Welcoming Remarks

Your Excellency Ms. Veronica Felix Villavicencio, Deputy Director General of the National Anti-Poverty Commission of the Republic of the Philippines, Ms. Patricia Ludowyk from AusAID, Mr. Abdurrahman Binsyeh from the ASEAN Secretariat, Honorable Representatives of ASEAN Member Countries, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Allow me introduce myself. My name is Mayling Oey-Gardiner, and I am the Director of Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera, a social science research and consulting firm based in Jakarta, Indonesia. We are here in conjunction with representatives from the Australian National University in Canberra Australia, working together on the ASEAN – Australia Social Safety Net Project.

On behalf of IHS and the ANU, I would like to take this opportunity to welcome you all here today to this, the second of four regional workshops under this project to be hosted in the ASEAN member countries. We can see some familiar faces from our first workshop in Jakarta, welcome back to you, and a very warm welcome to all those whom we will come to know over the next few days. We are particularly pleased at the response from the ASEAN member countries in sending full teams of participants. We hope that you will have a worthwhile experience.

As indicated in the Briefing Note sent to the Focal Points in each member country, these workshops were set up based on a request by ASEAN to the Australian Agency for International Development following the onset of the Asian Regional Economic Crisis. The workshops are geared to respond to some of the questions regarding Social Safety Net and Social Protection programs during the crisis by addressing key issues in design, coordination and service delivery. Following from the Jakarta workshop on Targeting, this workshop will focus on Service Delivery and Related Operational Issues. The last two workshops will be held in Thailand and Malaysia later this year and in early 2002. In all of these workshops we want to place a special emphasis on the sharing of experiences and best practices in this area among Member Countries while taking into account their relative strengths and weaknesses.

Your participation is critical and we hope that you are all prepared to actively engage in an intense and productive two days of work. Over the next two days, we have four sessions, each comprising 3 parts. These are an Introductory Presentation and Discussion, a series of Break-out Sessions, and a brief Plenary Session where Breakout Groups can report back on their discussions. At the end of each day we will have an overall Wrap-Up Session to synthesize key findings and lessons learned during the day. Active participation by each delegate will enable everybody to benefit from a sharing of our collective experiences. Your input to this workshop will determine its success and the extent to which each person can bring back benefits to their own countries and places of work.

Given limitations on numbers of participants at each workshop, we also hope that over the series, benefits can be shared among as many people as possible, particularly among those directly involved in the topics of each workshop. One other major goal of this effort to help build networks among practitioners around the region so that ASEAN countries do not work in isolation but in a shared environment of learning from each other.

We are fortunate to have a team comprising staff from Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera and The Australian National University. Kurniyati (known as I’in), Mai, Andi, Christel and Kirsty are our Administrative Staff, and Dr. Peter Gardiner, Dr. Deborah Mitchell and Dr. Terry Hull are members of our Academic Team. If anyone needs any assistance, our Administrative Staff will be available between the hours of 7am and 10pm. Outside of these hours, we would expect any contact to be made only in bona fide cases of emergency.

Please take your breakfast in the coffee shop with sufficient time to meet in the workshop room at 8.45. Additional information is also available in the folders you received earlier.

Please do not hesitate to contact us if there is anything we can do to help. We trust you will find this workshop in Manila to be a productive opportunity to discuss issues and share experiences with counterparts from other nations. Welcome and enjoy.

Mr. Cho Kah Sin, Assistant Driector, Bureau of Functional Cooperation, ASEAN Secretariat (delivered by Mr. Abdurrahman Binsyeh Abubakar)

1. It is indeed a great pleasure and honour for me to be invited to give this remarks on behalf of the ASEAN Secretariat at this auspicious occasion. I would like to express our special thanks to the National Anti-Poverty Commission of the Philippines for kindly hosting this workshop. I should also like to extend our appreciation to AusAID for its commitment to assisting ASEAN with the implementation of its social safety net programs. Sincere thanks are also due to the managing contractor team of the Australian National University (ANU) and Insan Hitawasana Sejahtera (IHS) for the very hard work and efficient preparations made for the workshop.

2. This is the second of the four workshops to be implemented within the year under the ASEAN-Australia Social Safety Nets Project. The first workshop on Targeting and Rapid Assessment was successfully completed in Jakarta in May this year. I want to take this great opportunity to reiterate our thanks to Indonesia and the managing contractor team for that and to Member Countries for their active participation in the first workshop.

