SD Agents, Levels, and Organizations Transcript

0:02
Welcome again to SDS 101, introduction to social development, and we will be discussing this
SD agents, levels and organizations.Okay, so the purpose of this week's discussion is to first
understand what are the different agents in organizations involved in the implementation of SD
initiatives and what are the role of these different actors so they have their own role to play in
carrying out SD initiatives. So first before we begin, we have to first understand what are the
different SD initiatives that these actors are performing. First I think we are confusing projects
and programs, policies and projects or interventions, we keep on using them interchangeably.
But they're quite different.

So when we say intervention. It is a well established form of social development practice that
organizes different projects, programs and policies into coherent systems of intervention. So
when we say intervention, it is composed of projects, programs and policies, it's quite a lot
bigger than most SD activities that we mention here. On the other hand, when we say projects,
they are just part of an intervention. A project is a small scale and time limited intervention,
usually implemented at the local level. It is addressing a specific problem and it's usually short
term and time limited. Meanwhile, programs are not focused on any particular localities and are
more long term and they can be composed of different projects. It can be composed of multiple
projects, and usually it is long term as we said. But, again, the main difference between projects
and programs, projects as we said are short term programs or long term interventions are
composed of projects and programs, and they are embedded or tied into a coherent system of
intervention. On the other hand policies are prescriptive statements that define goals and
govern implementation of projects and programs. They shape the activities of formal
organizations. Policies are rules, or the guidelines on how to carry out projects and programs
and setting up the parameters on what projects and programs can do. On the other hand, plans
facilitate the implementation of policies by setting justifiable goals that are met through
sequential steps implemented according to a predetermined time schedule. A plan is more of a
document. It states the goals that you want to achieve. And they are usually step by step in
terms of their guidelines in implementation and according to a predetermined timescale.

Okay, so now we understand right the difference between interventions, projects, programs,
policies, and plans. There are three major sectors in society that carry out these different SD
initiatives. We have the government, the private sector and civil society so these sectors serve
as social development arms of society and I think there are different ways on how we look at
that now. So how do we look at these different sectors? They are not necessarily fighting
against each other. Actually it is ideal that instead of fighting….instead of contestation is that
there should be partnership between these different sectors. They have to complement one
another. There are different features and contributions of different sectors. The business sector
gives dynamism and access to finance, technology, managerial efficiency and entrepreneurial
spirit. So usually because businesses are profit oriented they have a lot of good ideas. One of
the programs that we are familiar which,I think that is quite innovative is for example, Tan Yan
Kee. Now, they have the scholarship for children of farmers. So they're targeting farmer children
in particular and they have scholarships for medical students. They are doing development work
but they are part of the private sector they are the CSR of the Philippine Airlines and the
Philippine National Bank (PNB). This group is known as the Lucio Tan Group of Companies.

Meanwhile, those from the civil society bring in local knowledge, social consciousness advocacy
and community organizing and mobilization. So the strength that they have is that they have
local knowledge because usually they are the ones that are there in the community listening to
what the community really wants. They go in areas that are not being reached by government
service. Civil society does these because the government cannot do everything, and usually in
areas where the government fails, the civil society comes in right. That is why they have an
important role to play. For example, we have World Vision there because a lot of families could
not send their children to school and the government cannot provide for everything so World
Vision is providing scholarship. And then you have the government of course. So the
government provides infrastructure, policy information, political will and an enabling environment
so the government still has a lot of role to play because they have the budget that they get from
taxation. The government is one of the major, if not the major agent, in social development.

8:05
So civil society organizations are considered a global countervailing force, which has enough
clout to influence government in business for example the Philippine Red Cross. It is almost
automatic now that when you need blood you go to the Red Cross. And Red Cross is not from
the government, it's from the private sector, but they address a specific development issue or
social development issue concerning. We also have Doctors Without Borders, Wikimedia
Foundation and a lot of different civil society organizations that we have.

