ASIA DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE

ANNUAL REPORT

2019

Foreword from ADA Co-Conveners

Dear ADA Members Friends and Colleagues
 
Greetings of Solidarity!!
 
We are pleased to present ADA Annual Report 2019 for you. This report showcases the Agenda 2030 for Sustainable Development through three important focus areas: outreach, capacity building and advocacy by working with our members, partners and allies  to realize rights and build resilience. 2019 was crucial for ADA’s own institutionalisation efforts, where we initiated the process by creating our own constitution and policies apart from outlining our proposed path for the next 4 years, aiming for a strong and vibrant regional network of civil society organizations responding to democratic and sustainable development challenges. These documents are about to get finalised in 2020 following the inputs and approval from our members. Our membership and outreach activities also witnessed a boost with intervention in Central Asia and later Kazakhstan becoming ADA members, apart from the membership from Mongolia and Vietnam. This intervention is also a way to show solidarity to the national CSO coalitions that represent the voices of the most marginalized at the national and global levels.
 
The year 2019 also witnessed intensifying our capacity building efforts at the national level (Bhutan, Timor Leste, Mongolia and south-east Asia sub-region). Most of the participants shared feedback that their capacity on SDGs, Human Rights, and Advocacy with National, Regional and Global Bodies have significantly strengthened and they have empowered and engaged in the national process of SDGs monitoring and review in the light of continued shrinking space for civil society all over Asia. 
 
Our advocacy efforts were also intensified with the publication of the global report on Goal 16 in partnership with TAP Network, Forus and other CSO partners, which was based on 11 country case studies. The report was shared online and later during High Level Political Forum in New York, and received positive responses from partners and allies. One of the main recommendations of this report was taking concrete action to institutionalize Goal 16 in the countries apart from suggesting the members and the UN institutions recognize the citizen- led data produced by civil society, especially when governments have recognized the lack of disaggregated data. This is all the more important as the Asia – Pacific Report on SDGs 2020 recognizes the fact that the region is unlikely to meet any of the SDGs without concerted efforts from all stakeholders. In addition, conditions in 2030 are predicted to be worse on 20% of SDG indicators than they were in 2015 “unless immediate actions are taken to reverse current trends.”
 
So we hope for a continued and more vigorous engagement in 2020 and in coming years towards reducing the gaps in engagement and assuring involvement of the most marginalised by representing their voices at various forums. 
 
We recognise that the our efforts would not remain the same without getting support from our members, trusted partner Forus and European Commission and KOICA, and our continued support from TAP Network, Action for Sustainable Development, AGNA and CIVICUS and the UN institutions like ESCAP and UNDP Regional Hub, and most importantly our all national members and partners in Asia and other CSO partners from across the globe. We are also very thankful to the Code-NGO for their continued help and support in handling our financial matters and special thanks to the ADA secretariat, Steering committee and ADA advisors for their invaluable support and solidarity.
 
Together with our members and partners, ADA will continue to advocate for the rights of the people and civil society seeking equality for all. Some of the key highlights for 2020 would be training and capacity building programs on SDGs at national and sub-regional level, advocacy papers and supporting  and working in partnership with our members, partners and allies at various national and international forums on the principle of Agenda 2030 ‘Leave No One Behind’ to achieve another milestone in 2020.
 
In Solidarity
 
 
Mr. Saroeun SOEUNG, Mr. Hideki Wakabayashi and Mr. Jit Ram Lama
 
ADA Co-Conveners on behalf of ADA Steering Committee and Secretariat
Dated: April 21-04-2020


 

Table of Contents

Foreword from ADA Co-Conveners
Executive Summary
1.     Introduction
a.     Strong Governance and Accountability
Steering Committee Member for 2019-2020
b.     Capacity Building on Strategic Planning
c.     Outreach and Advocacy
2.     Expenditures in 2019
3.     Highlights for 2020
a.     Training and Capacity Building
b.     Joint Advocacy/Campaign (business, media, governments, members, intergovernmental organisations
c.     Process of Institutionalisation of ADA:
d.     Membership and solidarity
 