3. The ASEAN-Australia Social Safety Nets Project, under the funding of AusAID, was first conceived in response to the call of the 6^th ASEAN Summit Meeting held in December 1998 in Hanoi. At the Summit, the ASEAN Leaders made a call for a strengthened regional cooperation to mitigate the social impact of the financial and economic crisis, and to undertake measures to protect the poor and vulnerable segments of our society that were and are most affected by the crisis. Following this, the ASEAN Ministers on Rural Development and Poverty Eradication, at their Second Meeting in February 2000 here in Manila, emphasized the importance of social safety nets and other measures in promoting social resilience and cohesion in ASEAN countries, thus contributing towards realizing the ASEAN Leaders’ vision of community of caring societies. The Ministers also agreed that there was a need to look ahead into the longer-term impact of globalization on the poor and the marginalized and to consider further discussions on ways to promote meaningful participation of the poor and the marginalized in the new global economy through the improvement of access to social services.

4. This workshop on Service Delivery and Related Operational Issues will focus on issues involved in the effective organization and delivery of services to target groups and communities under both crisis and more normal conditions. Particular attention should then be placed on grass-roots structures that involve community decision-making and self-help as well as on ways to facilitate access of disadvantaged/high risk groups to key social services.

5. In the efforts to address the social impact of the economic crisis, and to meet social safety needs of the people in the region, we recognize the importance of involving the people at the grass-root level. The active participation of the community, of the target groups in particular, is not only instrumental in making delivery of social services effective, but also efficient and accountable. It is of much more use to the grass-root to ensure that their own skills, knowledge and resources are employed and to keep this capacity to use them alive. An important part of this process is to recognize the value of indigenous knowledge, the people’s bundles of rules, norms, connectedness, and networks. These social and human capitals could be systematically incorporated into the social service programs to reduce transaction costs between people and to lubricate cooperation.

6. Thus, this workshop is expected to provide an opportunity for the participants, in particular, and ASEAN member Countries, in general, to share and explore appropriate approaches and strategies for improving the delivery and quality of service with the recognition of the people’s social and human capitals.

7. In closing my remarks, I would like to wish the participants every success and I hope that your next few days in Manila will be productive as well as enjoyable.

Manila – Philippines, August 7 - 8, 2001

Veronica Villavicencio – Deputy Director General – National Anti Poverty Commission; Abdurrahman Binsyeh Abubakar – ASEAN Secretariat; Project Director, Dr. Terry Hull – supervisor of my thesis; Mayling Oey Gardiner from whom I obtained some of my information for my research; Ladies and Gentleman

It is pleasure to be here and given the opportunity to exchange ideas and experiences in our work on social protection.

In recent years, Australia has announced several initiatives to address the social impacts of the economic downturn in some Asian Countries and Australia fully supports the APEC in intensifying efforts to “formulate strategies of concrete actions aimed at strengthening the social safety nets”.

It is very appropriate that this workshop is being held in Manila. As you are aware, Philippines has not fully recovered from the Asian Financial crisis in 1997. From 2.5 million jobless four years ago, unemployment now stands at four million. Poverty incidence is almost 40 percent of the population. Against this background the budget deficit exceeding 140 billion pesos, it is obvious that many of the country’s population will need immediate as well as long-term social protection.

This is why strengthening social protection continues to be high on the priorities of the Development Cooperation Program in the Philippines, in which the Australian Government provides approximately 1.6 billion pesos (or A$ 64 millions) a year. The program aims to reduce poverty and promote sustainable development and involved in different sectors including health, rural development, education, environment and governance.

People who are most vulnerable to the adverse effects of poverty continue to be our priority. The Vulnerable Groups Facility, one of our major funding facilities, supports the Comprehensive Integrated Delivery of Social Services (CIDSS) of Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), the Street and Urban Working Children Project of DILG and the Hastening the Impact of Probe, a basic education project of DECS. Our contribution through the Vulnerable Groups facility altogether amounts to approximately one billion pesos (40 million Australian dollars) over three years, but this is still considered to be limited compared to the enormity of the needs of the people and communities affected by the crisis.

Through CIDSS, we are able to target the poorest communities and assist them in addressing their minimum basic needs. CIDSS is considered a “best practice” social program and a notice. This is some information in your conference folders and it will be discussed tomorrow.

