PTF Moves Ahead with Projects in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Argentina – Latest Project Summaries

PTF’s Board of Directors reviews progress on current projects twice each year. The most recent report covers projects led by PTF Asia and PTF Europe, as well as projects in India, Argentina and in Africa. Please review the latest summary of the report to the PTF Board. Projects pages can also be found after this summary.

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PTF Europe

Ukraine

We are continuing to look at projects that involve monitoring of local reconstruction activities, improving reconstruction standards among municipalities, facilitating journalistic investigations into reconstruction processes, and knowledge sharing:

PTF Europe is also building a pipeline of activities to grow our geographic footprint across Eastern and Southeastern Europe and the Central Asia region.

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Moldova

PTF is engaged in a multi-year project. Please see the latest update on the public procurement project in the country.

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PTF Asia

For the past two years, PTF Asia has been implementing three projects:

  •   Masarig na Irigueño

The project in 3 pilot barangays and at the city level produced significant results by strengthening the capacities of stakeholder groups in social accountability, leadership and empowerment, and policy advocacy; assisting CSOs in their registration and accreditation to participate in development councils and processes; and accessing programs and services from various government agencies and institutions.

Empowering CSOs in Iriga City in crafting their 9-point Citizen’s Agenda that would serve as their unified voice in lobbying and advocating their issues and concerns. The Citizen’s Agenda also envisions the establishment of the Iriga City Peoples’ Council in the long run. The CSOs also contributed to the Annual Investment Plan of the City for 2025 through the submission of their CSO-proposed programs and projects:

  • Amplifying the voice of the Indigenous Peoples in Iriga City by setting up the Iriga City Indigenous Peoples Association (ICIPA). The Project also proposed a water supply project for IP communities to the Australian Embassy.
  • Training of 110 participants by PTFA’s partner, the Camarines Sur Polytechnic College (CSPC), to improve their livelihood and entrepreneurial skills. A joint PTFA-CSPC team is constantly monitoring the results of this component.
  • Incorporating resiliency in the 2024 Barangay Development Plans, incorporating plans solicited from the community members. Some plans have now been included in the city and barangay budgets.
  • Building Resilient Communities (BRC)

The BRC Project is implemented together with Action for the Care and Development of the Poor in the Philippines (ACAP) in Parañaque City, and Philippine Island Kids Foundation (PIKIFI) in Cagayan de Oro City.  An End-of-Project Evaluation by an independent evaluator is in progress.

BRC has improved community governance by promoting social protection in the project areas. Community volunteers were trained and engaged in the implementation process – serving as the link between the implementing partners, communities, and barangay local government units.

Health and nutrition sessions were conducted and awareness on child rights was promoted, including online sexual exploitation of children, which is a growing problem in the country. The project also distributed start-up funds amounting to PhP 100,000 ($1,783) to qualified beneficiaries who attended training on Financial Literacy and Livelihood skills; women’s associations were organized in 3 barangays in Parañaque and 4 barangays in Cagayan de Oro; and a community garden called FAITH (Food Always in the Home) is being implemented in Cagayan de Oro and has yielded produce for family consumption and additional source of income.

  • Climate Change and Environmental Governance Project

The Project employed the co-creation process during which climate risk maps were produced based on the identification of priority actions by stakeholders from various sectors. This included indigenous peoples whose role in the planning processes was enhanced. The CCEG Project team assisted Iriga City in resubmitting a proposal to the national Climate Change Commission for funding under the People’s Survival Fund.

 

 

PTF South Asia

  • Gender-Based Violence

Building a Coordinated Response to Prevent and Reduce Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in Kishangarh Block, Ajmer, India is a project that was implemented in two phases, in 10-gram panchayats (village councils). The project, which was implemented by CfAR, a local NGO, and financed by India Development and Relief Fund (IDRF) and co-financed by PTF, was approved in 2018 and—after a Covid-19-related hiatus—completed in 2023.  Phase III is under preparation.

Phase I: Comprised a baseline survey to assess the community’s awareness of existing laws and legal recourse available for GBV cases, and government services provided to those vulnerable to, and affected by, GBV.

Phase II: Women’s forums were established and engaged with key stakeholders in local government. In addition, eight young women were identified as change agents (gram sakhis or village “buddies”) and trained as para-legals to work with local government and district officials. They are now officially recognized as Suraksha (Security) Buddies. 40 CCTV cameras and streetlights were installed in public spaces and help desks and help lines set up in village centers and publicized.

The government supported these initiatives with the SpeakUp app for mobile phones to provide immediate access to police, women’s forums, and family. The project attracted wider attention in July 2023, when Hindusthan Times, a leading national newspaper, carried an article highlighting its success. It noted that “Change can be effected when women come together to put up a joint front.”

CfAR’s final report on the project is under preparation. Under phase III, CfAR, IDRF and PTF are keen to upscale this success horizontally (replicating it in the 21 other gram panchayats in Kishangarh Block) and vertically (documenting lessons learned, codifying the knowledge gained in “How to” training manuals, and advocacy at higher levels). Doing so will help sustainably embed the success achieved by the project in enhancing effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of the government’s GBV services.