Executive Summary

ADA being a regional platform from Asia with a representation of almost 28 civil society platforms, was quite visible in 2019  because of the capacity building and awareness raising on SDGs using reports /position papers and being one of the fewest advocates on Goal 16 highlighting the issues of governance, accountability, shrinking spaces for the civil society, peace justice, inclusive and strong institutions. We also moved ahead from our regular capacity building workshops to strengthening the national CSO’s theme enabling them to be part of the SDG’s implementation, monitoring and review process. 
Last year we organized various workshops at national level (Mongolia, Timor Leste, Bhutan) and sub-regional levels (Central Asia and Mekong Region) on Agenda 2030 of the Sustainable Development goals that included inter-linking each goals and human right aspects apart from focusing on goal 16 + apart from national CSO platform strengthening in order to enable them  to play the role of active stakeholder in the SDGs monitoring and implementation process.
ADA partnered with Forus and TAP network and spearheaded the report entitled ‘Empowering Civil society for national reporting and action on SDG 16’, based on 11 country case studies. This report showcases civil society stakeholder efforts to implement and monitor SDG16 on the ground, and highlights the challenges, needs, and opportunities for national and local actions and accountability at all levels. This report was launched during the high level political forum in New York, on July 12th , 2019 and was widely applauded for its national, regional and global recommendations on the effective implementation of Goal 16. Apart from this we  prepared the annual report on CSO’s engagement in the VNR process where the 8 VNR reporting countries of 2019 were analysed (Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Philippines, Timor Leste, Turkmenistan). 
The outreach activities during the research initiative provided immense opportunity to in-person bonding with members and partners. This also gave an opportunity to learn about the countries of intervention (Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Timor Leste) and it developed ownership and a sense of shared responsibilities among the members, who contributed to the report. 
Last  year, ADA intensified its approach and worked more closely with the UN ESCAP, UNDP, UNDEF at the regional and global levels, participated and organized side events and worked closely with member states S Korea through KOICA, Timor Leste and Mongolia with which it also organized side events during APFSD and HLPF. 
During the last one year, we did a monthly Steering committee meeting through online calls hence saving on carbon footprints and organized three face to face Steering committee meetings during Ulaanbaatar Democracy Forum, Tokyo Democracy Forum and Busan Democracy Forum. All the Steering Committee meetings have been recorded on paper and shared with the SC members and some important decisions like approving three new members from Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Vietnam, apart from approving ADA action Plans and discussion on ADA By-Laws (we are in the process of finalizing ADA By-Laws) and strategy Paper for next four years . All the decisions have been taken in the Steering committee by adhering to the norms and in most transparent and collective ways. 
 

 1.    Introduction  

The Asia Development Alliance (ADA) is a regional coalition of national or sub-national multi-sectoral NGO/CSO platforms (NP) or umbrellas in Asia representing the voices of national CSOs at various sub-regional, regional, and global platforms on the issues of Sustainable Development Goals of the Agenda 2030, linking them with human rights  and strengthening citizen action and civil society in Asia. 
ADA is also a regional network among members of Forus, CIVICUS AGNA (Affinity group of National Associations) and other global CSO platforms engaged in Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
 
If we look at the progress,  the year 2019 was also marked as the fourth year of SDGs implementation. The SDG Summit held in New York on 24-25 September 2019 concluded the first four-year review cycle of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, and from the discussions came a clear message –‘we are far from achieving the SDGs[1]
 
Despite the engagement opportunities through the SDGs implementation, monitoring and review, 2019 was also marked by the continued shrinking civic space and more regulations in most countries in Asia especially in South East and South and Central Asia. This was also  reflected in the CSO’s engagement in the SDGs implementation, monitoring and review processes and lesser trust in the citizen’s led data, even in the absence of official disaggregated data. 
 
Sadly most countries are yet to finalise their national indicators for better monitoring and review processes. Hence we worked on localizing SDG’s through various training and capacity building programs at the country level, which was also used as better opportunities for larger collaboration with various national governments and later not only re-claiming but expanding our spaces and re-establishing as one of the important pillars of development. 
 
