Institute for Popular Democracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Institute for Popular Democracy is a Philippines not-for-profit research and advocacy centre, deploying a multi-disciplinary team of activist-scholars engaged with "civil society groups, reform-minded government officials and government agencies."

Founded in 1986, the year of the fall of the Marcos dictatorship, it says it aim has been to broaden the "emergent democratic space".

Focusing on political research and advocacy, it has also worked on an analysis of "elite politics". It currently focuses on political reform, local governance, social movements, sustainability and international exchange.

Over the past year (as of early 2007), IPD has set up its Applied Technology and Information Solutions (ATIS) centre, to focus on ICT (information and communication technology) advocacy and project work. Under a project called "Piloting free and Open Source Software (FOSS) using Open Standards in e-Governance Applications for Local Government Units (LGUs)" is trying to reduce the barriers to LGU (local government units) computerization.

It is working on projects to create suitable FLOSS software for a barangay (Philippine local government) business information Systems; business permits and licensing; a legislative tracking system; a market information system; and a hospital information system.