IP Champions: Advancing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines

CTR Reference No.

EIDHR/2020/420-645

Title of the project

IP Champions: Advancing Indigenous Peoples’ Rights in the Philippines

Implementing organisations

International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA); Institute for Autonomy and Governance (IAG)

Project Location/s

Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) and Cordillera Administrative Region (CAR)

Operational Duration

(start date – end date of activities)

1 January 2021 – 31 December 2023

Allocated budget

(EU contribution only)

EUR 245,441

Overall and Specific objectives (simplified – for publication)

Overall Objective: To enhance indigenous peoples’ rights in the Philippines by empowering advocates who can demand rights, and where institutions responsible for upholding these rights have the knowledge and skills to respond to such requests to effectively fulfil their mandates.

Specific Objective 1: Indigenous leaders in Bangsamoro and Cordillera have enhanced understanding of the legal and institutional framework for indigenous peoples’ rights in the Philippines and improve their advocacy capacity to engage in sub-national, national and international human rights processes.

Specific Objective 2: Relevant national and subnational institutions have increased knowledge about indigenous peoples’ rights in the Philippines and of their own role in the protection of these rights

Main target groups

Indigenous peoples’ groups in BARMM and Cordillera, and relevant national and sub-national institutions.

Main activities (simplified – for publication)

    1. Preparatory consultations with IP groups and representative organizations
    2. IPCAT Workshop for IP Champions in BARMM and Cordillera
    3. Mentoring and support for IP Champions advocacy plans in BARMM and Cordillera
    4. Forum for experience-sharing and evaluation of advocacy plans
    5. Dialogues with national and sub-national government institutions
    6. National forum on indigenous peoples’ rights and launch of final publication

2.1 IPCAT workshops for indigenous peoples’ institutional champions

Sustainability of the Project

Institutional sustainability: The project will build on the commitment and ownership among the target groups as a key component for promoting sustainability. The Action aims at establishing institutional sustainability by implementing a set of activities that are informed by a theoretical model that assumes that four complementary approaches – inspiring, supportive, face-to-face and creating an enabling environment approaches – are needed to achieve sustainable outcome. The Action adopts a local system approach whereby it is designed to identify champions within local civil society, communities and government institutions, champions who will remain within these agencies far beyond the life of the project. Changing these actors’ capacities and behaviours result in long-term systemic change to the system for protecting IP rights in the Philippines.

Policy-level sustainability: The project activities are designed to encourage analysis on and evidence-based advocacy around policy. The use of IPCAT enable users to develop a detailed analysis and familiarity with legal frameworks impacting indigenous peoples’ rights and to recommend and implement actions targeting policy reforms.

The project also encourages peer-to-peer sharing and learning as regards to the benefits and challenges of enhanced regional autonomy for indigenous peoples between the IP communities in Bangsamoro and Cordillera.

Financial sustainability: The project relies on contributions – financial and human resources – from both IDEA and IAG. As such, this demonstrates the commitment to ensure financial viability of the Action throughout its project phase. Beyond that, the implementing partners are committed to the issues and communities represented in the Action and will continue to fundraise to scale up activities that prove successful. Furthermore, it is hoped that the IP Champions will learn valuable advocacy skills and strategies and be supported in developing these ideas, for which they can also fundraise.

Environmental Sustainability: The implementing partners ensure that respective environmental policies of the organizations are applied in the conduct of the project activities.

Target SDGs

SDG 5.5 Ensure women's full and effective participation and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life

SDG 16.7 Ensure responsive, inclusive, participatory and representative decision-making at all levels