Looking at the background, our activities in 2019 focussed around three core areas at the National, Sub-regional, Regional and Global levels, as per our commitments for the year.

a.    Strong Governance and Accountability

[1] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/progress-report/
 

  Steering Committee Member for 2019-2020

 
ADA has been organising a monthly steering committee for almost two years now to keep the governance board actively engaged. This has also smoothened the decision making process within ADA. The decisions regarding new members induction, advocacy efforts, ADA sustainability including fund raising opportunities, and meeting potential donors has been constantly discussed. As a result of which we prepared the following 6 documents. 

• ADA Constitution
• 4 Years Strategy Document
• 2020 Action Plan
• Gender Policy
• Code of Conduct and Communication Policy

The steering committee has played an active role in helping and providing guidance on these crucial documents, which will be further shared with experts all the ADA members for their feedback before it finally becomes a living document by Mid May 2020. The Steering Committee has been very conscious in their efforts to represent ADA in various external networks like Asia Democracy Network (ADN) , Action for Sustainable Development( A4SD), Forus, TAP Network, Asia Pacific Regional CSO Engagement Mechanism (APRCEM) and others in a very responsible manner. This has further strengthened the bond between the secretariat and the Steering Committee, which is a good sign for ADA’s governance  transparency and inclusive participation.
During 2019, we organised 12 Steering Committee Meetings, 8 Online meetings, Every month 4 face to face meetings (Ulaanbaatar, February, 2019, Bangkok 2019, Tokyo-April 2019, Busan-October 2019
Observation: ADA had less than 25 percent representation of Women in the governance board. However, our current Steering committee is intended to encourage female and other gender inclusion in the 2020-2022 term and is striving to have 50 percent of female and other gender governance board members.
 

b.    Capacity Building on Strategic Planning

In 2019, we organized the following Training and Capacity Building Programs at national and sub-regional levels

• GALA Mongolia : All the  30 participants of GALA Mangolia are the members of SDG Mongolia Network, which have become ADA members now. The training on SDG,s, interlinked them with each other and human rights groups , apart from training on CSO coalition toolkit, helped them form the CSO coalition and they also prepared their CSO shadow report from Mongolia. One of the GALA Participants also presented the CSO statement from the floor, during Mongolia VNR presentation in July 2019, HLPF

• GALA Mekong: GALA Mekong was another capacity building program for CSOs in SE Asia including Cambodia, Thailand, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam and Timor Leste. After the training, Cambodian CSOs prepared their CSO report and also presented CSO statement during Cambodia VNR presentation in HLPF. The CSO from Cambodia actively participated in APFSD Bangkok , Goal 16 report training by KOICA in Seoul, Busan Democracy Forum in Busan to present and discuss the work of Cambodian CSOs
• APFSD and HLPF Side Event Reports : Both theme events provided good opportunity for the ADA members from Pakistan, Malaysia, Bangladesh,  Nepal, Cambodia, , Nepal, Mongolia , Kazakhstan, Japan, S. Korea etc. to showcase their works and engaged with many stakeholders including the government and the UN and many advocacy opportunities.
• Timor Leste -CSO Capacity Building Session report and pictures (You Tube link to the press conference : This one day training, although not sufficient, gave a good opportunities to the CSOs the understand the basic themes of SDGs and VNR, which they hadn’t heard before and an opportunity to share their issues in engagement with the government and their unending survival issues due to many other INGO’s working in Timor taking their opportunities. The session also tried highlighting the issues related to CSO’s coalition and strengthening FONGTIL (the CSO national coalition in Timor). There are huge scope of strengthening the Timor CSOs network in the future so that they could get engaged in the national development plans and policies.
• GALA Bhutan - 26 representatives from Civil Society Organizations are undergoing a training workshop on the theme “Civil Society engagement in taking the Agenda 2030 forward in Bhutan”. The workshop aimed at familiarizing CSOs with the SDGs and enable them to assess their own contributions towards the goals and initiate a coalition towards monitoring & reporting. The four (4) day workshop was organized by Helvetas Bhutan in coordination with Asia Development Alliance. The workshop was a good opportunity to capacitate the participants on Agenda 2030 and according to most of the evaluation forms, they are more empowered to get engaged in the national process and are also determined to form a CSO national coalition in Bhutan to have an active engagement process.
• Research report collaborations : VNR excerpts 2019 - made in consultation and coordination with all the 8 ADA members : The 8 countries report on CSo’s engagement in the VNR process was another important opportunity for the CSOs in Cambodia, Indonesia, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Philippines and Timor Leste to share their national mechanism on engagement process to be discussed and showcased at the regional and global level and do advocacy.
• “Empowering Civil Society for Reporting and Action on SDG16" – have 4 case stories from Nepal, Pakistan, Cambodia and Timor Leste. They are all ADA members and contributed to the report. The report was widely acknowledged during the high level political forum and among various stakeholders. 

