Publications

Written by Mekong Institute

The course consists of 10 Modules, which covered fundamental of the facilitation skill and program management. In brief the content of each module was reviewed as follow,

Module1: Setting the context

This module is essential for enabling free and open participation right from the start of the traning program. This session help the trainer prepare the groundwork, break the ice and give overview of the trining workshop and adult learning principle. This module has 5 sessions: getting to know each other, setting the context (contents and methdology), exploring expectation, developing norms, and benchmark faciliaton. The benchmarking sesson were record in video, so that the participants can review their own performance and assess their preworkship facilitation and curriculum development skills.

Module 2: Strengthening Teamwork

Participatry training courses are best implemented through a team of facilitators. This module allowed participants to analyze the various elements necessary to strengthening a team of facilitators. A learning game challenged the participants' creativity and team dynamics in order to overcome the task given to them. Participants' reflected on te importance of team work on the performance of facilitaton team. Stages of te team building process were asked and revewed by guide questions. Additional reflections were encouraged through pohoto analysis and group discussion.

Module 3: Participatory approach in training program management

The concept of participatory approach in the training course management is introduced in this module through leaning games and guide plenary discussion. Participatory leaning goes along with the iterative implementation of the training cycle. Participants are given and active role in the design, redesign and decision-making in all stage of the training cycle. Participatory is design to be a learner-centered rather than trainer-centered. At the end of the module participants were able to differentiate tradtional training methods with participatory training methods.

Module 4: Modular training cycle and Integrate Program Management

This module illustratees the modular training approach (Learn to do, Do to learn and Share to learn) and futuristic alternatve concept of integrated curriculum. THe types of learning include cognitve, affective and pschomotor learning. This module includes sesson on : adult learning principle and basic elements of modular training prgram, integrated curriculum and Module Development Giudelines.

Module 5: Introducton to Planning a Training course

Participants guide on planning a participatory training course programs and designing workshops. Participants learn new concepts, methods and tolls and go through real practical experience in applyng these principles and methods in MI training sessions.

Module 6: Role of Faclitator and Request Competences

This module focuses on facilitation fundamentals and the main roles of a faclitator: content neutral, process guide and integrato of results. It further elaborated on the required core competencies of modern trainer/facilitator: this module has three sessons: Practicing being content neutral and process guide, rolds o fFacilitator, and required skills, knowledge and attitutde for Masterful Facilitator. Case scenaros to show te technical, methodological, social and personal challenges for a facilitator wre given. Small group were task to show through role play how they wil overcome such challenges.

Module 7: Facilitation tools kits

This module demonstrates he use of different interactive facilitation methods and supporting tools in delivering MI learning packages. The participant go through learning experience in designing different kinds of intervention, using creative process, and utlizing appropriate tools. Participants learned and practiced usng VIPP faciliation tools and techniques.

Module 8: Practicing Facilitation Skills

This module gives practical tips on the art of facilitation and making oral presentations. Participants' facilitation skills were challenged to analysis of case scenarios. Through role play, they present ideas on how they would handle such challenging situatons. Do's and Don'ts of facilitator were recognized. Vdeo of the participants which taken on the first day of the training course were presented to enourage self-reflection. Each participant provided comments on how he or she whould improve his/her presentation and facilitation skills.

Module 9: Field WOrk Facilitation

This module focuses on practicing how to plan and conduct a fielf work and share their experience and knowledge gained from the field work. An actual field visit to village's income generation activities, village allowed participants to interact with crop seasonal growers, participant were challenge to apply participatory methods and facilitaton skills learned in " inside classroom settings" into real life village situation. A guided discussion to synthesize and reflect experiences gained from the field work served as basis for improving faclitaton skills.

Module10: Integraton Skills and Way forward

This module focuses on the integraton of different sets of facilitaton skills and knowledge in work situaton such as workgroups, sectoral meeting, dialougues, and mult-stakeholder consultations. Participants go through exercise on how to manage different training scenarios, promote full participation, handle difficult group dynamics, foster inclusive solutions and ensure partcipatory and faclitation skills learned from the training to their future work at the Mekong Institute. The final evaluation of the training was done using participatory virtualization evaluation technique.

