Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

248Collages of bettermentA STUDY OF COMMUNICATION CAMPAIGN PROCESSES ON THEISSUE OF COMMUNITY RIGHTS TO BIODIVERSITY RESOURCES INTHE PHILIPPINESVarinthra Kaiyourawong BoonchaiThis research aims to study the communication strategies and patterns of the Southeast Asia Regional Initiativefor Community Empowerment (SEARICE), a non-governmental organization in the Philippines, by focusing onits global Community Biodiversity Development and Conservation (CBDC) program. It also studies the socialconditions and contexts that transcend sociocultural and economic differences and identifies what conditionscontribute to the success and failure of such communication campaigns. The study indicates that a communicationstrategy has been devised at four levels: community, national, regional and international. Human and participatoryapproaches are practiced at the community level, while networking and collaborative approaches are considered atthe other levels. The main message sent to the target groups focuses on plant genetic resources and farmers’ rights.Interpersonal communication, using both personal media and specific media, is fundamental in communicatingwith the main audience at the community level. At the same time, group communication and specific media arethe communication methods used at the mainstream level. The identification of the target audience, participatoryapproaches and attitudes of farmers are the important conditions that contribute to the success of the project’scommunication campaigns, especially at the community level. However, a lack of interactive learning betweenpolicy and field staff, including the lack of a full-fledged monitoring plan, are constraining conditions that preventthe project from having a broad effect on the general public.CULTIVATION OF TRANSFORMATIVE LEADERSHIP IN CIVILSOCIETY AND THE CO-CREATION OF THE ENERGY FIELD FORDEMOCRATIZATION IN ASIAChaiwat ThirapantuCivil society organizations, particularly in Southeast Asia, are struggling to respond to today’s increasingly complexproblems: democratization, ecological destruction, migration, terrorism and social and cultural degradation. Theidea of transformative leadership has been presented and is receiving considerable attention as a means to copewith the challenges. During the last decade, various civil society organizations around East and Southeast Asia,including Japan, the Philippines and Thailand, have produced leadership training programs, addressing personalmastery processes to foster transformative leadership. In this context, this paper aims to examine the intrinsicfactors in which transformative leadership can engender social paradigm shift and co-create new and better realitiesfor society. To gain insights into this, I applied an action research approach based on three-levels of observation.First, from the first person perspective, I reflected on my tacit knowledge, which has been acquired through apersonal mastery process such as practicing aikido and Japanese calligraphy and conducting trainings for over fivehundred change agents and local leaders during the last seven years. As a second-person observer, I conductedinterviews and discussions with some civic leaders in three Southeast Asian countries to understand how thesescholars dealt with leadership development issues. Last, as a third-person observer, I studied some of the literatureon transformative leadership. The research shows that transformative leadership programs seem to fall short ofdelivering necessary leadership qualities, reflecting on the way in which they are not conducted to support collectivelearning communities. The next step, then, is to find the means to tap people’s commitment and to cultivate acommunity of committed leadership.INFORMING GOVERNANCE? SUSTAINABILITY REPORTING ININDONESIA AND THE PHILIPPINESAdnan A. HezriGovernance for sustainable development necessitates multiple flows of information. As natural resource andenvironmental management requires improved partnership between the state and civil society, information isneeded as a tool for social justice. One of the main informational policy instruments is a sustainability indicatorsystem. This paper presents a comparative case study of national sustainability indicator systems in Indonesia and thePhilippines. The overall goal is to understand the dynamics of the interaction of sustainability indicators with policysystems and processes. Evidence suggests that many of the goals enunciated in Indonesia’s sustainable developmentAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows