The Center for Disaster Preparedness (CDP) invited the UP Resilience Institute (UPRI) to join a fishbowl discussion among key grassroots groups and major donors, hosted by the Center for Disaster Preparedness, GlobalGiving, Global Fund for Community Foundations, and the Nonprofit Finance Fund with USAID fund support. CDP and the UPRI are partners through the Philippine Preparedness Partnership (PhilPrep), a quadripartite partnership and leadership for humanitarian action, together with the Office of Civil Defense (OCD) and the Philippine Disaster Resilience Foundation (PDRF).
The fishbowl discussion is centered on the theme of “Transforming Philanthropy and Aid through New Models of Funding and Partnership”. The initiative is a groundbreaking attempt to model a trust-based grant-making system that facilitates grassroots organizations in accessing funds. This was done in different, creative ways such as accepting proposals in the local language, accepting video submissions, and accepting submissions from unregistered and informal grassroots organizations.
While there still remains much work to do, this undertaking is necessary to break the traditional and colonial relationship between “beneficiaries” and “recipients of aid” and those who wield power and the privilege to make decisions like international non-government organizations (INGOs).
The body calls for “Shifting the Power”, which is to understand the landscape of domestic resource mobilization and to tap and engage local resources to lessen heavy reliance on foreign funding. It is a call for philanthropy and aid actors to reframe their role and mandate to give more power to those affected by disasters, climate, and other complex issues.
The fishbowl discussion was attended by several representatives from funding entities, grassroots organizations, and from the academe through the UPRI. Through candid discussion, grassroots organizations affirmed their ability to determine the course of development for their communities. Foundation consortia and other similar agencies matched this openness by sharing the current limitations of their systems to provide support as direct as possible and what possibilities exist to reform these systems. Ultimately, these organizations expressed their support and initiatives on conscious and intentional change-making.
Inviting the academic sector through the UPRI is a step towards moving beyond the silos of humanitarian actors. This opens up spaces for discussion and by working together, different sectors can leverage each other’s strengths, see different perspectives, and multiply their reach. With our communities speaking on level ground with other actors who share aligned goals, we build a more sustainable and more resilient nation by promoting equal access to resources, amplifying collective power and voice, and recognizing members of society as able partners and co-investors in national development and for resilient nation.
Posted by UP Resilience Institute Education on December 20, 2023