Written by Mekong Institute

Section 1

           Overview of MIRAC Round Table Meeting

           Round Table Meeting Objectives/ Description of program agenda/ MIRAC Role in GMS research initatves 2

Section 2

            Community-based Tourism and Rubber Plantation in the GMS

Section 3

            GMS Border Trade Facilitations

            Invited Paper Presentation on Trade Status and Border Trade Facilitation in the GMS

Section 4

           Foreign Direct Investment

           Invited paper presentation on Foreign Direct Investment Opportunities/ Challenges and Trends in the GMS Countries

Section 5

          Synthesis of the first day meeting

Section 6

         SMEs Development and Management in the GMS

Section 7

         Labor Migraton Status in Garment Industry in Cambodia

         MIRAC Reserch Paper Presentation

         Potentials of Garment Sector Investment of Rural Area in Improving Socio-Economic Condtions of Migrants in kandal Province, Cambodia.

Section 8

         HIV/ AIDS Prevention and care in the GMS

         Invited Paper Presentation on

         HIV/ AIDS Status in the GMS: Special Focus on Yunnan, China

Section 9

       Regional cooperation

       Invited Paper Presentation on

       Supposing Conception of Developing the Upper Mekong Economic Copperation (UMC): A New Idea to the GMS Cooperation Systems

Section 10

        Synthesis of the round Table meeting

Written by Mekong Institute

This report presents an evaluation of the learning program "Income Generation and Poverty Reduction for Development" conducted at Mekong Institute (MI), Khon Kaen, Thailand from 24 July-11 August 2007. The course was jointly funded by Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency (TICA) and Colombo Plan Secretariat.

A total of 18 participants from 12 developing countries of Asia, Africa and South America attended the course, with women's participation accounting over one-third. The participants held a mixture of middle-level to senior-level positions at a wide array of the government ministries and departments, and universities.

"Income Generation and Poverty Reduction for Development" was a three-week intensive learning program. The program was aimed at assisting participants in the analyzing poverty, understanding various poverty reduction strategies, and monitoring and evaluation of poverty reduction interventions in diverse socio-economic and environmental contexts. The course provided the participants with an opportunity to share experiences and ideas to build confidence n understanding and addressing the issue of poverty. The course was also successful in fostering an important network among professionals from different countries.

The course activities included presentations by facilitators, class discussions, group works/ assignments, case studies, study visits to " Sufficiency Economy Village" and "Population and Development Association" in Mahasarakham and Khon Kaen provinces, respectively. Besides, excursions to various parts of North-east Thailand and a variety of social and recreational activities were organized at weekends.

All learning activities, classroom sessions as well as field trips, were rated high in terms of contents and organization of the course by most of the participants. They were also appreciative of the resource persons not only for the course content but also for their ability to explain difficult content in clear and simple terms. Most of the participants indicated that 2-days time for field trip was rather inadequate and they suggested including more field trips in future. On the whole, all participants expressed their satisfaction with the MI facilities and support services, remarking MI facilities as efficient and well-run with dedicated and friendly staff. This report also contains recommendations drawn from the participants' feedback and MI staffs' assessment. These recommendations provide basis for future revision of the course organization and content.

Written by Mekong Institute

The learning course, " Education Decentralization in the Context of Public Sector Management Reform," which is part of the Professional Development Series (PDS) at the Mekong Institute Foundation, was held at the Mekong Institute in Khon Kaen University, Northeast Thailand, from 12 February to 2 March 2007. The participants were mid-level government officials from the Ministries of Education, Finance and Planning from central departments, provincial and decentralized units, as well as reserch institutions involved in education policy research in GMS countries.

MI entered into partnership and sought technical support from Education Policy and Reform Unit of UNESCO Bangkok to design, conduct and evaluate the first education course in 2007. On 28 November 2006, MI and UNESCO Bangkok signed a Letter of Agreement specifying the objectives and modalities for cooperation in the design and provision of a course on "Education Decentralization in the Context of Public Sector Management Reform in the Greater Mekong Sub-region".

New Zealand's International Aid and Development Agency (NZAID) dedicated its financial assistance to achieving the learning programme goals. Fourteen participants, four of whom are women, from the six GMS countries (Cambodia, China (Yunan province), Laos PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam) successfully completed the learning programme.

The course consisted of five training modules, as follows:

Module-1: Information on ongoing developments of government - donor cooperation and overview of the current situation of education sector reform and development in the GMS countries.

