Civil Society Assistance Program Final Report:
Report Period: October 2014 - September 2019
Delivered to: USAID
Implementer: Counterpart International Cooperative Agreement Number: AID-OAA-LA-14-00011
2345 Crystal Drive Suite 301 Arlington, VA 22202, USA
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF ATTACHMENTS ...... 2 LIST OF ACRONYMS ...... 2 I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ...... 4 III. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES ...... 8
GENERAL ACTIVITIES ...... ERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
OBJECTIVE 1: CIVIL SOCIETY PROMOTES TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY AT NATIONAL AND MUNICIPAL LEVELS...... 8
OBJECTIVE 2: CIVIL SOCIETY FOSTERS DIVERSE PARTICIPATION AND ENGAGEMENTERROR! BOOKMARK NOT DEFINED.
OBJECTIVE 3: INCREASED ABILITY OF CSOS TO OPERATE COHESIVELY AND EFFECTIVELY...... 9
V. ACCOMPLISHMENTS ...... 24 VI. BEST PRACTICES AND CHALLENGES...... 26
List of Attachments
Annex 1 PMEP Table - Results PY1-PY5 Annex 2 Convergence Roundtable Evaluation Process Annex 3 Publication: Open Government Process in Ecuador
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 2 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
List of Acronyms
CB Convergence Board (Spanish acronym for Mesa de Convergencia) CNC National Council of Competencies (Spanish acrony for Consejo Nacional Competitions) CNE National Electoral Council (Spanish acronym for Consejo Nacional Electoral) CONAIE Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities in Ecuador. (Spanish acronym for Confederación de Nacionalidades Indígenas del Ecuador) CCPSC Council of Citizen Participación and Social Control. (Spanish acronym for Consejo de Participación Ciudadana y Control Social) CCPSC-T Transitional Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control CPI Counterpart International CLA Collaborating, Learning, Adapting CSA Civil Society Assistance Program CSE Social Contract for Education (Spanish acronym for the NGO Contrato Social por la Educación) CSOs Civil Society Organizations EIB Intercultural Bilingual Education (Spanish acronym for Education Intercultural Bilingual) EPS Community Based Entrepreneurship (Spanish acronym for Emprendimiento Popular y Solidario) ESQUEL Fundación Esquel FARO FARO Group FCD Fundación Ciudadanía y Desarrollo FEPP Fondo Ecuatoriano Populorum Progresso GADs Decentralized and Autonomous Governments (Spanish acronym for Gobiernos Autónomos y Descentralizados) LOTAIP Organic Law for Transparency and Access to Public Information (Spanish acronym for Ley de Acceso a la Información Publica) NA National Assembly NAC National Anti-Corruption Commission (Spanish acronym for National Anti-Corruption Commission. NAP National Action Plan for Open Government (Spanish acronym for Plan Nacional de Accion de Gobierno Abierto) OGP Open Government Partnership PC Participación Ciudadana PODA Participatory Organizational Development Assessment PY Program Year SENPLADES National Secretariat for Planning and Development (Spanish acronym for Secretaria de Planificación y Desarrollo TWP Thinking and Working Politically
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 3 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
I. Executive Summary
The Civil Society Assistance (CSA) Program has operated under two very different political contexts. During the first 3 years of program implementation, the government restricted individuals’ rights to assemble as well as civil society organizations’ (CSOs’) opportunity to participate in matters of public interest. Understanding this context, the CSA Program emphasized building the capacities of CSOs, specifically those organizations working with vulnerable groups, promoting dialogue throughout civil society, and supporting advocacy efforts in their communities. Despite the abrupt change in political context, Counterpart’s use of thinking and working politically (TWP) and collaborating, learning, and adapting (CLA) tools throughout the project enabled us to work effectively despite the abrupt change in political context.
Program Results As a relatively small and one of the few civil society strengthening and democratic reform programs in Ecuador – CSA has had outsized impact. Additionally, the program has been adept in understanding the changing political context and adjusting our support to grantees and activities to capitalize on the burgeoning reforms. The Program has impacted Ecuadorian democracy on several fronts: (a) Strengthened the capacity of civil society to interact more effectively with the government concerning the management of public policy; (b) Promoted mechanisms for transparency and accountability in local and national democratic processes; (c) Contributed to the improvement of the regulatory framework for the promotion of democratic reforms, the inclusion of vulnerable groups, citizen participation, and political and electoral processes. Throughout the life of the Program: • 2,842 people trained under the CSA Program • An average rate of 95% satisfaction with trainings provided by CSA partners, as measured through surveys applied to participants. • 1,825 civil society organizations, local governments, and academic institutions assisted under the CSA Program or that have participated in the trainings, forums, and public events held by Counterpart and CSA local partners. • 9,518 individuals have participated in discussion forums on topics of local and national interest and 803,855 individuals were reached on-line through these activities. • 10 networks of CSOs, youth, or coalitions of multiple actors established, and 28 networks strengthened under the CSA Program. • Over 500 CSOs have engaged in advocacy and watchdog functions. • 762 instances where media outlets have referenced CSA partners or beneficiary CSOs or have incorporated their inputs into media products.
Counterpart primarily worked with three Ecuadorian CSO partners throughout the life of the project. The results of each of our partner’s work is highlighted below:
GROUPO FARO (FARO)
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 4 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
FARO led Objective 1 “Civil Society promotes transparency and accountability at national and municipal levels” under CSA and conducted a series of Electoral and Political Processes initiatives. Its 4 main components included:
FARO’s 3-year capacity-building initiative called Innovation was a comprehensive online training strategy, coupled with face-to-face coaching, and finalized through a subgrant where participants could implement a project based on their learnings from the module. Through Innovation, FARO strengthened the capacity of 693 people from CSOs, local governments, and political organizations in 17 provinces of the country. In addition, it generated 30local mechanisms for citizen participation and social control, motivating collaborative work between civil society organizations and local governments.
To strengthen the political and electoral processes for the national elections in 2017, the Popular Referendum in 2018, and the sub-national elections in 2019, FARO led the Ecuador DECIDE initiative combining 4 main pillars: (a) citizen participation in the creation of public policies and proposals for candidates; (b) creation of an advanced online platform to interact with citizens and provide them access to information on candidates and upcoming ballot questions (c) political debates with candidates on priority issues (d) the use of technology and communication on social media networks to inform citizens about electoral processes and citizen proposals. FARO reached more than 4.5 million people through these activities.
Through the Del Dicho Al Hecho1 (From Idea to Action) initiative, FARO promoted the participation of citizens in social control and monitoring of elected public officials. For this, it established alliances with key actors and designed a rigorous methodology to monitor the governance of the Moreno administration across 6 issues related to his campaign promises. They released reports that showed the results of their monitoring at 100 days since his election, 6 months, and 1 year after his election. During the second year of Moreno’s administration, FARO produced a follow up report on 3 of the issues. The results of the Del Dicho al Hecho initiative were documented through 18 reports widely disseminated to the public through an online platform.
During the CSA Program, FARO also contributed to growing an enabling environment for civil society organizations through dialogues and advocating for legislation reforms to ensure association rights.
PARTICIPACION CIUDADANA (PC)
The Ethical Pact initiative was implemented from 2015-2016 by PC in nine provinces and created an effective dialogue space for civil society and other social actors even in an environment that restricted citizen participation. This citizen dialogue process involved 444 people representing 308 organizations, associations and unions, to address priority issues for Ecuadorian democracy.
Policy proposals from citizens in the provinces were collected and put into a document called the Democratic Agenda. PC then presented this Agenda to several of the candidates who participated in the general elections in February 2017. At least 10 recommendations from the policy proposals of the Democratic Agenda were brought onto the legislative, electoral, or presidential debates for consideration.
Throughout the life of the CSA program, PC presented technical and legal recommendations to proposals for laws and regulations in the areas of electoral legislation, citizen participation, and
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 5 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019 association rights. At least a dozen recommendations were brought into the legislative debate – making for a more robust and inclusive legislative process. PC and their partners also contributed to the drafting of electoral regulations, such as the Electoral Promotion Regulation in 2016 and the Electoral Observation Regulation in 2019, which facilitated the participation of citizens, especially youth in the monitoring of electoral processes, thus contributing to greater youth involvement in democratic practices.
In 2017, Participación Ciudadana created the Youth Leadership Network that focuses on enhancing youth capacity to engage in democratic initiatives and expand PC’s activism through youth. Currently 31 young leaders from 10 universities actively participate in this network. Since its creation, network members have participated in the observation of the 2019 sub-national elections in 5 cities, developed an on-line campaign to promote youth participation in democratic processes, and implemented initiatives to train other youth in their communities.