8:51
Can you name some civil society organizations that you know have or has helped you
personally?. Now we go to the attributes of a non government organization. They are, of course
, not part of the government. They do not make profit. They're voluntary. They are altruistic and
philanthropic. They are there because they want to help. So these are organized by private
individuals for public purpose. So they are usually a critic, a competitor and a partner of the
government. They criticize the government because they are there in the community and they
point out areas that the government should improve.

9:40
Sometimes the private sector is seen as a competitor. Because sometimes the private sector
does more than the government. For example, it’s like a given already that the Red Cross is
there anytime you need blood you go to the government to the Red Cross instead of going to
the government to ask for blood. In an ideal world, both the government and the private sector
are partners since they want the same thing. They want development. They want the wellbeing
of the people. Meanwhile, the private sector or usually the business firms such as corporations
donate a lot of money to the NGOs. They also have these corporate social responsibility
programs where private companies do something to help the community that they operate in.
And there is something interesting that Indra Nooyi said. She is an Indian American woman who
became the CEO of Pepsi Cola. She was saying that we need to rethink Corporate Social
Responsibility. It’s not like you do bad to the environment with your business operation and then
you do good in other parts of the world. It's like you know, trying to redeem yourself for not
doing your businesses properly. The rethinking of Corporate Social Responsibility is that you
have to do well, you have to be ethical in your business operation and at the same time do
something to help your community. By actually treating your employees right and making sure
that your operation does not compromise the environment are already forms of corporate social
responsibilities.

And then there's venture philanthropy. Private enterprises have high involvement partners, I
think I'm not sure if this has been quite popular in the Philippines, but we can see some
donations from the SM group. They have donated to a few billions to several educational
institutions but again, let's evaluate critically how those donations went about and if they are
doing ethically in their operations. But definitely there are some examples that we can see here
in the Philippines. But in the United States its common for you to have billionaires donating
billions of dollars to universities so that they can have more scholarships and have resources to
engage in more research and create new schools etc. So that's the purpose of venture
philanthropy. On the other hand, community organizing is the foundation of NGO work in the
Philippines. Presently it's mandated in the constitution to involve the NGO in Philippine
development and this is also contained in the Local Government Code of 1991.

I think if you are community organizing. There are basic principles that you have to learn.
Several years ago I think more than five years ago, after I graduated. One of the things that I've
learned is this phrase, start where people are, build on what they have. So you start where
people are, which means that you do not introduce something, or an intervention that is beyond
the capacity of the people. When you say build from where they are, you recognize that they
have their own strengths and there are potentials on the part of people in the community, and
you build from that when you craft or develop programs.

13:50
So there are different SD agents, and organizations, of course, we have the professional
personnel. These are the key SD agents. They're trained at government academies or
universities. They are really trained. They either took social work, community development or
other formal courses such as human ecology. When you graduate, you may be categorized as
one of those professional SD or Social Development workers. They operate at all levels but
active especially at the community level and administration of SD programs. They administer
both government and non governmental initiatives.

Paraprofessionals on the other hand received some training at specialized training institutions.
So they are also trained usually on short courses which equip them for a specific purpose. They
implement SD projects under the supervision of SD professionals. The number of
paraprofessionals increased as there's been a global retrenchment and laying off of social
development professionals. Sometimes these paraprofessionals are more informed about the
reality of the community than SD professionals because they are there on the ground.
Then you have the government administrators, the policy makers and professional planners.
These are the people who are working in the government. For example, people are working at
the Department of Social Welfare and Development where a lot of our graduates go there.There
is actually a social technology arm of DSWD. So their purpose is to formulate social policies
which are incorporated into national development plans. They engage in sectoral planning in
education, health housing, social services, community development and social protection. They
also coordinate the implementation of plans by government ministries or departments and
participate in the evaluation of outcomes. It requires efficient and coordinated national level
planning that mobilizes and coordinates various agencies within the government for policies and
programs to be implemented at the national and local level. It takes a lot of coordination and
that is where they are trained, though, and of course we have a lot of things to work on in terms
of that coordination because development or social development in particular is a big endeavor.
It needs to be coordinated, as we understood now, in some of our lectures in the past weeks.
And you really need to be able to be trained and have experiences, to be able to coordinate the
multiple activities leading to social development.

