

ANGOC was
founded in Bangkok in February 1979, following a two-year series of village-
and national-level consultations in 10 Asian countries leading to the World
Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (WCARRD, Rome, 1979).
Today, ANGOC is a regional association of national and institutional NGO
networks engaged in food security, agrarian reform, sustainable agriculture,
participatory governance and rural development initiatives. Its members and
partners come from 14 Asian countries (Bangladesh, Cambodia, The People’s
Republic of China, Indonesia, India, Japan, Lao PDR, Nepal, Pakistan,
Philippines, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam).
ANGOC will be
organizing a series of activities to commemorate our 30th year.
We look forward to the support and participation of all our friends, members
and partners, without whom we will not have gone this far.


The most tragic incident of November 26 which lasted 60 hours in Mumbai has
left us all shattered and sent a shock wave across the world. Naturally, we
all are concerned with the current trend of violence and its extremely
brutal form.
Read more...



Last
1 September, the ANGOC Secretariat was extremely honoured by the visit of
one of its founders, Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne, widely known for his outstanding
work in empowering grassroots communities in Sri Lanka and founding the
Sarvodaya movement. Dr. Ari, himself a Ramon Magsaysay laureate, was in town
to attend the Asia Forum held in commemoration of the Ramon Magsaysay
Foundation’s 50th anniversary. ANGOC seized this rare
opportunity for staff to be inspired
by the
wisdom of Dr. Ari.
Read more...


The Ramon
Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF) annually honours exemplary Asian leaders
in their respective fields with its namesake Award, also dubbed Asia’s Nobel
Prize. The Asia Forum was held last 28-29 August, gathering past and present
awardees in Manila, in celebration of the RMAF’s golden jubilee. The forum
was by-invitation only, bringing together laureates and partners, including
ANGOC, to engage in dialogue on current regional issues including but not
limited to poverty, environment, and peace as well as explore solutions
based on what participants can do collectively. ANGOC contributed to the
discussions by highlighting the importance of access to land, sustainable
agriculture, and climate change mitigation.
Two past awardees have been
ANGOC members – Dr. A.T. Ariyaratne of SARVODAYA and Rev. Toshihiro Takami
of the Asian Rural Institute.


The
2nd Philippine-Japan NGO Symposium on “Empowering the Poor for
Poverty Alleviation towards MDGs: Partnership Building between Japanese and
Philippine NGOs” was held last July 17-19, 2008 in Tokyo, Japan. This event
was co-organized by the Japan Philippine NGO Network (JPN), the
Philippine-Japan Partnership Network (PJP), and the Asian Community Center
(ACC-21)
led by ANGOC former Vice-Chair Michio Ito, Fr. Francis Lucas, Don Marquez,
and Faina Diola (then still representing ACC-21) participated in the
symposium. Read more...


A
sustained role for the
Catholic
Church of
intervening
in issues that
concern
the rural poor was
one
of the recommendations
that
came out of the Second
National
Rural Congress
(NRC-II)
held on 7-8 July
2008
in San Carlos
Seminary,
Mandaluyong
City,
Philippines.
The NRC-II was
organized by the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP),
whose support for populist causes has been a decisive factor to the success
of many advocacy campaigns.
Read more...


The
Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) is seeking to improve its
relations with civil society organizations (CSOs), and held a workshop last
20 June 2008 in Jakarta to learn from the experience of the World Bank (WB)
and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in dealing with these groups.
Dr. Surin
Pitsuwan, ASEAN Secretary-General, said at the start of this workshop that
“ASEAN needs the support [of] civil society to facilitate the transformation
of ASEAN into a people-oriented organization.” The ASEAN’s efforts to
re-style itself were apparently inspired by its ongoing collaboration with
the WB in assisting the cyclone victims in Myanmar.
Read more...


Around 50
representatives of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) from 12 countries in
the East Asia Pacific region including ANGOC members – Star Kampuchea
(Cambodia), CANGO (China) and PhilDHRRA (Philippines), as well as a senior
World Bank (WB) staff and a representative from the Asian Development Bank (ADB)
participated at the East Asia Pacific World Bank-CSO Regional Workshop in
Jakarta, Indonesia last 18-20 June 2008.
The CSOs
proposed specific recommendations to the World Bank on four major areas,
namely: (1) the Food Crisis in the Region; (2) the World Bank’s Regional
Strategy in the East Asia Pacific Region; (3) Modalities of Engagement
between CSOs and the World Bank; and (4) Youth Unemployment and Job
Creation. On food crisis in the region, CSOs recommended to determine
whether the food crisis is caused by the unavailability of food or by
imperfect food distribution policy. On the World Bank’s Regional Strategy in
the East Asia Pacific Region, specific recommendations under three themes
were put forward in support of Middle Income Countries, Low-income Countries
and Fragile States, and Knowledge Sharing.


The ANGOC-APAARI-GFAR
Regional Workshop
(16-18 April 2008,
Bangkok): ANGOC has been appointed the first Consortium Secretariat of the
NGO Association for Agricultural Research in the Asia-Pacific (NAARAP) and
thus would like to bring its members to the Consortium. ANGOC members have
been tasked to send applications to ANGOC Vice-Chairman Ms. Rohini Reddy.
ANGOC Chair Fr. Francis Lucas emphasized the ANGOC Network’s need to come up
with proposals for the Consortium.


An ADB-CSO
dialogue held at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) Headquarters, Mandaluyong
City, Philippines, last 11 June 2008, provided Bank staff the opportunity to
listen to civil society perspectives on access to land and food security
issues. NGO representatives from the 6 countries under Land Watch Asia
presented the results of their Country Studies, describing issues and
challenges impinging on land access in their respective countries and
suggested modes of engagement with ADB on such issues.
Read more...


Land Watch
Philippines Workshop
24-25
January 2008, U.P. Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

Participants
to a Land Watch Meeting held in the Philippines last 24-25 January 2008
adopted a program for advocacy detailing inter-sectoral action plans to
promote access by basic sectors in the country to land, water and other
natural resources. The Land Watch
Philippines Intersectoral Meeting on Land and Water Access of the Rural Poor
was jointly organized by ANGOC and the Philippine Partnership for the
Development of Human Resources in Rural Areas (PhilDHRRA), the two country
focal points for Land Watch in the Philippines.
Read more...

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