FUNDACION ESQUEL
Esquel’s focus under the CSA Program over the first two years was on strengthening civil society organizations through a combination of technical assistance and training in organizational development, advocacy, and financial sustainability. First, they received training on Counterpart’s Organizational Development (OD) framework and worked to develop a training of trainers (TOT) network, where they increased the capacity of 11 mid-level CSOs.
The 11 selected CSOs worked with vulnerable groups such as LGBTI, women, and youth. The OD assistance focused on strengthening their capacities to influence high priority policies and issues for their constituents- such as promoting legislation to combat gender-based violence, creating employment opportunities for youth, and defending the rights of the LGBTI population.
In late 2015, Fundación Esquel launched the online platform EsquelCLIC (Latin American Center for Collective Advocacy) as a mechanism to provide remote capacity building assistance as a sustainable way to strengthen CSOs and their networking efforts. Under the CSA Program, three training modules were developed, and 525 people were trained through the platform. This platform has become an effective tool to strengthen CSO capacities at the national level.
The Converge Board (CB), led by Esquel, was created with the goal of establishing a citizen consensus coalition to promote dialogue between civil society and government entities to influence issues of public interest. Currently, the CB brings together 22 CSOs, social movements and networks, which have made significant progress to enrich dialogue and take policy actions on public education, social security, and democratic reform policy. To date, the dialogues and events from the CB Roundtable included the participation of 172 organizations, 1,900 people in person, and more than 170,000 on-line participants.
All CSA partners contributed to the generation of public policies and legal reforms in the country on issues such as citizen participation, electoral processes, association rights, inclusion, and rights of vulnerable groups such as the LGBTI population and people with disabilities. They were able to provide inputs and recommendations to local and national level policies and legislation on 38 different themes throughout the life of the program. From these, they were able to pass 9 ordinances at the municipal level and introduce reforms to 9 laws and regulations. Also, the organizations drew up more than 24 citizen participation and transparency mechanisms for local governments and other public management spaces.
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Finally, the CSA Program provided support for Ecuador's entry into the Open Government Partnership (OGP). OGP is a global initiative that strengthens the link between the Government and civil society to promote transparency and accountability. Counterpart’s support to this initiative was provided through the local NGO Fundación Ciudadana y Desarrollo (FCD) which is the delegated point of contact for civil society for OGP. In addition, Counterpart worked directly with the Executive Branch providing TA and supporting strategic events organized by the Presidency, which is a leading member of the OGP Core Group. With the support of the Program, the co-creation of the OGP National Action Plan (NAP) involved 420 people and reached 276 online, representing 78 public and private organizations and generating 314 proposals for potential action plan commitments. By December, the first National Action Plan will be launched outlining the commitments that the country will carry out over the next 2 years.
Situational Context and Lessons Learned Since Lenin Morena was elected and came to power in May 2017, his administration has opened the door to greater individual freedoms and has gradually invited civil society participation and collaboration in governance. With this change, the Program shifted its emphasis to expanding and enhancing civil society's work with the national government. Opportunities to support matters of public interest and democratic reform emerged, including the promotion of transparency and accountability frameworks such as the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Given the need to promote free, transparent and fair elections in preparation for national and sub- national elections, the CSA Program supported partner organizations to conduct voter and civic education campaigns, influence candidates' agendas, promote democratic reforms, and encourage transparency by political actors. The implementation of the Program brought valuable lessons over the last 5 years. Following are some highlights of these lessons and detailed information and individual lessons learned are described in the corresponding section at the end of this report: • The timely and strategic adaptation of the CSA Program enabled an effective response to advance program objectives under changing and challenging political contexts. This was evidenced through several actions including (i) shifting the priority from strengthening CSOs to collaborate with local governments to taking advantage of opportunities and providing support for CSOs to collaborate with the national government, (ii) the establishment of broader coalitions with representation of diverse stakeholders including NGOs, citizen groups, social movements, (iii) the incorporation of new methodologies, themes, and tools for on-line and in-person trainings throughout the program to strengthen local capacities. Also, the flexibility, resourcefulness, and adaptability of local partners was an important factor for CSA Program effective response to the complex political scenarios.
• Civil society-led public policy advocacy is more likely to succeed when large coalitions consisting of like-minded CSOs can work together in a strategic, and unified manner. Despite the challenges and level of effort that effective networking implies, CSA partners including Participación Ciudadana and Esquel were able to advance major reforms and initiatives to strengthen democracy involving a broad range of stakeholders. This is the case of the Convergence Board in promoting national agreements on issues of public interest, and the Promoters Group in the implementation of the Ethical Pact, which promoted effective citizen participation in the formulation of proposals to enhance policy making.
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• Increasing the capacity of CSOs to conduct research, collect data, and design communications strategies were pivotal to their successful advocacy and citizen oversight efforts. The CSA Program devoted significant support to enhance this capacity and there are various examples of the success of CSA partners on this including (i) The Convergence Board creating working groups in the areas of education, social security, and citizen participation, all which generated pivotal data for the promotion of national agreements and/or governmental decisions in these areas, and (ii) the rigorous methodology and tools designed by CSA partner Grupo FARO to implement a citizen oversight initiative to follow-up on campaign promises and performance of the Moreno Administration on areas of national interest, generating hard data and sound analyses for enhancing governmental public policy.
• On-line platforms are effective mechanisms to strengthen CSO capacity when these are appropriately designed and complemented with in-person, innovative, and user- friendly tools. The two on-line training platforms developed under the CSA Program (ESQUEL-CLIC, and Grupo FARO’s Innovaccion Platform) were adjusted over the life of the program to include more learning tools including on-line forums, webinars, short video clips, and links to national and international resources. In addition, both CSA partners devoted major support to participants and implemented monitoring and evaluation techniques to follow-up on participants feedback. Finally, the on-line training was complemented through in-person trainings that allowed participants to exchange experiences, share practices, and develop their networks.
II. Summary of Activities, Methods, and Results
Counterpart Engagement
During the CSA Program, Counterpart provided technical assistance to partner organizations on four topics: (1) Advocacy, (2) Organizational Development, (3), Monitoring and Evaluation, and (4) Financial Sustainability.
Given the complex political shift that the country went through during the implementation of the Program, Counterpart first emphasized its TA in the area of advocacy to increase CSOs ability to advocate for their constituents on importance issues. At this point, there were no real opportunities to engage with the national government, so supporting the engagement across civil society and with local governments was the entry point for Counterpart’s support.
Counterpart sent an international expert to work with the three partner organizations in 2015, 2016, and 2017 on collaborative advocacy strategies and tools. The TA included trainings on international and regional best practices in advocacy, discussions on the organization’s experiences and challenges and practical exercises. After this support, PC, FARO, and Esquel have conducted successful advocacy initiatives both within and outside of the scope of the CSA Program.
In 2015, Counterpart International conducted a Participatory Organizational Development Assessment (PODA) of PC, FARO, and Esquel that evaluated and scored the organizations in six areas of organizational capacity: Leadership and Strategic Management, Program and Activity Management, Administrative and Financial Management, Sustainability, Human and Material Resources, and Strategic Alliances.
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The PODA resulted in a baseline for each organization and an OD Action Plan was created based on the identified challenges and opportunities for them to address. In 2019, Counterpart facilitated the final assessment and found that since 2015, the partner organizations have increased from a 3 to 3.23 points on the scale of 0-4 points of the PODA tool. In addition to facilitating this self- assessment, Counterpart conducted workshops and dynamic meetings within each organization to strengthen their organizational development capabilities and identify priority institutional strengthening initiatives.
In 2015 Counterpart also provided TA on data collection, information quality, and monitoring methods, to partner organizations. This assistance allowed partners to strengthen their monitoring, evaluation and knowledge management systems. The tools and methodologies have not only been utilized to monitor CSA Program results but also their other programs. This is an area that organizations were in need to strengthen as working in a restrictive environment demands from organizations the capacity and available tools and methods to technically demonstrate its results.
In 2016 and 2019, to support our partners’ path to self-reliance, Counterpart provided financial sustainability technical advice, training workshops, and online technical support. In both phases, the scope of the technical assistance was co-designed with the partners to fit the individual needs of each organization, and then adapting the tools developed by Counterpart.
The two lessons learned from this technical assistance include: (a) All TA administered by CPI was based on the needs and priorities of the local partners and completely customized to each individual partner. Even further, each SOW for the technical experts were co-created with the partners to ensure that they were receiving effective assistance.
(b) Similarly, the selection of experts from Latin American was essential to the effectiveness of the assistance and ensured high level results, especially about collaborative advocacy.
