Philippines: Flagship Initiative Knowledge Product: Listen, Discover and Enhance-An Emerging Framework for Community Engagement

Introduction and problem statement

ERC Flagship Initiative’s theory of change posits that when communities in all their diversity, are empowered and actively participate in the design, operationalization, and learning of shockprevention, response, and recovery systems, and when social safety nets, protection, and anticipatory actions are harmonized, integrated, and timely resourced, humanitarian needs will decrease, more lives will be saved, economic losses will significantly reduce, and hard-won development gains will be preserved. This is because investing in community empowerment and disaster risk prevention enhances people's resilience to shocks.

Key to the above theory of change is Community Engagement (CE). The CE is an integral part of the work of most if not all, UN agencies, international organizations and national and local NGOs. Over the years, there have been increasing reports of disaster-affected people feeling unheard and excluded from meaningful participation in humanitarian action. The promise of empowering affected people through community engagement has often remained unfulfilled.

The Listen, Discover, Enhance (LDE) methodology

The Flagship Initiative in the Philippines developed the Listen, Discover, Enhance (LDE) as a proposed methodology for systematically engaging communities and offering a more coherent method for recording, documenting, and analyzing community insights and using them as a basis for the design of interventions. This methodology uses conversation as its main approach to engaging with communities. Drawing from anthropological research in understanding Filipino grassroots communities, it seeks not only to hear from communities but understand and integrate their perspectives into actions affecting them and in doing uses their agency to transform from how things could be (aspirations, ‘sana’) to have they ought to be (dapat)[1]. The methodology also acknowledges gender and intersectionality, and their influence in the dynamics within the community. Hence, the LDE aims to ensure that voices of the various sectors in the community including men and women, youth, persons with disability, elderly, indigenous peoples, LGBTQI, and other groups are involved in the conversation that employs appreciative and empowering inquiry in the conversations. Theoretical underpinning for LDE is the Asset Based Community Development (ABCD) approach which recognizes that communities can often drive development themselves by identifying and mobilizing their strengths, potential and assets rather than focusing solely on their needs and vulnerability, which is the prevailing approach in current models of accountability to affected people.

[1] Sana and dapat are two linked Filipino concepts used in anthropological research for understanding the motivation of individuals, families and grassroots communities. Sana (wishes or aspirations) stimulates hope and a desire to change for a better future while dapat (must be done) energizes individuals and groups to strive and work for what they collectively believe, build on what they have, and advocate for it.