“Navigating the new globalization millennium” is the theme for this year’s celebration of Development Policy Research Month (DPRM).
DPRM is held every September to foster public awareness of the importance of policy research in policy-making and development planning.
The globalization theme has been chosen in view of the uncertainty, complexity and volatility that characterize the new wave of globalization. It aims to stimulate local action to make sense of new globalization trends and begin to take steps to cope with the challenges and seize the opportunities they bring.
President Celia M. Reyes of the Philippine Institute Development Studies (PIDS), which leads the annual DPRM celebration, expounds on the challenges globalization entails:
“These include trade wars,, environmental degradation, cross-border public health threats, worsening poverty and inequality, erosion of social cohesion and trust, and proliferation of disinformation.”
If these challenges are not managed well, she adds, they can undermine the country’s capability to sustain its rapid economic growth .
All sectors – government, non-government, private business, the academe, civil society, and others – are encouraged, by virtue of the DPRM commemoration, to get involved in the task of addressing these challenges, “as the government cannot do it alone.”
The PIDs has lined up several activities to promote DPRM objectives.
One of these is the Annual Public Policy Conference (APPC) on September 19 at Sofitel Philippine Plaza in Manila, co- sponsored with the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), Department of the Interior and Local Governments (DILG), and Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), among others.
The SERDEF, on invitation by PIDS, has committed to promote the objectives of DPRM to its own constituency of small entrepreneurs and small enterprise development workers.
Other institutions across sectors are encouraged to take their own initiatives to celebrate the event, given its theme and objectives.
Implied in this theme is the imperative that, in the face of global challenges brought about by the new globalization, Filipinos must learn how to navigate it through local actions.