IBON Foundation is a research-education-information and advocacy organization set up in 1978.
We are a non-stock non-profit development institution committed to serve marginalized sectors. We seek to contribute to people’s empowerment by generating and collecting socio-economic data and analyses, and by disseminating these in the Philippines and abroad. We envision a world and society of prosperity, free from war and strife, free from inequality, bondage and oppression, and where everyone enjoys full sustainable development in all its aspects.
We study the most urgent socio-economic issues confronting Philippine society and the world. We explore alternatives and promote a new understanding of socio-economic issues that best serve the interests and aspirations of the Filipino people. IBON commits to bring this knowledge and information to the greatest number so that the people can effectively participate in building a self-reliant and progressive Philippines, a nation that is sovereign and democratic.
Through the decades, IBON has developed into a multi-center multi-program capacity-building institution providing research, education, publications, information work, and advocacy support. Aside from its original programs of socioeconomic research, databanking, popular publications and seminars, IBON has strengthened its presence in the formal education sector, in providing non-formal education to people’s organizations, in conducting in-depth research and information services to various sectors, in mainstream media education, and in international networking.
We build networks in the Philippines and abroad involving different civil society organizations, NGOs, institutions and agencies complimenting our aims and objectives. We lobby parliamentarians and conduct dialogues with government, bilateral and multilateral agencies and officials to further advocacy on issues/policies affecting marginalized sectors in the country and abroad. In all of this we work very closely and in partnership with grassroots organizations.
Main Programs and Centers
IBON is a multi-center multi-program institution with research-education-information as its main focus.
The IBON Databank and Research Center is a core program providing information and analysis on various socio-economic issues for advocacy support, education, policy-making, development planning and implementation for non-government organizations, people’s organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and individuals. Research is the core of its programs with the end-view of disseminating the information in various popular forms especially, but not only, for advocacy purposes.
The institution’s research agenda was developed to help provide alternatives to problems in production, livelihood and services delivered at the community level. There are extensive industry and agrarian studies, researches on transnational corporations and agribusinesses, comparative studies on different economies, resource profiles of Philippine regions, and studies on the impact of these socio-economic conditions on the social sectors.
There are also communty-based people’s action research initiatives on production, economic upliftment and advocacy. IBON uses participatory methodology in research and constantly attempts to democratize the research process through community-based people’s action research.
The Databank and Research Center also manages the quarterly IBON Surveys through which it gathers data on people’s economic conditions and opinions on various issues.
IBON’s People’s Education Resource Center (PERC), formerly the Seminars Program, provides comprehensive services in non-formal education especially to grassroots sectors. It produces popular education materials and audio-visual aids on socio-economic and other current issues, as well as training modules on skills training and leadership formation.
The IBON Partnership in Education for Development (IPED) is an alternative center for formal education and aims to promote transformative education through its partnership with schools. This includes teacher training, textbook development and supplementary educational materials for the elementary and secondary levels.
IBON International provides research and education and advocacy support to people’s movements abroad and for grassroots empowerment, as well as links these to international initiatives and networks.
To implement its centers and programs, IBON is organized into three administrative sections, seven departments and a printing press.
Networks
IBON is an active participant in a number of networks tackling various people’s issues both on the local and international arena:
AidWatch Philippines – a broad national network of grassroots-based and -oriented NGOs working on official development assistance (ODA) issues in the country. It aims to bring together and deepen relationships among the widest possible range of organizations for collaboration between NGOs on aid-related issues and concerns. It also looks forward to constructive engagement with official government and donor agencies on the basis of fundamental development principles.
Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN) – established in 1998 as a result of networking among research organizations and NGOs in Asia after a number of conferences in 1997, its objective is to channel and focus NGO research efforts towards supporting information, education and advocacy needs of grassroots organizations.
Better Aid – an international network aiming for aid effectiveness
Buy Pinoy Build Pinoy– a venue for Filipino producers and consumers to work together in building a world-class, pro-Filipino economy. With the slogan “Buy Pinoy, Build Pinoy”, it aims to give Filipino producers the means and opportunity to excel in local and foreign markets while encouraging Filipino consumers to patronize locally-produced goods and services.
No Deal! Movement Against Unequal Economic Agreements – a coalition of organizations and individuals opposed to unequal economic agreements. It stands for democratic governance, economic sovereignty and building the national economy and advocates for economic relations based on equality and mutual benefit.
Pagbabago! People’s Movement for Change– a broad-based national movement for the people to make their voices heard. It fosters “new politics” meaning government from below; advocates the supervision of leadership by a politically-aware and empowerd people, encourages support for leaders with a track record of being pro-people, pro-Filipino, honest and morally upright, and calls for a government that relies on the continuing consent and support of the governed rarther than coercive means to maintain itself in power.
Our World is Not For Sale (OWINFS) – a worldwide network of organizations, activists and social movements committed to challenging trade and investment agreements that advance the interests of the world’s most powerful corporations at the expense of people and the environment.
People’s Movement on Climate Change (PMCC) – a global campaign that aims to provide a venue for the grassroots, especially from the South – who are the worst-affected and yet the least empowered to adapt to climate change – to participate in the process of drawing up a post-2012 climate change framework.
People’s Coalition on Food Sovereignty (PCFS)- a growing network of various grassroots groups of small food producers particularly of peasant-farmer organizations and their support NGOs, working towards a People’s Convention on Food Sovereignty.
Philippines Transparency and Accountability Council (PTAC, an Independent People’s Council) – a gathering of non-partisan individuals, groups and sectors opposed to corruption.
RESIST! – an international campaign to draw the broadest aggregate of people around the world opposed to neoliberal globalization and war.
The Reality of Aid — the only major north/south international non-governmental collaboration focusing exclusively on analysis and lobbying for poverty eradication policies and practices in the international aid regime.
Water for the People Network – a campaign involving research, propaganda and education, people’s struggles and direct action, legislation and legal struggles, local and international networking, aimed at opposing moves by government, multilateral funding institutions and big local and transnational corporations to privatize water resources, systems and utilities and amass profits at the expense of the people
IBON also actively participates in the following networks: Consumer International, World Association for Christian Communication (WACC), and Commission Number 2 of the International League of People’s Struggles (ILPS).