One of the most crucial learning outcomes is the CSO’s across all these regions as many CSOs are dis-engaged in the national process, with increasing shrinking space. Also, they speak different languages, where, English is hardly spoken, hence good communication is the key to success. We tried having good interpretation services but the regular communication with them is crucial with translation facilities of all the important documents. Another lesson learned is the need to mainstream the CSOs in the national plan and policies and hence, a need to have regular dialog and capacity building activities to make them aware of their own national mechanisms. There is an immense need to capacitate the CSOs, not only on SDGs, but to encourage them to write their own CSO report and submit the same to the government apart from capacitating them on proposal and report writing. Last but not the least is the ignorance of citizen led data, whereas the government lacks the disaggregated data, the CSO led data which is both qualitative and quantitative in nature, could be acknowledged and approved by national governments. 
 

c.    Outreach and Advocacy

 
ADA participated in more than 10 national, regional or international advocacy events in 2019. As a result of participation, ADA’s visibility further multiplied and ADA was invited to participate in HLPF as a speaker in UNDEF side event and further during UNGA SDG summit in New York in September and July as a strong global south voice. ADA also represented the global CSOs during Rome Goal 16 conference  to be part of the CSO statement and present the Civil Society Statement in April, 2019, in Rome, Italy. ADA was also invited as speaker in HLPF by the UN ESCAP, and by the Government of Finland to participate and voice up opinion on global citizenship education and later to Timor Leste by WFUNA to voice up on Goal 16 related issues in Asia. As a result of these advocacy  initiatives, ADA has emerged as a strong regional CSO platform from the global south representing the national CSOs platforms from Asia , voicing up their concerns with great credibility.

We participated actively in Goal 16 global conference at Rome , International Civil society week, Belgrade, organised Tokyo Democracy Forum, Ulaanbaatar Democracy forum with partner CSOs  and together made draft declarations and statements, highlighting protecting democracy and  human right defenders, people centric approach, inclusive partnership, strengthening data, monitoring, and accountability mechanisms in order to ensure evidence-based results, protecting civil society and expand civic space, increased capacity building for implementation especially at the grassroots level –  with a need to find a way to mobilize the necessary resources to meet these needs and most importantly, a need to  implement SDG16+ in an integrated manner by strengthening mechanisms for accountability on the 2030 Agenda, and ensuring that all international development and national development plans prioritize SDG16 targets in a coordinated manner, and meaningfully engage all stakeholders in implementation processes. 
 
Rome Declaration can be viewed here
Tokyo Democracy Forum
Belgrade call for Action
Ulaanbaatar Democracy Report and declaration
APFSD report and ADA’s side events report
ADA's Engagement in HLPF 2019
Envision 4.7, Finland Roadmap and report
SDG 16 Showcase, Dili, Timor Leste (Nov 11-14, 2019)
 
Three new members were added to ADA in last one year, which were ARGO-Kazakhstan, SDG CSO Platform-Mongolia and MSD Vietnam. This has been a good achievement since there was no membership in the central Asia and with Kazakhstan becoming its first members there are high chances of more members, from this region which would help mainstream the regional in  the global discourse. However, as the civic space in central and south east Asia is very controlled, there is a need to do more capacity building to form national CSO coalitions at the national level.
 