Last but not the least, local people or volunteers are very important. They are grassroot agents
who are usually compensated for the work and few have formal training. The barangay health
workers, for example, are very, very helpful. They used to be volunteers when I was very young
before they became professionalized lately. They just received honorarium in the past. But now
its more appropriate to use this for people’s organizations such as groups of women and
farmers. They identify the local needs, mobilize community members and establish a variety of
local social development projects. They may form local organizations which become formal
organizations. The local organizations that they build become local formal organizations. By
adopting governance and organizational procedures, opening bank accounts, and even
employing professional staff. These are people organizations that people in the community have
established themselves with each other.

19:11
They can also be families and households. They are the primary unit for Social Development.
They used to be seen as just beneficiaries but right now they are partners. They are social
agents themselves. By all means, if you enable communities and co-create change with the
communities. If they feel that they are given the space to be able to participate in development
programming meaningfully, they can do a lot of things. For example in fighting malnutrition, the
mothers within the homes are very important actors. They know best the situation and the
needs of their children.
There are also middle class, social entrepreneurs. One example that we have here is AI4GOV.
They use artificial intelligence as a means for people to know the programs of government
through messenger for example. These types of organizations are active in social development
in the Global South. They initiate new programs, establish NGOs and lobby from both national
and international sources. They are attuned to new ideas and help to create organizations that
promote innovative approaches. They tap into the wider social movements in international
activist organizations. These are usually founded by middle class social entrepreneurs.
And then you have conventional not for profit and faith based organizations such as World
Vision which is attached to the Evangelical Christian Church. So they are established also by
middle class entrepreneurs to serve needy individuals.They engage in advocacy, fundraising
and promoting, what we call as self help groups.

22:19
We also have international organizations. The most popular is the United Nations. They focus
on global goals to foster greater international collaboration among the world's governments.
They pioneered new approaches such as the MDGs and SDGs as well as the Social Security
floor by the International labor organizations. I do think that, for example, these international
organizations are also responsible for giving financing a lot of development projects that are
often neglected by the government. So whether they are effective or not, I think you can read
more literature on that. Definitely they have been providing a source of money. Foreign
government donors such as rich countries and emerging economies have also spearheaded
their own international SD programs. These international donors include the AustralianAid
USAID, UKAid under the Department of International Development of the United Kingdom, you
have KOICA or the Korean International Cooperation Agency and JICA or the Japan
International Cooperation Agency. They do a lot of development programs. JICA, for example,
is focused a lot on infrastructure. KOICA a little bit over agriculture. UKAid a little bit of human
rights and Australian aid have programs in malaria, for example, and in agriculture as well.

Foreign foundations are also key SD agents. These include the Bill and Melinda Gates
Foundation which is very active in population control initiative. You have the Rockefeller
Foundation. It used to be that UPLB is a beneficiary of a lot of agricultural research and
scientific research funded by the Rockefellers. You have the Rotary Foundation, which does a
lot of funding also in local communities. I think rotary is known for the end polio movement. And
then you have the Ford Foundation. They do a lot of scholarship for example.

And then of course universities and other higher education institutions are also active in SD
programming. They provide a training ground for SD professionals and they offer specialist
courses and training. We have the Asian Social Institute, the Philippine School of Social Work,
our College of Human Ecology, and the College of Social Work and Community Development in
Diliman.

25:51
Okay, so these are just some of the examples of SD agents and organizations that we have.
The key takeaway in this lecture is that no single sector can do it alone. The task ahead is too
much and too important for the government alone. We have discussed that we need partnership
instead of confrontation between different sectors., We need this to be recognized by all sectors
for the sake of our people. That is the main takeaway for this week.
So again, thank you very much and see you next week for another podcast on SDS 101. Happy
weekend to all of you.