 

 

PTF Projects in Africa

July 4, 2024 – The increasingly difficult conditions for development activities in Uganda have delayed implementation of the 2021 initated PTF-ACCU Uganda Country Strategy – Marlon Agaba, Executive Director of the Anti-Corruption Coalition Uganda (ACCU) reports on recent activity.

The second phase of the PTF-OAFRESS mentoring program is under preparation in consultation with OAFRESS champions and a meeting on March 6, 2024, between OAFRESS Champions and OAFRESS/PTF Resource Persons discussed and decided on the outline and division of labor of the second phase of the Champions’ mentoring program. The PTF-OAFRESS collaboration has instituted a quarterly journal, La Voix des Champions, to showcase the work of the OAFRESS Champions, share experiences, and strengthen networking among OAFRESS members and other key players in childhood vaccination, especially in francophone Africa, with a possibility of a bilingual journal at a later stage. The journal is intended to become an integral part of the Champions’ mentoring program.

Civil Society for Poverty Reduction (CSPR) is the implementing partner for the project which is in its third year of implementation financed by a grant from the Japanese Social Development Fund and administered by the World Bank. The objective of the project is to strengthen community awareness and participation with school management and local authorities for accountable primary and secondary education services in 45 schools in nine selected districts in the Western and Eastern provinces.

The project includes: networking and capacity building of Social Accountability Committees set up for each selected school; village-level awareness-raising meetings on access to information, along with other social accountability tools; and, extending the awareness raising campaign on community involvement in school governance and citizens’ rights to social services provision and grievance redress for communities.

A Mid Term Review was successfully completed in November 2023 and concluded that the project is well underway in meeting its project development objectives, but several challenges remain including improving coordination with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Local Government and ensuring sustainability of project activities after the project is closed in June 2025.

In November 2020, PTF in partnership with the African Institute of Corporate Citizenship/Integrity Platform (AICC/IP), the National Construction Industry Council/CoST- Infrastructure Transparency Initiative Malawi (NCIC/CoST Malawi) in association with the CoST International Secretariat (CoST IS) based in the United Kingdom, embarked on a three-year project to enhance the capacity of civil society organizations (CSOs) and journalists to engage in informed and responsible monitoring of public procurement infrastructure projects. The IP is the local chapter-in-formation of Transparency International (TI). The project was concluded on January 31, 2024.

The project aimed to enhance the transparency, fairness, and effectiveness of the public procurement process for infrastructure in Malawi through training and empowering civil society actors and investigative journalists to understand and monitor public procurement transactions. In addition, a project objective included the modernization of the Information Platform for Public Infrastructure (IPPI).

The project resulted in a substantial increase in infrastructure monitoring.  Starting in October 2022, a total of nine Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) were selected from among the CSOs that were previously trained to monitor for 12 months public infrastructure project procurement at the national and district levels in Malawi.

Through cooperating with relevant duty bearers, CSOs promoted an evidence-based dialogue between duty bearers and CSOs to improve performance and budget expenditures in public infrastructure procurement. For example, under the project information was collected on 63 projects in the Transport, Buildings, and Water and Sanitation sectors to identify a strategy for monitoring budgetary processes in three Districts. The monitoring helped identify recommended actions to increase the effectiveness of infrastructure budgeting processes.

 

PTF in Argentina

In October 2023, PTF and Poder Ciudadano (the chapter of Transparency International) signed a Grant Agreement to continue a program fostering greater transparency and accountability for the procurement, distribution, and delivery of vaccines in Argentina. This is a unique program for the PTF—a multi-year activity funded by the PTF’s own resources operating at the national level and dedicated to improving government transparency through a very focused effort on a critical issue—immunization. Poder Ciudadano and PTF`s collaboration started in 2019.

The first project sought to make public COVID-19 procurement and distribution information in Argentina, demonstrating the secrecy surrounding suppliers, amounts, distribution plans and results.

The second project continued the advocacy program for COVID-19 response intensifying its work in building alliances with CSOs and the media. Poder initiated contacts with public oversight bodies like the supreme audit institution and the ombudsman providing them with evidence that led to a report by the Supreme Audit Institution highlighting government’s lack of transparency.

The third project focused on calendar vaccine purchases. Poder was able to document and publish a detailed report on the procurement process for calendar vaccines along with COVID- 19 response. They published a report on how to deal with reluctant government agencies in six basic steps—gather evidence, report results, build alliances, advocate constantly, seek openings with authorities and litigation.

This fourth project extends the approach in several ways. First, it extends the monitoring of immunization processes to the regional level, establishing “accountability labs” in three Provinces—Cordoba, Mendoza, and Buenos Aires. Second, Poder will monitor procurement of four vaccines now produced in Argentina and procured by the Ministry of Health. Traditionally vaccines were purchased and provided by PAHO, the WHO agency in Latin America. Third, they will work with the MOH authorities to counter the significant decline in vaccination rates and in trust in the health system and will produce a “preventive transparency toolkit” for use by CSOs, regional and national health system authorities. Fourth, Poder will mobilize networks of regional CSOs to share experiences and information on the monitoring effort.