Two (2) Position papers and documents were produced and shared by ADA on different thematics, as per their members' priorities. ADA produced the following two position papers/reports in 2019. SDG -VNR Excerpts 2019 – The paper analyses the CSO-Government engagement process in 8 VNR reporting countries in Asia. It was found that in most of these countries , the process is low and CSOs are engaged on government prerogatives. Also, most of the CSOs are not even aware of any such process at the national level. The report was shared with UN ESCAP and UNDP apart from the CSOs at the regional level.  Empowering Civil Society for Reporting and Action on SDG16 – The report was produced with Forus and TAP network, which consists of 11 country case studies. One of the important recommendations of this report is about institutionalising of Goal 16 at the national, regional and global mechanism apart from recommendation on using the citizens led data  in the VNR and other reports of the government and the UN. The report was circulated widely and also shared with UNESCAP, UNDP, KOICA, IDLO, Government of Timor Leste. 
 
Observation: At least 70 percent of national members have a positive opinion regarding the role of [ADA] in advocacy and dialogue with policy makers. This is being indicated through various evaluation forms during our capacity building activities , however, we are yet to take a membership survey , which will be done in April 2020.
 
Seven (7) advocacy side-events organized by [ADA] in 2019. Three (3) Side Events in APFSD , March, 2019-Bangkok and 4 side events during HLPF 2019
APFSD report and ADA’s side events report
ADA's Engagement in HLPF 2019
 
We organized three side events during the Asia Pacific Civil Society Forum, at the UN ESCAP, Bangkok and the full report can be viewed here. The side events were organized on the voluntary national review, Goal 16 and localizing VNRs. During these events, we also got to connect with some of the strong member states like Timor Leste, which is also the APFSD chair for 2019 and Government of Mongolia. Incidentally, these governments are also working and recognizing the goal 16 as a crucial goals. ADA made a strong presentation during High Level Political Forum, and apart from co-organizing three side events on Education as a means to inequality, Goal 16 report launch and Inclusive VNR with civil society organisations such as UNDP, KOICA, Member state-Timor Leste. ADA was also invited to speak during the UN Democracy Fund side event on Goal 16, UNESCAP on shrinking civic spaces and TAP Network. ADA was also invited by the UN during SDG summit at the sidelines of UNGA at New York and apart from participating in the summit, we were also involved in the People’s Forum and CSO forum in New York.
 
Apart from providing financial and technical support to few VNR countries in 2019, we also prepared our annual report entiled CSO’s engagement in the VNR process  SDG -VNR Excerpts 2019. The report explains the national CSO engagement process during the voluntary national review (VNR) countries of 2019 and the data and information were gathered from the national members and partners based on their national VNR experiences. Some of these experiences were presented during ADA side events with its partners in the side events during the High Level Political Forum in New York in 2019 and helped in national CSOs advocacy efforts at the global level.
 

2.  Expenditures in 2019

(The ADA programs are supported by Forus/EU)

3.  Highlights for 2020

1. Training and Capacity Building

Glo-cal Advocacy Leadership in Asia (GALA) training has been immensely successful at national, sub-regional and regional levels, attended by civil society professionals, government officials and UN professionals. The five to seven day training program has been highly engaging and trained the participants on SDGs, VNRs, linking development, democracy and human rights and there has been demand to organise the same at the national level, and organising ToT for more outreach , with focus on VNR 2020 countries in Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan in Central Asia, India, Nepal and Bangladesh in South Asia, DPRK and Brunei). 
 
We propose to do training and capacity building program in Central Asia to mainstream the voices from the region apart from training support to member in S Asian and SE Asian countries 
 
Key Training and Capacity Building Activities in 2020
 
1.     Identifying training focus in new region/countries (Central Asia, SE Asia)

1. GALA training program in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, with help from ADA’s new member Kazakhstan (ARGO) in central Asia  (in the first half of the year and later the VNR follow up and review process in the region)
2. Helping the CSOs in preparing for VNR’s, shadow reports, research report, engagement with various regional and global Platforms in Nepal, Bangladesh, India, Uzbekistan and Kyrghystan
3. GALA training program in the Mekong region as a follow up from 2019
4. Translation of training materials in the local language
5. Strengthening updating and contextualising GALA training programme for members/partners, by preparing the GALA toolkit (an inclusive efforts coming from the GALA alumni)
6. Moving activity implementation by members 
7. Piloting of new learning models; experimentation; innovation labs; joint research with academics; peer to peer; learning by doing (GALA Tool kit)

