MeTA Philippines Pilots RAAKS in, Reaffirms Commitment to the Multi-Stakeholder Process
Donn Mc Valdez, MD
20 March 2010
The stakeholders of the Medicines Transparency Alliance Philippines (MeTA Philippines) led by its Chairman Dr. Alberto G. Romualdez, Jr., held a one-day workshop on stakeholder mapping last March 15, 2010 at Room 210 of the World Health Organization Western Pacific Region Office. Mr. Gavin Stedman-Bryce and Dr. Serafin Talisayon on behalf of the International Development Studies and the MeTA International Secretariat facilitated the said workshop.
This workshop is the culminating activity of a three-phase methodology known as the Rural Appraisal of Agricultural Knowledge Systems (RAAKS). RAAKS is a methodology being piloted by MeTA as part of the evaluation of the quality of the multi-stakeholder processes, including a 360-degree assessment of the existing levels of engagement.
RAAKS is action research defined as a reflective process of on-going problem solving by a group to improve the way they address constraints and solve problems. It emphasizes working together to promote positive change and offers tools for gathering, organising and interpreting information in a participatory way.
RAAKS has three phases: defining the problem, analyzing constraints and opportunities, and strategy and action planning.
Defining the problem seeks to identify opportunities to improve a knowledge information system. The fact that different stakeholders will have different ideas about the problem definition is a key element to the RAAKS methodology. At the end of this phase the result should be an initial picture of the knowledge system and the ways in which stakeholders currently act and interact.
Through interviewing key informants representing the different stakeholders, a more detailed picture of how different stakeholders deal with the main constraints and opportunities emerges.
Proposals for strategy and action planning are developed and discussed in the strategy and action planning. The constraints and opportunities identified in earlier phases provide a basis for developing realistic proposals for change.
The workshop entailed using a problem tree analysis to determine the root causes and effects of problems besetting the multi-stakeholder processes, and an innovation tree to reverse these problems into aims, root causes into activities and effects into objectives. The outputs of the two trees were the sources of realistic innovations for improving the multi-stakeholder processes within MeTA Philippines and playing its roles in making available data disclosure and systems for transparency and accountability along medicines registration, quality, prices, availability and promotion.
Top innovations culled from the day-long workshop include supporting pooled procurement at provincial levels, third party accreditation for advertisers, value added for the continued participation of MeTA members, the strict implementation of FDA Law, lobbying for legislation of ethical practices, seeking out champions for catalyzing change, and ensuring that research outputs are translated into action.
