OPERATIONALIZING AND POPULARIZING THE 2007 WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT

Saint Paul University KDC, in cooperation with Silliman University, held training sessions for students and focus group discussion for out-of-school-youth on September 17 to 18 at the Saint Paul Campus.

These activities aimed at:

1. discussing issues and opportunities that will help the youth in the Philippines in Exercising Citizenship specifically in promoting good governance and transparency in governance;
2. developing an advocacy tool using creative alternative ways of presenting and packaging the World Development Report 2007, Chapter 7: Exercising citizenship;
3. supporting the youth in promoting transparency in online procurement in local government units, using simplified versions of the social accountability tools developed by local civil society groups;
4. developing policy proposals the represent the youth’s views about development based on the dialogues among the youth from various countries.

Day 1: September 17, 2008

PHILGEPS or Philippine Government Electronic Procurement System Training of students from the following colleges and universities at the Computer Laboratory A, Lorenzo Ruiz Building

St. Paul University Philippines
Saint Tonis College, Tabuk City
University of St. Louis
Kalinga-Apayao State College

PHILGEPS is the single centralized electronic portal that serves as the primary and definitive source of information on government procurement.

The trainer for PHILGEPS is Joel H. Eayte, Chief, Training and Operations, Department of Budget and Management. The training session enabled the participants to help monitor transparency in procurement in local government units.

Focus Group Discussions with Out-of-School Youth (OSY) were held simultaneously with the PHILGEPS training session. They were facilitated by Mark Raygan Garcia, Director of Information and Publications, Silliman University and the project leader for the KDC project.

The participants tackled 12 questions and these were all about the participation of the youth in development in the country, especially in promoting good governance. These were the same questions tackled in the online discussion at http://www.ispeaknow.multiply.com/.

Day 2: September 18, 2008

Three (3) alternative packaging training sessions were held simultaneously for the out-of-school youth to solicit their creative interpretation of the 2007 World Development Report on Exercising Citizenship in Promoting good governance in the local government by means of painting, singing, and dancing.

The output of these trainings will be presented to local government officials of Cagayan in the 2nd week of November.