1. Joint Advocacy/Campaign (business, media, governments, members, intergovernmentalorganisations

(EU & UN), KOICA, INGOs, CSOs, donors, citizens, among others.)
a.              Convening, advocacy & partnership: this area aims to increase the connections both between ADA members and with key external allies.  Key potential focuses included: 

1. Building more spaces for joint research, reflection, sharing and learnings among members; (four years VNR analysis in the Asian countries, Yearly VNR analysis, Goal 16 reports on the basis of national case studies with refined methodologies with Forus, and partners, G20 position papers, apart from any other research projects as and when coming in from members.
2. Building links and partnerships with like-minded progressive allies (e.g.  progressive funders, ethical private sector, ethical media, progressive trade unions, social movements); 
3. Representing ADA for networking, liaise visibility and strong partnership with existing  and potential allies through its publications, (side) events at various sub-regional, regional and global platforms 

Key Advocacy Activities in 2020

1. Continued representation at various regional and global platforms , like Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) and CSO Forums, High Level Political Forum, C20 -Riyadh , continue organising side events in these forums, 
2. Representation in Goal 16 Forums
3. Joint advocacy report on Goal 16 with Forus and ADA members
4. Continue supporting national CSO reports (India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan)
5. CSO score card for the A4SD from various national platforms
6. Support few ADA members to attend regional and global forums

1. Process of Institutionalisation of ADA:
   1. ADA New Secretariat: Since ADA was registered in S Korea, which is also an OECD country, fund transfer to Seoul office couldn’t be possible and hence ADA signed the MoU with Code NGO , its member in Philippines to function as financial agency for EU fund transfer. Now, we have been considering registering ADA in a developing and non-OECD country and after doing the mapping exercise,
   2. ADA Sustainability : It’s to be noted, that ADA is comparatively a newer regional coalition in comparison to other regional coalitions around the globe. ADA started off to capacitate the national coalitions through few funding from CIVICUS and KOICA and it established itself as a credible organisations not only among its members but also among other regional coalitions. ADA has played an important role in connecting the voices at the regional level from the national level and sharing them at the global level. 
       
      ADA has been receiving funding from Forus/EU (erstwhile IFP) since 2017, which played a major role in shaping ADA and its activities in real sense , where we identified and made new members especially in central and NE Asia in last three years. We have also supported our members to raise their voices at the regional and global levels , however, we did not yet start the membership fees , as we have been wanting to establish ourselves as a credible membership based organisation by sharing and supporting .
       
      Hence , we not only expect continued support from our existing donors but we are also looking at potential donors/partners who could consider supporting ADA so that we keep representing and raising the national issues at the regional and global levels.

1. Membership and solidarity

This aims to reinforce the membership base and build connections and solidarity among members. ADA has also prepared a  CSO membership toolkit for creation and strengthening the national CSO coalition. 
 Key potential focuses included: 
1.     Membership Survey
·       Mapping of members’ priorities, expertise and thematic interests; 
·       Focussing membership outreach in SE and Central Asia
2.     Mapping of members’ members and partners; (ADA NGO Directory)
3.   ADA to concentrate more for membership base in Central Asia, SE and S Asia not only in 2020 but also in the coming 4 years . Therefore we propose few training and capacity building workshop for membership strengthening in Central and SE Asia
4.     Reinforcing communications between members through storytelling, spaces to share experiences (in general or on specific themes) such as by creating a knowledge hub/ working groups for members;
5. Strengthening membership through more personalised/human communications; 
6.     Building solidarity through co-creating content and resources; where no one is only a “consumer”
7.     looking for increased funding and resource mobilisation to/for members

• ADA's official website has been renewed. All the information related to the implementation of SDGs in Asia and actions conducted by Asian CSOs will be accumulated on this website. Please visit www.ada2030.org
• ADA's Facebook page has been activated! The page will channel useful information among civil society actors in Asia. Feel free to tag @Asia Development Alliance in future collaboration. The page is accessible with this web address: https://www.facebook.com/ada2030/ 
• ADA Twitter account @alliance_asia