day we had a session on Monitoring facilitated by Maria Luz Anigan (Action for Economic Reform –SW Philippines) who presented the system developed by SW Philippines to monitor the MDGs at the local level. Leonor Briones (co-convenor SW Philippines) led the third section on Budget Analysis, and Daniel Macadar, Ignacio Pardo and Daniel Ciganda (SW International Secretariat) presented the Social Watch experience using Social Indicators as Advocacy Tools in the last session.

The concepts and ideas of these presentations were then used in the small group discussions to analyze the practices each of the participants implemented in their own countries.

These three days have been an excellent opportunity to learn from the expertise of our colleagues in the region. The participants have made a very good evaluation of the workshop and there are two new members in Mongolia and Vietnam willing to develop broader national coalitions in their countries.

A full report of the workshop will be available soon.