Objective 1: Civil Society promotes transparency and accountability at national and municipal levels
Grupo FARO participated in this program from December 2014 to September 2019 leading the execution of the first component of the CSA Program. Overall, FARO was able to bring opportunities for public policy making to citizens and provide them with increased capacity, user- friendly tools and methodologies, to effectively participate in public policy making, electoral and political processes, and perform sound oversight of public performance at both levels of government. This was attained through the following main activities.
INNOVATION Training Program. The Innovation Training Program focused on strengthening the capacity of civil society and local governments through a combination of approaches that included online training, collaborating with academia, in-person coaching, and the implementation of subgrants. The training program included 8 modules, each taught over the course of 4 months. At the end of the program, they were encouraged to draft a project proposal for funding through a subgrant that incorporated some of the lessons learned through the training. Topics for the modules included Transparency, Accountability, Citizen Participation, Gender Mainstreaming, Project Design and Development, and Public Management. Throughout the CSA Program, 3 cycles of the Innovation Training Program were delivered, strengthening the capacity of 693 people from CSOs and local governments in 17 provinces.
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The training modules were technically rigorous and included a syllabus, academic materials, instruction manuals, and guides for participants and instructors. FARO also developed several learning tools including videos and webinars. The program was accredited by two national universities (UTPL and Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar). Upon completion of the training modules, participants received a certificate that were signed by both Universities signaling an official recognition of the training and adding professional value.
Participants of the Innovation program were evaluated before and after each module and each in-person training session to capture their increase in knowledge, and their overall satisfaction of the program. The average increase in knowledge during the three years was 20% among 130 of participants who completed the core 4 modules and participants rated their satisfaction with the program at 90%.
The modules ended with “change projects” that gave participants the opportunity to put into practice the knowledge and lessons learned from the training program. Out of 20 proposals, FARO provided 13 subgrants to organizations who proposed projects that encouraged collaboration between civil society and local governments. A key requirement of the proposal was that there had to be work across sectors (civil society and government).
These projects resulted in 20 public policy mechanisms including legislation on different subjects in 13 cities throughout the country. Some of the legislation that was passed included laws on (a) LGBTI inclusion, (b) labor opportunities and enhanced services for Public Work Departments (PWD), (c) national legislation for combating gender-based violence, (d) local regulation to combat child labor, (e) establishment of municipal systems for citizen participation and accountability.
Ecuador Decide. Ecuador Decide was FARO’s strategy to increase citizen engagement and access to information throughout Ecuador’s election cycle. This strategy had 4 components: 1) Increasing voters’ access to civic information, 2) Developing and promoting citizen-driven policy proposals to enhance candidate's platforms, 3) Holding political debates with national and local candidates, and 4) creating transition commissions and opportunities for citizens to monitor government performance.
Informed Vote. FARO designed an online platform and used it to reach voters throughout three electoral processes: The National elections in 2017, Popular Referendum in 2018 and local elections in 2019. Through web platform, FARO provided citizens with access to the presidential candidates’ policy proposals, organized by thematic priority issues. The platform allowed citizens to compare the proposals of the different candidates, and form their own opinions based on reliable information.
In 2019, FARO built into the platform a section to formulate and post citizen proposals. This enabled the possibility to compare candidates’ plans vs. citizens needs or ideas, and also identify potential actions for future collaboration between government and civil society.
The Ecuador Decide website received more than 800,000 visits throughout the 3 electoral cycles. One of the ways that FARO drove citizens to visit the website was through a strategic alliance with Facebook. One day before the election, Ecuadorians with Facebook accounts saw a photo of a button on their homepage. The button said, “Get informed to Vote” and was a link that directed them to the Ecuador Decide website, where they could learn about the candidates, ballot
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 10 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019 questions, and election processes. Over the three election cycles, the button was activated for approximately 6 million people.
FARO also initiated a communication strategy to promote the Ecuador Decide website and release other pieces of civic information and data. They produced videos and infographics to communicate messages in a user-friendly manner and used their social media networks as their mechanism for dissemination.
Citizen-driven policy proposals. FARO increased civic engagement through workshops that allowed citizens to draft policy proposals for candidates of the Presidential election in 2017 and the mayoral candidates in 2019. In both election cycles, FARO encouraged civil society to develop ideas and provided technical assistance by utilizing international tools and methodologies (Smart Citizen — Chile) that FARO adapted to the Ecuadorian context. In 2018 FARO also developed a Citizen Activation Manual, a Proposal Development Guide, and a proposal format on the Ecuador Decide platform. These tools were utilized to train citizens and CSOs on the formulation of proposals at events described below, and as self-help tools for individuals and organizations interested in submitting citizen proposals through the platform.
As a result, citizens were able to develop sound proposals for public policies and programs and present them in a public arena to their potential candidates and other citizens. In 2017, a total of 10 public policy proposals were presented and captured in the publication “Citizenship of Politics: Contributions of Public Policies for National Debate”. The report was presented to candidates as well as elected government representatives. Four of the ten policies (on education, open government, entrepreneurship and gender-based violence) served as inputs for programs and / or projects currently ongoing under the administration.
In addition to the tools and methodologies, in 2019, FARO carried out a series of citizen engagement events to motivate citizens to formulate proposals. As a result, citizens developed 377 proposals on different technical areas to be considered by the mayoral office. Ecuador Decide disseminated these proposals through the Ecuador Decide platform and developed a form in Google requesting candidates to make their commitment to citizen proposals public. The form was also sent to candidates with the highest polling rates. As a result, several candidates publicly committed to support a total of 95 proposals in the 3 cities if they were elected.
Political debates with national and local candidates. FARO has promoted the concept of holding a political debate as a public good, something that citizens deserve and should expect to have as Ecuador continues to develop as a democratic country.
To advocate and promote this message, FARO developed a systematic approach geared towards changing citizen’s perception of this issue. The approach focused on: (i) providing opportunities for citizens to participate in the debates through the submission of questions for the candidates, (ii) proposing electoral regulations so that political debates become mandatory in Ecuador, (iii) the development of tools and official processes to ensure high quality debates, (iv) permanent and public dialogue with political actors to influence their decision to participate in the debates, (v) creating strategic alliances with various media platforms to show the debates in real-time, and (vi) participation of various CSOs to develop technical questions and link to the debates. While implementing this strategy, FARO coordinated directly with the National Electoral Council. This was important for political actors to better understand the legitimate role that FARO had in
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 11 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019 developing these actions and for increasing their willingness as well as citizens interest in participating at the diverse activities organized by FARO.
In 2017, FARO drafted 40 questions for candidates based on the concerns and inputs received on-line from 350 citizens. The questions were discussed during the TV program “Ecuadorian Dialogue Decide 2017” with civil society experts. The discussion utilized Facebook touchscreen tools to show the trends in the political conversations citizens were having across FB on topics of interest. FARO also held 5 debates between candidates for the National Assembly in five provinces that were broadcast through Facebook Live; and 5 dialogues between actors from different sectors on topics of national interest. These dialogues were transmitted through the platform of El Comercio newspaper and Facebook Live, and subsequently there were online discussions between two experts on each subject, which were disseminated on the Ecuador Decide digital platform.
FARO was unable to conduct the presidential debate it had planned since the inception of the Ecuador Decide initiative, due to the lack of political will. However, instead of the debate, FARO carried out a TV program called “Ecuadorian Decide 2017 Citizen Dialogue” with experts from academia and civil society on different topics of national relevance. More than 600,000 people were reached via a live TV broadcast and through social media networks.
For the Popular Referendum in 2018, FARO conducted 4 discussions on the questions of the referendum that were televised on the Oromar TV channel reaching more than 150,000 people, and an additional 2 million through a livestream on the Diario el Comercio newspaper’s Facebook page. For the 2019 local elections, FARO held 3 debates between mayoral candidates of Quito, Guayaquil, and Cuenca, in which 39 of the 48 candidates from the three cities participated. All candidates agreed to disseminate their proposals on the Ecuador Decide platform.
At the same time, FARO developed a proposal to reform the Code of Democracy that was included and presented in 2017 by the CNE to the National Assembly. This proposal was also endorsed by the new leadership of the CNE and it included holding debates as priority reforms that it presented in 2019. The other CSA partners also joined the crusade to promote debates as mandatory in the Ecuadorian legislation, and it is expected that the National Assembly will approve this reform by February 2020.
Local Government Transition Processes.
Although the proposed transition process is not mandatory per Ecuadorian legislation, FARO provided technical assistance (TA) to 5 local governments to develop a systematic and technical transition process that would increase transparency and citizen participation helping new municipal administrations and their constituents establish healthy practices for good governance. The tools were widely renowned and the National Competency Council (CNC), sponsored and disseminated the Transition Guide (practical aspects) and the Protocol (theoretical-legal aspects), stating that they were important resources for local governments.
