The Philippines, around 35 million of whose 87 million inhabitants live below the poverty line, is besides from East Timor the only Catholic country in Asia, and as such has always been a priority cooperation country for MISEREOR. During the 90s, MISEREOR promoted around 80 projects in the Philippines per year, providing an annual average of € 8 million (please see Financial Report for the various sources of funding). As the decade unfolded, government reform programmes and inputs by NGOs engaged in development activities succeeded in creating new prospects and opportunities for large poor groups to improve their life situation. This has made it possible to continuously reduce the scope of MISEREOR's promotion. Nevertheless, considerable challenges do remain. These include helping NGOs and the poor to address areas such as urban poverty, the situation of indigenous groups, or the situation of the small farmers who have been demanding an implementation of the land reform for many years. Another important area is human rights work, which must accompany the economic modernisation of the Philippines in the current context of globalisation.

The objective of promotion in all these areas is to help build and strengthen the capabilities of the poor as civil society actors, such that they are enabled to articulate their concerns effectively, and improve their situation on a sustainable basis. This occurs both on a small scale at the local level, and in broader contexts. In the Philippines, participation by development groups and other civil society actors in the public political process is already well-developed and diversified, which offers MISEREOR and its partners in the region important learning opportunities.

The Philippine MISEREOR Partnership (PMP)
In the course of 40 years of development cooperation, our partners in the Philippines have acquired a wealth of expertise and professionalism. As a result, new paths for cooperation in partnership can now be pursued. Since 1998, concrete steps have been taken jointly with our partners to shape MISEREOR's cooperation with the Philippines. This has included our partners taking on key roles. Our joint task is to define strategies for development and priorities for our work in the Philippines. Financial decisions (annual budget, individual projects) will continue to be taken by MISEREOR.

Our counterparts are MISEREOR's two main partner groups, Church-based and NGO/PO development initiatives; our target groups are the poor themselves.

Since 1999, 4 national and well over 100 regional dialogues have taken place between Church-based and NGO partners. Through these measures, the various counterparts have been able to gradually come closer together, and define and consolidate key common ground. In October 2002, this process led to the formal constitution of the Philippine MISEREOR Partnership (PMP). In March 2003, a PMP National Assembly was held at which the first formal resolutions were adopted.

The Goal of the Philippine MISEREOR Partnership
The overall goal of the PMP is to identify and further develop joint strategies for development work and their implementation in the Philippines, on the basis of genuine partnership and a high level of subsidiarity between MISEREOR and Church-based as well as other NGO partners in that country.

Objectives include establishing an efficient exchange of experience, and ensuring appropriate quality management at the sectoral and regional levels within the 15 so-called clusters (regional groups). Typical sectoral examples would be the concertation of policies and approaches for development activities with indigenous people, or for the habitat or rural development sectors; a typical example at the regional level would be cooperation to set development priorities on the basis of a joint diagnosis of problems specific to an area/region, with possible solutions to these problems to be worked out jointly, involving appropriate cooperation and mutual backing in lobbying and advocacy work at the provincial and national levels. As well as MISEREOR partners, non-MISEREOR-partners (the so-called outside eye) who identify with the goals of the Partnership will also be involved in this process in various ways.

External consultants will also be used, for instance in the planned survey/ comparative study on the impacts of macro-economic frameworks on poverty or conflict situations in particular regions, and the capabilities of partners to respond appropriately through joint priority-setting.

In a participatory process, the 15 clusters have identified the most urgent challenges of their respective regions. On that basis, a National Development Agenda has been established with the following priority fields of action:
1st priority: poverty;
2nd priority: environment;
3rd priority: governance;
4th priority: peace.

In addition to that, two cross-cutting "special issues" have been identified:

• the challenges of globalisation; and
• culture - patriarchy, feudalism, moral degradation.

In terms of sector-specific work, the following issues will enjoy priority:

• the gender issue, with a particular focus on the health and education of women and children;
• the tri-people situation (indigenous people, Muslims and Christians living together) and its relevance to development;
• the situation of the youth and of marginalised social groups.

This rather general list of fields of action and issues has been broken down into sub-objectives that will ultimately need to be reflected at the project level. The urgency and prioritisation of issues to be addressed will vary according to the regional situation. This will mean that partners will need to incorporate into their project plans the flexible priorities jointly identified on the basis of the respective situation analysis. It also means that MISEREOR will have to be able to base its future promotion policy on these respective rationales, which will need to be continuously and jointly defined. The fact that a given situation analysis may need to be adjusted or corrected in line with changing realities and challenges will be accommodated within the PMP through an integrated mechanism of external input (outside eye/non-MISEREOR-partner).

Planned Impacts
This joint definition of strategies and promotion priorities will give MISEREOR's partners in the Philippines much greater influence in determining the orientation of cooperation. The new procedure will also impact on the role and modus operandi of the MISEREOR projects and desk officers in charge of the Philippines, as the promotion policy and strategic decisions will need to be discussed closely with the partners. These consultation processes will take place both bilaterally with the individual partners, and multilaterally through the partner-steered committee. Aspects that remain unchanged are the identity of the respective partner, their financial relationship to MISEREOR, and procedures for decision-making by the latter concerning concrete project financing. Funding decisions will, however, need to be transparent in the light of the jointly established policy for cooperation with the Philippines. This will mean, for example, that the respective situation analyses conducted by the 15 clusters, and the regional work priorities derived from them, will need to be taken into account.