About VOICE

VOICE was established in 2001. VOICE was established with the mandate of creating linkages not only between policy-makers and the communities at the grassroots level, but also between organizations through partnership, networking, and information exchange in the community.

2001 – 2004: Initially, VOICE directed its activities to conserve local ecological knowledge and promote traditional ecological practices in marginalized and climate-vulnerable communities. We worked for rights of peasants and rural marginalized communities; eco-friendly, and climate-friendly agriculture; and played diverse roles to stop practices that were phasing out local seed varieties.

Since the early years, we have been also engaged in reshaping the political economy of media and ICTs, which, despite being an influential tool of globalization, can bring enormous benefit to the people if implemented correctly. Finally, VOICE started at this early stage its campaign for accountability and transparency of IFIs, primarily the World Bank (WB), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), who had been, and continue to, infringe on our democratic space through impositions and aid conditionality.

2005 – 2007: Throughout the years, we have joined a number of networks and organizations, which has led us to become much more efficient in our works. We have been involved with WSIS (World Summit on the Information Society) and the CRIS (Communication Rights for Information Society) campaign since 2005; joined the Reality of Aid network and APRN (The Asia-Pacific Research Network) in 2006, and the IFSN (The International Food Security Network) and APC (The Association for Progressive Communications) in 2007.

2007 – Present: As we progressed, we expanded its horizons into inter-related issues, particularly the emergence of a new global financial architecture, climate change and the environment, ICT and communications justice, and other aspects of the changing global scenario.