In addition to the Guide and the Protocol, FARO designed data collection matrices and provided technical assistance to the transition teams of the 5 governments. They also developed a rigorous monitoring system to track progress and prepare technical reports for the incoming representative and administration.
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Del Dicho Al Hecho initiative. This initiative was implemented from 2017-2019 and increased opportunities for citizens oversight on the national government's public policy on priority issues. This initiative was implemented to measure the administration’s progress at 100 days, 6 months, 1 year, and 2 years of his presidential term. The monitoring focused on the following topics: (i) Basic Education, (ii) Trade School Education, (iii) Employment, (iv) Entrepreneurship, (v) The fight against corruption, and (vi) Post disaster reconstruction of the Province of Manabi. During the second year of the administration, they followed the issues of Employment, Entrepreneurship, and the Fight against Corruption.
To implement Del Dicho al Hecho, FARO developed a comprehensive strategy that included: (a) creating a consortium of 15 organizations from different sectors (b) the design of a rigorous methodology determination of technical indicators to measure progress, (c) creating a relationship with government institutions with technical background of the priority topics, (d) an effective online communication strategy with media to disseminate the results of the follow-up to public entities and the public in general.
FARO discussed this activity with government officials in order to ensure their buy in and request that they provide data for the monitoring activities. They agreed to submit the necessary information to FARO and the consortium. FARO worked jointly with representatives from academia in the development of indicators to monitor the progress of the Moreno administration. The indicators were then tracked over the course of his Presidency and reports were produced that showed how the administration was doing against the indicators. CSOs and the private sector provided their perspectives to emphasize the significance and relevance of the indicators to those affected by public policies. International nonprofits contributed to the evaluation and analysis of each issue using international standards and experiences.
As a result of this initiative, FARO and the consortium produced a total of 18 progress reports that show how President Moreno's administration complied with their campaign promises during the first year of his administration. Six reports were then produced during the second year. Del Dicho Al Hecho received national media coverage from 62 media and news agencies (10 print media, 16 radio stations, 11 television stations and 25 on the Web). Overall, it provided citizens with an unbiased and evidence-based measure of the government’s progress on certain issues of national interest.
Enabling environment for civil society organizations. FARO has actively contributed to promoting a favorable environment for CSOs in the country. FARO exercised the Secretariat of the Confederation of Ecuadorian Civil Society Organizations (CEOSC) and increased the involvement of CSOs in the enactment of regulations that replace the Executive Decree issued by the previous government whose focus was mostly on the control and restriction imposed on the performance of the CSOs.
To work in this area, in 2016 FARO organized a working group with members of CEOSC and prepared a public policy report called “Public Policies to promote the development of CSOs in Ecuador”. The report analyzed the situation of civil society in Ecuador. It also proposed public policies that were necessary to create an enabling environment for CSOs. Additionally, it developed draft articles for a bill to advance civil society work in the country.
From 2017 to 2018, FARO conducted 10 provincial dialogues to present the policy proposal and provide feedback on the proposed law. Approximately 200 CEOSC organizations and 44
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 13 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019 candidates for the National Assembly participated in these dialogues and learned about the proposal. Additionally, FARO established an alliance with the Mexican Foundation for the Development of the Third Sector to produce two case studies on the regulation of CSOs in Brazil, Mexico and Ecuador.
Finally, in 2018, FARO worked collaboratively with the assembly members that formed the “Parliamentary Group for the Promotion and Defense of Citizen Participation and Civil Society Organizations” to include the comments of the CEOSC in the first and second Legislative debate on a Draft Law for CSOs in the National Assembly.
In 2019, the legislative function resumed its interest to approve legislation for the work of CSOs. Grupo FARO has publicly expressed the need that, once the current law proposal that the Assembly is analyzing has been approved, it has to be supplemented by regulations that encourage the participation and involvement of civil society in public management and the development of public-social alliances (which was the central element of the Policy proposal proposed by CEOSC). Group FARO, which currently holds the presidency of the CEOSC’s provincial Federation of Pichincha CSOs will continue to participate in the monitoring to influence the adoption of the CSO law and a promotion law for the participation of CSOs in the public sector.
Objective 2: Civil society promotes diverse participation and engagement
Corporación Participación Ciudadana (PC) led this objective and was a CSA local implementing partner from December 2014 to June 2018 and November 2018 to August 2019. Below is a summary of PC’s main activities:
Ethical Pact Initiative. With the support of the Grupo Promotor (a coalition formed by 39 civil society organizations from various provinces of Ecuador), PC conducted a series of citizen dialogues in 9 provinces of the country with the aim of analyzing priority issues and generating citizen proposals to strengthen Ecuadorian democracy. A total of 444 people (236 women and 208 men) participated and led discussions around 4 topics:
1. Strengthening Democracy, Rule of Law and Institutionality 2. Transparency 3. Freedom of Association, Political Participation, Citizen Participation and Social Control of Government Management activities 4. Human Rights and Rights of Priority Care Groups
In order to establish the Promoter Group and define the topics of discussion for the Ethical Pact Initiative, PC created an initial online survey for various CSOs to measure their interest in participating in this initiative and to obtain their perspective on priority issues pertaining to democracy in Ecuador. Through the survey, 16 topics were identified and subsequently reduced to the 4 topics listed above in a workshop facilitated by Citizen Participation.
Subsequently, to prepare for each of the citizen dialogues in the 9 provinces, PC and members of the Promoter Group led a training session for the facilitators. In these meetings they reviewed the working group management methodology step-by-step, the roles of the facilitator, recommendations for the opening and closing of each meeting, dialogue techniques, time management, facilitation methods, and preparation of the presentation.
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 14 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
Citizen Agenda The inputs of each dialogue were compiled by a local expert and captured in a document called the Citizen Agenda. This Agenda was then presented to several of the candidates for President and National Assembly members before the general elections in February 2017. To disseminate the Citizen Agenda to both the public and to candidates, PC conducted 4 debates with 16 provincial candidates for the Assembly in Guayas, Pichincha and Loja.
In the debates, the candidates answered questions prepared by CSOs on the topics described in the Citizen Agenda. They also live streamed the debates and had the candidates answer questions received on social networks. More than 350 people participated at these debates and thousands were also reached through a full-scale media campaign using social media networks and PC’s website. Once the event was over, the candidates concluded the debate with how they would take the issues in the Agenda and integrate them into their work plans for public office.
As a result, the Ethical Pact initiative encouraged the development of a Promoter Group with 39 organizations that worked collaboratively for 18 consecutive months. Representatives from more than 308 organizations, associations, and unions from 9 provinces promoted the citizen dialogue process by strengthening citizen participation in the three regions of the country. In addition, it provided an ideal space for creating a Citizen Agenda and planning citizen proposals that were accepted by several candidates for Assembly Members in 2017.
National Working Group To further promote the Citizen Agenda and increase the level of technical and academic discussion on democratic issues, PC created a National Working Group with 13 nationally recognized experts in different fields including political science, economy and finance, and law. This Group worked with PC to write 5 White Papers on: (i) Electoral Legislation and Regulations, (ii) Citizen Participation in Ecuador, (iii) An Independent and Efficient Justice System as a Key Element of the Rule of Law, (iv) Human Rights Condition in Ecuador, and (v) Economic Policy.
To create this unique entity, PC first defined the scope of the National Working Group and identified representatives based on their technical and political profiles to serve as an expert member. As a result, the Group provided outstanding analysis with valuable insight and recommendations on issues relevant to advancing Ecuador's democracy. The analysis and documents they produced allowed PC, and other CSOs, to identify areas and issues of significant public concern, and the ability to disseminate high-quality academic products to citizens.
Legal Reforms: Since the beginning of the CSA Program, PC has drafted and presented technical and legal contributions to various proposed laws and regulations, including: (i) Electoral Promotion Regulations, (ii) Organic Communication Law, (iii) Electoral Observation Regulations, (iv) Reforms to the Code of Democracy, (v) reforms to the Organic Law of Citizen Participation, (vi) Integration of the Transitional Council of Citizen Participation, (vii) Organic Law Reform of the Council of Citizen Participation, and (viii) Organic Law of Civil Society Organizations.
For this technical work, PC carried out a rigorous analysis of each law, held technical discussions of the reforms with local experts, and over time created and maintained a dialogue with members of the National Assembly, political actors, and authorities of the National Electoral Council.
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 15 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
Several of the contributions from PC enhanced the discussion of legal reforms and were included in reports for debates in the legislative chamber. This was the case of the Law on CSOs and the Organic Law to Reform the Citizen Participation Law,
On the other hand, several of PC’s inputs were included in the drafting of electoral norms and regulations such as the Electoral Promotion Regulation in 2016 and the Electoral Observation Regulation in 2019. As a result, the procedure and requirements for the registration and accreditation of domestic volunteers to observe the electoral process were streamlined which created opportunities for the participation of hundreds of citizens, especially youth, in the observation of the elections.
