Oct 2018: Movement-building in Indonesia │New documentary on Guatemala’s health rights defenders │ ARC @ GPSA

Perempuan Kepala Keluarga (Women-Headed Family Empowerment, known as PEKKA) is an Indonesian organization whose work is rooted in a vision of women’s collective power and participation for social change. Since 2001, PEKKA has addressed entrenched social exclusion through popular education, intensive leadership development, social accountability and policy advocacy. Thousands of marginalized women have overcome stigma and entered the public sphere to engage in politically savvy, sustainable collective action. This emphasis on autonomous grassroots voice is grounded in 2,559 village-level cooperatives that are also scaled up to district, provincial and national levels. PEKKA’s long-term efforts to build a broad-based organization with more than 31,447 members have brought fresh and reimagined language, analysis, and strategy ideas to the transparency, participation, and accountability (TPA) field. Read more in the full publication.

Este documental corto relata la historia de la Red De Defensores y Defensoras Comunitarios por el Derecho a la Salud. La Red está conformada por usuarios de los servicios de salud que identifican problemas, dialogan con las autoridades para implementar soluciones y demandan rendición de cuentas.
A new short documentary tells the story of the Network of Community Defenders for the Right to Health in Guatemala. They are users of healthcare services that have organized themselves to identify problems, engage with authorities for resolutions and demand accountability.

As October ended, ARC director Jonathan Fox organized and led a breakout session on “Investing in Grassroots Leadership Development Strategies for Social Accountability” with four esteemed discussants: Joy Aceron, Director, Government Watch, Philippines; Paulina Culum, Network of Community Health Rights Defenders, Guatemala; Wunna Htun, Myanmar Program Coordinator, Bank Information Center; Nani Zulminarni, Director, PEKKA, Women-Headed Households Program, Indonesia. Panelists are frontline strategists who will share experiences with efforts to bolster both roles for citizen participation by investing in grassroots leadership development and capacity-building. Each participant is involved in efforts that “broaden the base” for more effective policies. G-Watch in the Philippines convenes a national network of grassroots policy monitors, including the conditional cash transfer program. Guatemala’s indigenous Network of Community Health Rights Defenders (REDC Salud) monitors clinic performance in 35 municipalities. Indonesia’s Women-Headed Households (PEKKA) advocates for the right to identity and access to basic social programs for socially marginalized women. In Myanmar, Bank Information Center formerly worked to document the implementation of citizen engagement & capacity-building measures in a World Bank-funded public health program. In addition, ARC scholar-in-residence Dr. Suchi Pande brought an activist and researcher perspective on social audits into a panel on Public Finance and Accountability. When GPSA uploads the video for the panels and sessions from the 2018 Global Partners Forum, ARC will share via Twitter and Facebook. Stay tuned!

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October 2018

New Publication Movement-building for Accountability: Learning from Indonesian Women’s Organizing

**10-minute documentary: Network of Community Defenders for the Right to Health in Guatemala**

ARC at GPSA 2018 Partners Forum on Public Finance and Social Accountability for Human Capital