Notes from the field: Tilting at Asian Windmills

We’ve arrived in Manila for our first-ever partner conference in SE Asia. CIPE partners from all around the region—China, Mongolia, Indonesia, Philippines, Burma—have gathered to share experiences and refine strategies for moving forward in their countries. Already on the first morning, one word that has been used several times by partners to describe their initial efforts is “quixotic.” They feel strongly about the issues they address, and in many cases are making great strides, but many of them undertook their efforts initially as a leap of faith—based on a belief that something had to be done, though it may have seemed like tilting at windmills to do so.

Just on arrival here in the Philippines, it doesn’t take long to see that, even as an active democracy, Philippines nonetheless faces serious challenges. The issues appear front and center in the daily papers and link directly to the issues CIPE addresses: corruption, governance, and access to information, among others. On the first day of our partner meeting, one of the presentations was from Melinda de Jesus, who has worked for years on press freedom issues in the Philippines. While the media is quite free, it faces real dangers in bringing some sensitive stories to the public. Late last year, several journalists were killed covering elections, and their deaths were not isolated cases of assaults on journalists. The Center for Media Freedom and Responsibility works to both protect journalists and to improve their capabilities to report more in depth, moving beyond the “who, what, and when” to delve into the why and how, particularly in covering intransigent issues such as corruption. By contrast, partners working on such issues in Burma have no freedom of press expression at all; theirs is a daily struggle to gain and convey information.

The efforts of these groups to grapple with such difficult issues and their willingness to be at the forefront of tackling them is inspiring. This afternoon we turn our focus to impact—how to measure and communicate it in order to build recognition and support for partner efforts. Stay tuned for more updates from the field on success stories as we see that even seemingly quixotic quests can bring about significant changes.

Published Date: January 27, 2010