Young Leaders' Initiative. To promote the participation of youth in democratic processes, PC identified 31 young leaders from 10 universities in 4 cities and provided them with training on issues related to democracy, including: Rule of Law, Citizen Participation, Freedom of Association and Transparency, Political Advocacy in Social Networks, Communication Strategies, and Conflict Resolution Techniques.
Through this initiative, PC created alliances with universities to promote democratic values and practices in students. Several of the members of this Initiative actively participated in the observation of electoral processes and citizen oversight committees led by PC.
As a result of the support and training provided by the PC, the initiative turned into a National Network of Young Leaders. The Network is still active and effectively participating in initiatives to strengthen democracy in their respective localities.
Strengthening Civil Society Organizations (CSOs). PC conducted workshops and developed training manuals on 4 topics (Constitutional Tools for Citizen Participation, Committees and Group Management, Communication Strategies, and Political Advocacy) and conducted the trainings in 6 cities in the country (Guayaquil, Quito, Ibarra, Loja, Tena, and Machala). Through this initiative, implemented between April and July 2017, PC trained 324 people from 23 cities located in the provinces of Pichincha, Guayas, Imbabura, Esmeraldas, Loja, Napo and El Oro. A total of 142 organizations were reached through these training programs.
Political and Electoral Processes. In preparation for the Popular Consultation convened by President Moreno in 2018 and in the elections for the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control (CCPSC) elections in 2019, PC carried out several activities with the goal of increasing civic education and awareness of the candidates’ proposals, ballots, issues, and questions.
Popular Referendum - Conducted 4 public forums on 3 out of the 7 items proposed in the Referendum: a) the fight against corruption, (b) indefinite reelection and (c) the restructuring and role of the Transitional Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control, (CCPSC). The main participants of these events included local experts from academia, media, and civil society.
Through these forums, PC engaged with 299 people who attended these events in Guayaquil, Loja, Ibarra, and Quito and another 100,000 through online communication. Simultaneously it reached almost a million people through the online campaign “My Vote Has Power” and interviews on social networks.
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Elections to Select the Members of the CCPSC: PC created a citizen oversight council to observe the selection process for candidates of the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control (CCPSC). The findings of the observatory were regularly disseminated to citizens and submitted to the National Electoral Council (CNE). PC also carried out a civic campaign through social media networks and held 3 forums in Quito, Guayaquil and Loja with CCPSC candidates. The goal of the campaign and forums were to educate the population on the specifics of the electoral process, the role and function of the CCPSC, and introduce citizens to the applicants. A total of 232 people participated in the forums and Facebook Live reached an additional 6,612 people who watched via livestream.
Sub-national Elections: PC conducted a qualitative observation of the elections in the cities of Manta, Guayaquil, Cuenca, Loja and Quito with the participation of more than 330 observers, mainly young university students, who were deployed in 40 rural and urban parishes of the 5 cities. For this activity, PC designed a small distribution sample in urban and rural areas, identified provincial coordinators based on technical criteria, trained the coordinators and subsequently volunteer observers in each province, and adapted their manuals and observation forms accordingly. Finally, PC released 3 announcements on Election Day with updated results during the opening, interim, and closing of the voting process. Overall, PC found that in the 5 cities the electoral process was successfully conducted in terms of the compliance with the procedures, legal framework, and regulations. No major issues were found in these three stages of the voting process and domestic observers were able to perform their observation without any impediments.
Citizen Monitoring: In addition to the qualitative observation of the electoral process, PC carried out 3 additional initiatives related to the elections: (a) monitoring of state funded campaign financing that was broadcast on 11 national television channels. The results were disseminated to the public weekly and alerts were sent to government entities when there were found to be clear violations of regulations, (b) monitoring of the harassment against female political figures on the social media network Twitter during the 45 days of the electoral campaign, and (c) monitoring the web pages of 22 national parties and political movements, registered in the National Electoral Council (CNE) and the provision of technical assistance for these organizations to comply with the Organic Law on Transparency and Access to Public Information (LOTAIP).
To develop the observation and other initiatives during the electoral process, PC signed a collaboration agreement with the CNE. The 3 citizen monitoring initiatives carried out by PC provided relevant information to the electoral and control authorities to enhance their discussion on reforms required in the electoral legislation including transparency of political parties, better control of electoral spending and measures to combat gender violence on social media networks.
Communication Strategy: Throughout the entire CSA Program, PC created a significant presence for itself in the media, using it strategically to inform and guide public opinion on democratic issues of national interest. From 2015 to 2018, PC had a total of 334 mentions in the press, digital media, radio, and television outlets. Additionally, the amount of mentions of PC on social networks increased. In 2015 PC had 1,928 followers on Facebook, 2,332 on Twitter and 11,800 on its Informed Citizen News website. By June 2018, Facebook reached 14,129 followers, Twitter 8,125 and its Informed Citizen website reached 13,286.
Objective 3: Increased ability of CSOs to operate cohesively and effectively
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Organizational Development Technical Assistance (TA) for CSOs. Through the CSA Program, Esquel took on the role of becoming Counterpart’s Organizational Development legacy partner in Ecuador. They were chosen out of the 3 partners based on their networking ability and the trust that they had built within civil society. Counterpart conducted a Participatory Organizational Development Assessments using Counterpart’s methodology and tools. Through this process and specific TA, Esquel staff developed skills and understanding of capacity building that they could use to continue to help smaller CSOs within their networks throughout Ecuador.
Esquel first adapted Counterpart’s methodology to provide OD to 11 CSOs with the objective of strengthening their organizational development and advocacy capacity. The work of the 11 CSOs were focused on protecting the rights of marginalized populations, including youth, women, and the LGBT population. The organizational development centered around assessing and improving the CSOs in the following organizational capacity areas: leadership, strategic management, program management, administrative-financial management and human resources and alliances. The fundamental axis was the development of advocacy capabilities, for which Counterpart and Esquel worked to develop specific indicators and strategies to measure progress in this area.
In addition, Esquel focused on the financial sustainability component for CSOs and worked with them to set goals for analyzing new sources of funding including social entrepreneurship strategies. The TA in financial sustainability included a mentoring process with experts on different topics that supported the implementation of the sustainability plan for each CSO. Given the legal restrictions for CSOs, Esquel developed legal assistance services that allowed organizations on to comply with all the legal requirements. They were extensive and covered all areas of the regulations including civil, tax, labor and administrative rules. The framework of this component included the Network of Legal Experts created to provide advisory services to CSOs on a preventive basis through the Esquel CLIC's (Latin American Center for Collective Intelligence) website with the support of pro-bono lawyers who attended 42 legal consultations.
Finally, Esquel developed a monitoring and evaluation system to monitor the progress of the CSOs on their organizational development plans and the implementation of their advocacy initiatives.
Main results achieved
The results of the baseline versus final assessment of the OD process for the 11 CSOs showed a significant growth in capacity. The CSO baseline scores were an average of 1.5, based on a maximum score of 4. The OD support and engagement lasted 2 years, and the final assessment showed the CSOs achieved an average score of 3. The area with the greatest change was Financial Sustainability followed by strategic management and strategic alliances. ● Development of a CSO Strengthening Model aimed at strengthening capacities: (1) organizational, (2) financial sustainability and (3) development of advocacy processes. 90% of organizations demonstrated an increase of these capabilities.
● Creation of a computer platform for online training programs called ESQUELCLIC (https://www.esquelclic.org). The workshops combined face-to-face and online sessions in which 525 people and 105 organizations participated nationwide. The training programs obtained a 90% satisfaction rating from participants. The online forums reached more than 20,000 people.
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● 11 advocacy projects, implemented on the following topics: fighting gender-based violence, youth employment and rights, and the defense of the LGBTQ rights. The project has allowed them to complement Organizational Development with advocacy strategies to achieve specific results. Five of the projects advocated for the enactment of municipal ordinances, four of which have been approved by the municipal councils and became official policy. Over the 11 projects, 556 people received targeted training and 136 people participated in advocating for the approval of the ordinances.
● Even though the economic situation of CSOs in the country is still complicated, beneficiary CSOs claim that they now have tools to create strategies allowing them to diversify their financing sources1. An example of this is that the African Progressive Women organization now promotes a social entrepreneurship initiative called "My Africa", within the framework of community tourism on Trinitaria Island.