The Philippines Program has also intensified its support to addressing the impact of economic difficulties to children, as one of the most vulnerable. When crisis impact adversely on household investment in human development particularly health and education, children are usually the most affected. Malnutrition, a known consequence of economic difficulties, can have adverse effects on the physical and metal development of children. Economic desperation also leads to children being drawn from school to earn whatever means. Most of time, this forces children to the streets where their vulnerability is even more increased. The SUWCP project tries to address these immediate concerns by giving rice for nutrition and incentives to parents to keep their children in school.

We continue to intensify our support for education. In recent months, we approved the 119 million financial supports to the Department of Education to implement the Hastening the Impact of Probe Project. This project aims to improve the quality of education in schools of Regions II, VII, IX, X, and XIII of the Philippines.

AusAID supports many other initiatives in Social Protection. As many of you are also aware, the Australian government has also announced the establishment of three year, 5 million Australian Dollar Social Protection Facility in East Asia. This facility will assist developing economies in East Asia to improve social programs and safety nets through technical assistance and general capacity building measures. The facility will be implemented over three years from 2001 to 2003, and will focus initially on Indonesia, Thailand, Philippines, and Vietnam and maybe extended to include China, Cambodia and Laos as the facility becomes fully operational. The facility will be managed jointly for AusAID by the Australian National University and the Mahidol University of Thailand, whose representatives, I was told, will be present in this workshop. (The names of the representatives are Dr. Ramon Sevilla and Dr. Robert Ackland).

Philippines-Australia Governance Facility complements this regional facility in the Philippines. The governance facility also offers, among other things, technical assistance focussing on four strategic areas namely:

- Strengthening public sector management for more effective delivery and efficiency;

- Fostering the development of civil representation and participation for better scrutiny of policies and practices.

AusAID supports many other social protection initiatives in health, technical and vocational education and rural financing.

We all know that there are many initiatives in providing social protection to those affected by economic difficulties. But they continue to be limited because of the enormous needs. I hope that this workshop will be very usefull in looking for efficient and most economically feasible social programs to replicate or build on. Indeed, there is a need to intensify the efforts and the time is now. Australia will be pleased to assist in whatever way we can.

I hope that you will have a fruitful exchange of ideas and experience in the next two days. Mabuhay sa inyong lahat! (Welcome and thank you very much to you all).

Manila – Philippines, August 7 - 8, 2001

The ASEAN-Australia Social Safety Net Project’s Second Workshop comes at a most auspicious time for the Philippine government. Our President, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, has declared the war against poverty as a central goal of her government.

The government through the National Anti-Poverty Commission, has defined its poverty reduction strategy, which includes social reform in redistribution of assets and resources, full delivery of human development services, strengthening socio-economic and livelihood opportunities, participation of the poor in governance, and social protection and security from violence.

In fleshing out the programs that are needed to move this strategy, we find that we need to pay heed to lessons of past and current programs, not only of the Philippines but our ASEAN neighbours as well. The overall themes in these workshop series of Social Safety Nets run parallel to the questions that we still need to answer, namely:

What should be our criteria and methods for targeting the beneficiaries?
What are the most effective and feasible ways of providing services given monetary and socio-political constraints?
How can responsibilities for planning, managing and evaluating poverty programs shift more to local government?
How can government work in partnership with the private sector and civil society groups?

We have, moreover, cranked into motion an accelerated convergence program, initially in urban poor areas in Metro Manila. We call it “Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kaharipan,” translated into “linking arms against poverty.” Through this program platform, we mobilized the national government agencies, working in tandem with the local government, for a convergence of efforts in specific urban poor communities. These services cover basic social welfare and social insurance services, land and housing security and livelihood opportunities. We still need strategies for sustainability and a sound yet practical monitoring system for the program.

For this, the second ASEAN-Australia workshop, you have lined up an impressive set of speakers for the four sessions. I am certain that they will provoke us with their depth and breadth of experience and insight. We hope their inputs would be put to maximal use. In our country, I am certain that the lessons they share will not get lost and can surely be useful to the targeting, design and monitoring of our poverty reduction programs.

Welcome to our friends and colleagues from the ASEAN countries, from the ASEAN-Australia Social Safety Net Project and the ASEAN Secretariat. It is our sincere pleasure and distinct privilege to host the workshop and help you in whatever way we can during your most brief yet fulfilling stay in Manila. Thank you.