Regina Pasion

Following the Governance Action Hub’s workshops with civil society in the Philippines in late 2023, the team learned about the Asia Foundation’s initiative to support policy reform and citizen engagement.  We spoke with Regina Pasion about the its Coalitions for Change program, which works to engage citizens in leadership development and national level policy reforms in the Philippines.

Issue: Policy reform and citizen engagement

Target: Coalitions to lead policy reform and catalyze change at community level

Geography:  Philippines

Scaling Stage: Innovations vary from ‘Ideation’ and ‘Pilots’ to ‘Sustainable Scale’

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Innovation / Innovator Approach

Q: Tell us about your governance work in the Philippines?

Regina:  The Coalitions for Change program has two main components – policy reform and leadership development.  The Policy Reform component finds and works with local leaders on policy reform at the national levels.  Leaders focus on issues of particular importance to Philippine development as a country. These issues include: Economic Reform, Social Development, Governance and Stability, Gender and Equality, and Climate and the Environment. For us, these pillars are the ones we think  are likely to make a dent in improving outcomes for Philippine Development. The program’s Leadership Development component is where we teach a ‘Development Entrepreneur’ approach  with individuals or organizations who are interested in pursuing their own policy reforms in their local communities (more on that below!).  If some groups are interested in pursuing national policies that will impact Philippine development, then the leadership development component will liaise with the reform component.

The program uses evidence – mostly research and technical analysis – some that we make and some made by others depending on the sector. For example, on fiscal management, the World Bank and Asian Development Bank or other groups have in-depth analysis. We then do some analysis to contextualize as needed.  The most important thing that sets us apart is the thinking-and-working-politically-part.  The question in development is not just what is a good idea – there are good ideas all the time from all levels of government and all levels of society. The question is how do you get the good idea to reach the right people to make change? Our program’s answer to that has been in policy reform. How do you get those good ideas in a policy reform format – whether that’s a technical analysis (or a policy brief policy proposal – and get it to the right people (to inform decision makers)?  Which in this case for policies, is the government, because they are the formal institutions.

Our motto for the Coalitions for Change program is ‘technically sound, politically feasible’ and that has served us well for the last 12 years.  

Q: How does it work and why is it innovative?   

Regina:  What makes Coalitions for Change (CfC) innovative is really our Development Entrepreneurship approach. The approach is underpinned in our focus on local leaders and “technically sound, politically feasible” policy reforms. Issues are identified and agreed on with the local leaders, then together we form the reform teams who work on those issues. The capacity building that happens within these teams are relational – meaning we come into an understanding of how we will apply the Development Entrepreneur approach in our reform area and not by formal means, nor institutionalized.  Sometimes people want to enact change, but they don’t have the tools or the equipment to do it – that’s why the capacity building part came about. We find local leaders, get them together working on change, and equip future leaders who have an interest.

The approach uses 5 entrepreneurial principles to pursue reform: 

i) Just start,

ii) Make small bets,

iii) work with partners,

iv) expect and exploit surprises, and

v) influence the future.

Our approach is to find the right people, then we support them, whether as an organization or as individuals, because you can’t do policy reform if you don’t commit to it.  If you have a day job, you can’t really commit to policy reform, so we provide some (financial) support, so that you can do it full time.  

What we noticed is people naturally come together because they are passionate.  They naturally self-select and they come together, and they work better together in terms of policy reforms. What we really do as a program is to support these leaders. But, personally – I like joining their reform teams because I can’t have them having all the fun, right?!

Q:  What are you learning?  

Regina:  We’ve learned we have to start at the beginning – to think about the change they want to see in their community.  The biggest difference we have is that the reform teams that are supported by the program fully work on national level reforms with approaches that are tried and tested.  Those who are part of leadership development are usually working locally, on issues in their communities. 

These local leaders are experimenting to see how change unfolds.  You start with what you have, what you know and then pull on that…you identify people who are passionate about an issue and a coalition forms to change the public narrative and mindset.  There is also mentoring, where we bring the older generations who worked on policy reform for 30 years to work with younger leaders and focus on what is politically feasible, to (enable) navigating through the change you want to see. 

We have learned that elected officials care about certain issues, and we can use their positions. Elected officials may want to stay in their position or want to keep their power.  Bureaucrats may want to put their head down and work.  The question is: How can you reach them?  That has been a big learning point – finding those on the bell curve who don’t want the status quo but change. 

Successful coalitions include, for example, the ‘Philippines ‘Sin Taxes’ program began taxing alcohol and cigarettes in the Philippines to fund health care. (See ‘Thinking and Working Politically in Development: Coalitions for Change in the Philippines’, where the Tobacco Tax Law 2019 and Republic Act 11467 provides essential funds for Universal Health Care.) 

Can the Coalitions for Change approach work in other places?  I think it can. The approach is agnostic to the context – starting, making bets, working politically, etc.  What is important are the local leaders who will do the change.  The hard work is to identify those people, give them the tools – you will be surprised as to how far they will take it – especially if they are passionate!

Q: How is your work changing outcomes?

Regina: How does a policy reform jump to outcomes? For instance in our disability work, the goal is to have public infrastructure more accessible for those with disabilities.  There are multiple policies to reach that. E.g. # of school buildings that are rehabilitated to be accessible, you can count that. Or locally, a local policy ordinance on protecting marine coastal areas, their measure would count how many areas are deemed marine conservation areas.  You can then say, ‘This policy that we pushed for led to this kind of change, helped address, solve or alleviate this development challenge.’ 

Policy reform may not completely solve the problem, but it will incrementally help to solve it.  For instance, we need stunting reforms and coalitions or leaders who are working on this challenge to organize for change. The level of stunting has been the same since 2009, which is really bad since it has not been reduced. That is the development challenge. We need to identify what policy will lead to reducing this rate – that is the success metric.  Our work ends at the policy reform.  (We do not measure the resulting change, that is the work of the government agency).

Can the Coalitions for Change approach work in other places?  I think it can. The approach is agnostic to the context – starting, making bets, working politically, etc.  What is important are the local leaders who will do the change.  The hard work is to identify those people, give them the tools – you will be surprised as to how far they will take it!  Especially if they are passionate, locally embedded and they are looking for change and want to try something!

Regina Pasion is a Senior Program Officer with The Asia Foundation’s Coalitions for Change in the Philippines. The views and opinions expressed here are those of Regina, not those of The Asia Foundation.

Interested to learn more? Join an informal discussion with the Governance Action Hub Community of Practice in the coming months.  We will explore how one might engage community stakeholders who are not always part of the conversation – be it involving extractives, Natural Resource Management or climate action.  Sign up here – we welcome your thoughts on topics or challenges we might explore in future meetings.