Promoting public policies and National Agreements. Due to the complex political situation in Ecuador, Esquel created the Convergence Board (CB), a civic initiative to build a meeting place for organizations and citizen groups in the country to come together and discuss high priority public policy issues. The concept was to generate a safe space for civil society to convene, collaborate, and support political actions to advocate for a better democracy.
The CB is made up of 22 representatives of networks and CSOs that work in the following sectors: citizen participation, transparency, anti-corruption, education and social security.
The CB methodology was focus on discuss and support citizens proposals to be presented to government authorities and generate a dialogue process between citizens and government to jointly create public policy proposals.
The CB developed a working strategy to monitor progress in its advocacy and communication initiatives. Annex 2: CB Evaluation carried out by IDE Business School, where you can see the results and the future recommendations.
Main results achieved
• Created 12 working groups on different topics for the discussion of citizen proposals. • Informed Voting Campaign with 7 online forums in which candidates and experts participated in a moderated discussion on the candidate’s political campaign and citizens proposals in the candidates’ agendas. A total of 208,000 people participated in the forums.
1 Result obtained from the interviews conducted by ESQUEL in 2018 with the purpose of evaluating the process.
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• Developed 116 public policy proposals, among which are: 3 national agreements and 3 questions introduced in the popular referendum of February 2014. • “Together against Corruption” campaign in which 2,500 citizens participated. • Conducted 10 citizen dialogues to create proposals for the government's agenda. In these spaces 172 organizations participated, 1,900 people in person and more than 170,000 online. • The Social Security Studies Bureau was created by placing this issue on the public agenda through direct dialogue with Social Security Institute authorities. • Initiatives between the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE), Secretariat of Intercultural Bilingual Education, Ministry of Education, Education Commission of the National Assembly, CB, Fundación ESQUEL and indigenous communities of Sierra, Coast and the Amazon, to support and promote bilingual intercultural education. • Developed an operational model for the New Community School and a comprehensive teacher training policy. • Reopened 3 community schools. This commitment began the previous quarter with the reopening of the first 3 schools. • Law Proposal to reform the Organic Law for Intercultural Education presented to the National Assembly. • Implemented advocacy strategies to increase the Ministry of Bilingual Intercultural Education's budget from USD $ 2,800,000 to USD $ 30,000,000.
Open Government Partnership (OGP) process in Ecuador. On July 18, 2018, Ecuador joined the Open Government Partnership (OGP). Counterpart International together with Esquel supported the Citizenship and Development Foundation (FCD) to begin the co-creation process of the National Action Plan in Ecuador.
To lead this process, a Core Group was formed with the participation of Government institutions, civil society organizations and academic entities. This is based on best practice and lessons learned from other countries that has shown that multi-sector involvement in the creation of the NAP is crucial for high quality commitments and full ownership of the Government.
Co-creation first began with the creation of an official OGP Website (https://gobiernoabierto.ec), where individuals could log on and submit ideas for NAP commitments virtually. This website was kept open and live throughout the entire co-creation process. Through this mechanism, the OGP Core Group received 216 proposals to become commitments for the NAP. This website was unique in that once a commitment was submitted into the website it received an individual ID number. At any time over the 3-month co-creation process, a citizen could log into the platform and see where the commitment was in the process. It was a real-time tool to promote citizen engagement throughout and was very successful.
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To compliment this approach, the Core Group also held 8 workshops organized across the country in the cities of Quito, Guayaquil, Portoviejo, Cuenca, Puyo, Ibarra, Loja and Ambato. The workshops had two main objectives: to raise awareness about the OGP process and collect citizens proposals for NAP commitments. To achieve these objectives the Core Group trained a group of 25 volunteers to facilitate workshops and lead discussions with citizens to identify priorities and choose the most relevant commitments for each technical sector. The workshops methodology included forums and working groups to build and support the best proposals. As a result of the 8 workshops 38 proposals were proposed by citizens.
The Working Group then evaluated the commitments by pairing up government institutions (whom would be responsible for the implementation of the commitments) and a civil society organization with technical expertise in that area. For example, for all commitments in relation to the Access for Information sector, the Ombudsman Office worked with FCD to evaluate and prioritize those that should be considered for the first National Action Plan. This methodology proved to be a successful way to ensure the technical quality of the commitments, but also the government buy- in that will be needed to effectively implement the NAP.
The final draft of the first NAP is currently going through the OGP public consultation process to collect feedback from citizens and government institutions. It is anticipated that the NAP will be launched in December 2019.
Graphic No.1: Co-Creation Stages to build the first OG Plan
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ETAPA 5 ETAPA 7 ETAPA 1 ETAPA 3 Confirmación con Formalización Recepción de Evaluación de responsables y del Plan de problemas y soluciones propuestas contrapartes Acción
ETAPA 2 ETAPA 4 ETAPA 6 Agrupación e Selección de Consulta integración de propuestas pública propuestas Participa la ciudadanía
Participa el Grupo de Trabajo
Summary of the main results:
● Participation of 420 people in the 8 Co-Creation Workshops of the First OGP National Action Plan: The workshops held in 8 cities in the country had the participation of 420 people 38 whose proposals, added to those received online, resulted in 314 proposals. 78 public and private organizations were involved in this process. The participation of various social, ethnic and age groups was evident, Facebook publications reached 45.347 citizens.
● Acceptance of 314 proposals through the creation of the OGP website and the 8 proposal development workshops. The platform offered citizens information on the OGP process and allowed 281 citizens from different provinces, ages and social sectors to submit comments and proposals for consideration.
● Open Government Week in Ecuador: From March 11 to 17, Ecuador joined this International initiative to raise awareness about OGP. With this objective in mind, 9 events were organized by different actors. Approximately 900 people participated in Open Government Week, including representatives of civil society, academia, public and private sector, citizen groups and open data activists. The report documenting the events was published in one of the most important communications channels: https://www.elcomercio.com/actualidad/gobierno- abierto-ecuador-lenin-moreno.html
● From August 28 to 30, the CONDATOS- ABRELATAM VII International Conferences was held in Quito. The conference brought together actors from around Latin America to discuss how open data and open government are inherently linked to areas such as human rights, public service delivery, transparency, citizen participation, and new tech solutions, among others. The event was attended by 505 experts from different Latin American countries.
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● FCD launched the National Network for Transparency and Open Government, a group of non-governmental actors whom will be responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Open Government National Action Plan.
Strengthening the local commissions of the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NAC). In Ecuador, the NAC is a benchmark in the fight against corruption. Its leadership has created opportunities for civil society to exert more social auditing and control pressure on government. To impart some of this learning to local government and their citizens, the NAC began creating provincial level commissions so that citizens can develop actions and proposals that promote transparency.
Esquel worked on the organizational structure and development of the NAC, to design pilot management models for 3 of its local commissions. It selected to place commissions in the provinces of Bolívar, Chimborazo and Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas. After the implementation of these 3 pilots, there will be an assessment and eventual establishment of 9 more commissions throughout the country. The methodology used to design the structure for the pilot commissions was divided into 4 stages: i) Plan, ii) Execute, iii) Verify, and iv) Adapt (Act). This methodology was created based on an analysis of the national organizational structure, it’s strength and weaknesses, defining of problems and strategic planning. Also, Esquel support the NAC in drafting key organizational rules to improve the NAC and local commissions performance and its advocacy capacity.
Organizational assessments were then carried out on the 3 pilot commissions, and an action plan was created aimed at generating an operation model both for the NAC as well as the local commissions.
Main results achieved
• Assessments of the pilot commissions that identified short, medium, and long-term adjustments to be made. • Management model, which includes an Action Plan for the implementation of the model. • Joint drafting with the NAC members of the following instruments: i) Modified and Codified Organic Statute, ii) Regulation of Processes, iii) Code of Ethics and, iv) Operation Regulations. • Transfer of the management model to the 3 local commissions.
Promoting Women's Political Participation. Despite the progress made on increasing gender equity in political participation, and even though 50% of the candidate lists for elections must be female, substantive equity is still a challenge. Only 9% of women hold public office at the municipal and provincial level showing the gender disparity in government positions and decision-making roles.
Esquel developed a training process that included tools to support political and local women leaders develop local government plans and political agendas that include real citizen’s needs. The training includes methodologies to manage citizens workshops and how to hold constituent meetings to identify their problems and proposals.
The program included political candidates for local governments elections, representatives of political parties and women leaders. It offered face-to-face workshops in 2 cities: Ambato (Sierra)
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 23 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019 and Portoviejo (Costa). In addition, the training process was supported with online workshops through the ESQUEL CLIC platform and communication campaigns on related topics.
Main results achieved
● 77 women (51 politicians and 26 community leaders) from 12 provinces of the country participated in 3 training modules to increase women political participation. A total of 17.18% of the women left the training with an increased understanding of their role in politics. A total of 97.58% women said they were satisfied with the training. The content of each module is available on the Esquel website with the purpose of serving as a reference or guide material for women participants in electoral process.
