SEA Regional Workshop on “Civil Society Engagements in Local Governance”


From 7-9 April 2003, Logolink SEA brought together local governance experts on Cambodia, Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines to discuss trends and issues in “Civil Society Engagements in Local Governance”. The aim of this workshop was to critically assess and map trajectories of current trends in civil society – state interaction at the local level.

Joel Rocamora welcomed the participants by saying that Logolink Southeast Asia aspires to be a learning network, not for the sake of accumulating knowledge, but in order to influence ‘action’. It is no coincidence, therefore, that the four countries represented (Cambodia, Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand) are also the four countries in the region where decentralization has been the most dynamic and recent opportunities for change most promising.

The first presentation was by Dr. Paul Hutchcroft of the University of Wisconsin on “State Formation, State Reformation: Deciphering Decentralization in the Philippines and Thailand”, which is a preliminary draft of his on-going research on the same topic. He stressed that current attempts of state reformation in the Philippines and Thailand can only partially be explained by proximate causes. Larger historical processes that shaped central-local relations have to be taken into consideration.

Mr. Puch Sothon of the Cambodian non-governmental Commune Council Support Project (CCSP) then gave an overview of the decentralization process in Cambodia. The process has its beginnings in the 1993 peace agreement and came to full fruition in 2002, with the implementation of the Commune Administration Law and the first commune council elections.

The next part of the workshop was devoted to country presentations on the main theme of the workshop: Ms. Aya Fabros of IPD on the Philippines, Dr. Barbara Orlandini on Thailand and Mr. Djuni Thamrin of the Indonesian Partnership on Local Governance Initiatives (IPGI) on Indonesia. He represented Mr. Hans Antlov of the Ford Foundation in Jakarta. The country presentations are available HERE.

The last part of the workshop was devoted to a collective synthesis and planning session. There was agreement that this is an auspicious time for Southeast Asian civil society to assert its role in pushing for greater citizens’ participation at the local levels of governance. There are, indeed, vast opportunities for democratization that have been opened up by decentralization processes in each country. However, there are also serious complications to contend with. Decentralization legislation, in many cases, contains vague and imprecise provisions that obstruct implementation.  Especially reforms in local revenue allocation are often not well designed. The influx of foreign funding and consultants (both state agencies and NGOs) further complicates the situation, as does the omni-present reality of civil society co-optation.

Joel Rocamora facilitated the process by inquiring into what ways regional networking (i.e. Logolink) can assist national-level civil society endeavors in democratizing the structures and processes of local governance. To begin answering these question, the group came up with elements of a framework for understanding local political and governance processes, which is summarized in the following table:

National Terrain

Local Terrain

History: post-authoritarian country context; Society: democratic transition processes; Politics & economics: institution-building, including policy and legal processes; False dichotomy of civil-political divide: for profound democratization to be realized, civil society, social and political movements as well as civic governance venues have to be strengthened alike.

History of central-local relations (practice as well as ideological discourse) crucial for understanding not just evolution of formal frameworks but also attitude of local stakeholders towards local governance; Local power structures: political economy, military and police structure and influence, role of religious institutions and groupings. Decentralization legislation: the massive openings it provides  & the confusion it creates.

For more information on this workshop contact: logolinkSEA@ipd.org.ph