● Drafting of the “Pact for Equity” in effective and collaborative local government. In which the group of political women that participate in the training programs were integrated nationally with the aim of empowering them as local leaders to become mentors in their territories or potential candidates in upcoming elections. For the design of the Pact for Equity, the United Nations sustainable development objectives were included to address problems such as legal changes, proposals for the education system, violence, defense of environment, among others. The topics chosen under the Pact for Equity were: i) Training in gender for women's empowerment, ii) Defense of water resources and food sovereignty, iii) Promotion of the Law against violence; and, iv) Promotion of the Productive Development Law.
● Political Campaign for 2019 local elections: "Without Sexism, Racism, or Chauvinism". This campaign was developed with the aim of promoting solidarity among women and demonstrating that it is possible for men and women demonstrating that it is possible to participate in a political contest with a common goal that favors healthy competition without reverting to using words or acts of sexism, racism or chauvinism. 13 videos were produced, 12 with interviews conducted with women representing public authorities, candidates and local leaders. The communication campaign reached 61,745 people and had 20,189 video views produced.
● “Without aggression or violence, I'm committed to….” this communication campaign was directed to political candidates with the objective of building awareness about the aggressive tweets receive by women when they are candidates for electoral processes. The campaign also provided support to women candidates and opened the space to give women a voice on subjects related to their political duties.
III. Accomplishments
The main achievements of each social organization in relation to the objectives of the program include:
Objective 1
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• The DEL DICHO AL HECHO (From Words to Action) This initiative was groundbreaking in the implementation of technically sound methodologies and coalition building for citizen control over public management and compliance with campaign offers. The strategies utilized by FARO to implement this activity contributed to increasing the capacity of civil society organizations and academia to play a constructive role in enhancing government programs and policies. It also helped citizens understand through user-friendly information and an effective online and media communication strategy the advances made by the government in areas of national interest and at the same time be aware of core challenges and actions that remain to be addressed. In disseminating the results, FARO was able to obtain more than $3 million in free press as media widely covered the results of Del Dicho Al Hecho initiative.
Objective 2
• Reclaiming Civic Space from the Ground Up Prior to the election of 2017, Ecuador was one of the most closed regimes in the Western Hemisphere. Despite the lack of civic space and adverse conditions for citizen participation at this time, Counterpart worked with Ecuadorian civil society on a grassroots initiative to hold democratic issue discussions throughout the country. This process and these discussions resulted in the Ethical Pact, which was an agreement among 39 local CSOs to continue to discuss and advocate for democratic change. The Ethical Pact created a safe space for the dialogue of citizens and civil society actors to express opinions on important issues. The process culminated with the creation of a Citizen Agenda for democratic reform. The Citizen Agenda, which employed a participatory and inclusive process and took 10 months to finalize, was used prior to the election to get candidates to commit to these issues of citizen concern. This bottom-up approach of civic activism and engagement was a contributing factor to reestablish channels for the participation of civil society in Ecuadorian democracy.
• Enhancing Public Debate and Law Making through Civil Society Participation For over a decade, Ecuador’s democracy experienced important setbacks including the weakening of its democratic institutions and passing of laws that promoted lack of proper checks and balances. The CSA Program placed major emphasis in supporting the participation of its partners in generating ideas, inputs, and proposals to enrich the public debate and law-making process on key democratic themes. For example, PC, along with other civil society actors, actively participated in the discussions to reform electoral legislation, eliminate the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control, and strengthen the transparency of political actors. Their ideas and opinions were widely covered by local and national media and considered in the discussions of authorities and decision makers, including the National Assembly.
• Thousands of Citizens Informed on Elections and Alerted on Political Violence in Social Media The past three electoral cycles have been particularly relevant for Ecuadorian democracy as they resulted in a transition to a more democratic governance model. The CSA Program played a major role in supporting local partners’ initiatives to promote an informed vote and greater citizen engagement in the electoral and political processes. In addition, PC encouraged youth participation in the oversight of the elections and raised citizen awareness on the political harassment against women in social media during campaign periods,
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committing women national leaders to help combat this situation, and inspiring other CSOs to develop other activities in this area.
PC reached more than one million citizens through its Responsible Vote campaign and citizen forums contributing to an informed vote in the national elections of 2017 and the Popular Consultation of 2018. It also promoted transparency in the electoral process engaging over 250 young people in the qualitative monitoring of the sub-national elections. PC also monitored violent statements and actions against women on the Twitter network and widely disseminated these results through media, State authorities and other civil society organizations.
Objective 3.
● Creating an OD legacy partner in Ecuador: Esquel adapted Counterpart’s OD methodology and conducted assessments for 11 small CSOs in Ecuador. This approach was complemented by giving grants to the CSOs between $ 5,000 and $ 10,000 to implement their OD Action plans and conduct an advocacy projects on a priority issue of their choice. After the assessment, Esquel designed an action plan with each organization and provided training on issues such as: advocacy strategies, networking, conflict management, activity planning, communication strategies, and collaborative impact.
ESQUEL's experience in this process highlights the importance of supporting small CSOs. That, despite their limited organizational development, they are dedicated to key issues within their communities. These CSOs can achieve great results if, after an assessment of impact capacities, they receive targeted TA and training related to their needs. Esquel created a continuous mentoring and strengthening process, identifying key points to develop specific capacities.
The advocacy projects influenced local and national level governance throughout Ecuador. A total of 4 local government ordinances were passed as a result of the CSO pressure and the Comprehensive Law for the Prevention and Eradication of Violence against women was put into place nationally. In addition, 8 out of the 11 CSOs sustainability strategies obtained financing for their projects through international cooperation, government, the private sector or social enterprises.
With the support of the TA in OD, they have managed to map and access strategic partnerships that support them in the development of initiatives. For example, the organization, Women to women, has joined with universities in Guayaquil and Cuenca; the Peace and Hope Foundation keeps ties with the Prosecutor's Office; FUTPEN made ties with mayors and councilors of the GADs Municipalities of Salinas, Santa Elena, and La Libertad; Hummingbird Wings with international organizations such as UNDP and IOM; among others. Beyond alliances, these institutions have become permanent allies with the beneficiary CSOs.
As a result of the process and applying its work plans strategies and activities, the beneficiary CSOs established new networks of organizations to support their advocacy efforts, such as the Network of Lawyers for CSO support, the Anti-trafficking network (with CSOs and government entities), the House of Diversity (LGBTI Network).
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• Bolstering civil society in Ecuador: Former vice-president Lenin Moreno won the election in 2017 and presented himself as a politician open to dialogue and strengthening civil society. Through the CB, CSOs were able to renew a dialogue process with the President and government officials and began to advocate for crucial changes in the country.
Overtime the Convergence Board has become a recognized leading actor in the public arena. It has presented 116 proposals on topics such as education, social security, citizen participation, transparency, anti-corruption, citizen participation to public authorities through constructive dialogues. This method has improved relationships between the government and civil society, while creating avenues for public policies to come from citizens and be heard by government. As a result of this process positive changes have impact citizens life as for example the intercultural education law, the community school model, the National Agreements on democracy, education, and social security, among others that are part of the government priorities.
• Ecuador Commits to and Makes Progress on Open Government: In joining OGP, Ecuador is working on fundamental areas for the creation of a new democracy with a foundation in transparency and access to public information. With CPI support, Ecuador has been able to implement their own successful co-creation process to develop their first National Action Plan. The commitment from the government has remained high, and the OGP Core Group produced successful results that have been recognized internationally by the OGP leadership in Washington, DC. The diversity of actors, the number of proposals received, and the innovative activities carried out to disseminate and improve the process will result in the launch of the First Open Government Partnership National Action Plan in Ecuador on December 2019
Ecuador’s government and citizens understand that their role in this process is key, as it is an opportunity to close inequality gaps and promote a more open and inclusive democracy. OGP allows citizens and government to rethink the formulation of public policies and makes it a more engaging process. In Ecuador, stakeholders across sectors have come together to better understand how open government initiatives can support the country strategy to fight against corruption through transparency.
Given the successful implementation of OGP, several local governments are interested in issuing a by-law to conduct the open government process at the local level to increase transparency, access to information, accountability and citizen participation.
● Creating a Safe Space for Women in Politics: The training process was designed to promote women's political participation and was based on a methodology that goes beyond the learning process by creating connections between the participants despite their differences or political affiliations. As a result, local governments have shown interest in strengthening women's leadership in local government processes. Mayors of provinces such as Cotopaxi, Napo, and Tungurahua have requested support from Esquel to develop similar processes in their cities. The women's political participation program achieved important results not only by fulfilling its objectives, but also by developing content adapted to the real needs of women who enter politics. The program demonstrated that women in this area need to be supported to empower not only their political campaigns but their participation as community leaders. Esquel has received multiple requests from several cities in the country to implement the training program.
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The activities for the promotion of the women's political participation have shown that gender stereotypes are still rooted in society, hindering the full exercise of women's political rights. Despite the advances of social, economic and political structures, female leadership is still limited. Women face many difficulties and need to feel empowered by holding decision- making roles and exercising power.
IV. Lessons Learned, Challenges, and Opportunities
The main lessons learned, challenges, and opportunities identified during the LOP under the program components are as follows:
Objective 1
• The use of technology in adult training programs requires an innovative, accessible, and easy-to-use technological design to encourage students to successfully complete the training. FARO adjusted the modules of the Innovation program used in the first year of the project to incorporate more interactive teaching resources, including questions about readings, graphics, alerts for homework assignments on time, recreational games, etc. It also modified the contents so that the training generates changes based on: (i) the identification of real and current situations that occur, (ii) self-discipline and, (iii) a collaborative learning enhancing joint knowledge.
• A comprehensive strategy must be carried out to ensure political actors and citizens understand the importance and need to conduct debates in electoral processes. FARO's strategy included several elements: (i) generation of strategic alliances with various media to democratize access to debate, expand its reach, beneficiaries, and impact, (ii) creative and high-impact communication strategy aimed at political actors and citizens on the importance of the debate as an instrument of informed voting, (iii) negotiation meetings with the campaign teams and / or candidates to make joint decisions and reach agreements on the rules of the debate, (iv) strict transparency and rigor in handling the preparatory actions of the debate, and (v) promoting the enforceability of the debates in the electoral legislation.
• Citizen oversight to measure the progress of public management requires effective access to public information, technical and methodological rigor, and the academy's ability to develop indicators and carry out follow-up analysis. FARO developed transparent and trustworthy relationships with government institutions to discuss indicators, measurement results, analyze information, and contextualize measurement findings. It was important to agree on the goals between government and civil society and understand the real circumstances of the public sector to collect and deliver the information. One way to promote sustainability for these types of initiatives is through universities. Finally, to disseminate the results of this initiative to the general public, it was necessary to convert qualitative data into quantitative and percentage results. This facilitated citizen understanding of the subject and increased the media’s attention.
• The transition processes of authorities at the local level require certain conditions to be successfully implemented: (i) maintain the political will of those local governments in which their maximum authority competes for re-election so that the transition process ends regardless of the election results, (ii) allocate the time and effort necessary for public officials
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 28 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
to collect and prepare the transition information, especially at election time, and (iii) include citizens and CSOs throughout the entire process. FARO provided support and permanent technical assistance in each locality. However, since the transition process is not mandatory in Ecuadorian legislation, the institutional capacity of each local government and the political will of the authority after being elected or re-elected determined diverse results in the 5 local governments that carried out these processes.
• The main difficulty that FARO faced in its efforts to encourage adequate regulations for CSOs was to raise awareness in decision-makers about the importance and advantages of promoting an enabling environment for civil society participation. In this situation, FARO implemented a series of strategic actions: (i) disseminated the results of a Civil Society Accountability’s assessment demonstrating the contribution of this sector in projects for vulnerable populations and in supporting public-private actions for local development, (ii) ensured the support and unification of the members of CEOSC and other CSOs in the promotion of public policy proposals and the proposed regulations, and (iii) actively participated in the Parliamentary Group, attending their meetings and communicating CSOs observations and suggestions. .
Objective 2
• The importance of Network Development in a fragmented civil society: At the beginning of the CSA Program, civil society wasn’t much of a collaborative space for programming. Fragmentation and a general sense of distrust amongst organizations throughout the different sectors characterized the political environment under the former administration. In addition, the competitiveness and tensions between many organizations created barriers to working together. While developing the Ethical Pact, PC was able to create a space where citizens felt safe coming together to collaborate and discuss issues. Once the Citizen Agenda was beginning to come together, it was clear that PC needed the participation of organizations from various provinces and areas of expertise. The Citizen Agenda became a tangible output that CSOs came together to collaborate on. They understood their value add to the process and in contributing to this Agenda, began to create a Network of like-minded CSOs. The Network gave the Citizen Agenda more credibility, as CSOs began to come to consensus on issues and in turn effectively pressure political actors better. There was an understanding that if they operated and worked as a Network, there was much more to be gained for civil society.
• The need to utilize a strategic approach to commit political parties to transparency practices. As in the great majority of countries in the region, the level of citizen support to political parties is very low and major corruption scandals in campaign financing have further eroded their reputation. For civil society organizations it is a challenge to effectively work with political parties. PC succeeded in increasing from an average of 19.53% to 34% the compliance of 22 political organizations with standards for information to be posted in their websites, as spelled out in the Transparency Law. For doing so, PC worked with these organizations hand in hand and encouraged them to identify the opportunities instead of the threats when making their information transparent to the public. Moreover, PC is motivating political actors to seek more effective acceptance from citizens through transparency in their management and use of resources. Using a friendly approach for political actors in the presence of sensitive issues is necessary to build trust and openness to change.
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 29 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019
• The importance of engaging youth in democratic practices to sustain networking efforts: Ecuadorian youth is experiencing general apathy to engage in the country’s democratic life. That, together with dissatisfaction in the political system, and low levels of political culture in the country, place major difficulties to sustain youth activism and networking initiatives. Although the establishment of a Network of Young Leaders with 30 members representing 10 universities from four different cities was itself an important result achieved under the CSA Program, strengthening the capacity of its members on strategic areas and keeping the Network active in practical democracy activities has been key to boost youth participation and promote the network’s sustainability. For example, PC engaged members of this network in the electoral observatory and the oversight for the selection of candidates for the Council of Citizen Participation and Social Control (CPCCS). Through this network PC was able to expand its reach and gather the number of volunteers necessary for the qualitative monitoring of the 2019 electoral process. It is important to continue seeking innovative ways to expand this network and sustain its actions including working with other youth coalitions in different provinces. The existence of the network and the young people who have been empowered so far represent an opportunity to promote the participation of other young people in future CSA Program initiatives.
Objective 3
● Embracing the human elements in organizational development: Organizations are formed and run by people and therefore, in order to empower them, it is necessary to begin by thinking of the human being first, on issues that allow promoting the human development of those who make up the organization such as leadership, self-esteem, teamwork, assertive communication, among others cannot be ignored. The organizational development processes require a foundation of trust in order to empower them. In this sense, it is important that the objectives of the process and the responsibilities of each organization be analyzed beforehand so that they are reflected in the work plans. Furthermore, it is necessary to consider the context of each locality by establishing a strategy of constant communication and respecting the development stage of each organization.
The organizations have developed the practice of carrying out strategic planning processes with the participation of their teams. This practice has allowed them to better organize the execution of activities within established deadlines, which were not previously fulfilled. The tools developed in the project have helped to strengthen the tracking and monitoring of activities as well as the establishment of knowledge management processes. The organizations confirmed that they have developed policies for conflict management and communication.
● Multi-sector dialogues are an important tool for civil society: Esquel has developed its own methodologies to establish a collaborative dialogue according to the political context of the country. The methodologies include the development of citizen proposals, advocacy and communication strategies and the development of alliances with different actors. This complicated scenario represents a real challenge to introduce citizen proposals influencing the public arena; however, the activities carried out show that it is possible to enter into National Agreements with the effort and monitoring of civil society organizations.
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There are some key factors to restore trust in the democratic process. The first and most important is the generation of a dialogue process between civil society and the government to implement key reforms on issues such as transparency, citizen participation and education. The CB has introduced positive steps in this direction but only continued civil society engagement and mobilisation can keep reforms from stalling.
● The challenge of garnering broad participation in the creation of the NAP: One of the main challenges was how to generate greater participation in the OGP co-creation workshops. Participation was needed in order to generate a good number of citizen proposals, and the workshops would not be as successful without this citizen engagement. In order to generate awareness and participation, strategic alliances were created between civil society, academia, and public sector organizations. In addition, to achieve consensus and agreements, civil society organizations provided facilitators for the workshops. Without the collaboration and experience of CSOs this process was not possible under such a tight timeline. The communal characteristics and the level of government intervention (parochial, cantonal, provincial) are decisive in the development of capabilities of political actors, when a city is smaller and its geographic location is further away, the lack of awareness of their government is proportionally greater. This implies the need to continue the wide spread support and long- term outreach in rural areas.
Ecuador Civil Society Assistance Program 31 AID-OAA-LA-14-00011 Final Report October 2014 - September 2019