Module-2: Concept, methods and tools for modern education sector planning in decentralized country context.

Module-3: Information base for modern education sector planning and management.

Module-4: Hands-on traning on the use of the analysis and projection tool for modern education sector planning (ANPRO model). Module-5 : International partnerships ni EFA and cross-cutting themes in education.

Over the three weeks of the learning programme, 8 resource persons as well as the MI Programme Manager and Program Administrator facilitated the learning sessions and guest presentations. Participants confirmed that the resource personnel were qualified, experienced and able to explain difficult content topics in clear and simple terms. Overall, the participants rated resource persons as "good" or "excellent" and were able to achieve their teaching objectives.

The participants evaluated the modules at the end of each module delivery.The majority of participants indicated that they have "fully attained" the knowledge and skills from the respective modules and topics conducted. Participants expressed that the main learning activities-lectures, class discussions, presentations, group work and a hands-on training-were useful.

In addition, the participants were fully convinced that they had achieved levels of social development in their careers (friendship and professional contacts) after the three-week course. Participants perceived MIto be a clean, well-run facility with dedicated,friendly staffa and adequate IT and library services. With regard to overall satisfaction, 50% of them stated that they were fully satisfied, which 44% and 6% of participants were very satisfied and satisfied respectively, with none indicating disatisfaction.

Based on the above evaluation by the participants, this report concludes that the learning program was successful.

Written by Mekong Institute

This report evaluates a learning programs within the Mekong Institute( MI) Professional Development Series 2006/2007: "Regional Cooperation in the Greater Mekong Subregion" conducted at MI from 25 June to 13 July 2007. MI designed, developed and delivered this course based on priority learning needs of GMS government agencies complied in 2005. Despite regional cooperation has been announced as one of the MI cross-cutting issues for many year, it was the first attempt of MI to run it as a stand-alone learning program.

A total of thirty participants from the six GMS countries attended the course. Women's participants accounted for one third of total participants. Participants hold a mixture of junior to senior level positions from both government departments and private company. Regional cooperation in the GMS was a three-week leaning program aimed at developing participants' appreciation of the importance of regional cooperation as well as increased their capacity to assess, plan and intensify subregional cooperation in order to improve GMS cooperation and mutual development. It was thus started with the analysis of GMS history, commonalities and conflicts in order to develop a sense of regional identity before examining institutions established in the GMS, how their aims and objectives affect to their policies implemented region-wide. Finally, the course explored further to the future state of the GMS integration by comparing with other regional integraton initiatives to learn what other have done to achieve the current stage and whether te current GMS cooperation necesssarily leads to integration n the region.

The learning program also aimed at nurturing friendship and strengthen "GMS Spirit" among participants. The learning activities included presentations by resource persons and guest speakers, class discussions, exercise, field research visits and group work assignments as well as the social and recreational activities. Outcomes of the programs therefore comprised of knowledge and skills gained through all mentioned program activities which received high satisfaction from most participants. They also expressed their appreciation on most resource persons fro their valuable knowledge which made the three modules well connected and useful. Overall, participants expressed that MI facilities and services are efficient and well-run with dedicated, friendly staff.

With its outcomes and recommendations drawn from the participants' feedback and MI staff observation, this report concluded that the learning programs were successful. Recommendations for future program improvement are provided on section 5 of this report.

Written by Mekong Institute

This report evaluates learning program in the MI Professional Development Series 2006/2007: "Managing Health System in the GMS" from 8 January to 2 February 2007. MI designed, developed agencies (as put forth during the MI Annual Meeting in 2005). It was the first attempt of MI to run a learning course on health.

Thirteen government officials from the six GMS countries attended the course. Participants come from a mix of middle to rather senior level positions from different divisions mainly from the Ministry of Health/Public Health at both national and provincial levels. Of all the participants, 54% are women. All successfully completed their learning programs.

Twelve resource persons facilitated the learning sessions, guest presentations and field research visits over the four weeks of the learning programs. Participants confirmed that the resource persons are qualified, experienced people who were able to explain difficult content in clear and simple terms. Overall, participants felt resource persons were well selected and attained their teaching objectives.

Curriculum was divided into four modules. According to the MI questionnaires, verbal and written feedback, both mixed- and country-group discussions with program staff, participants felt that all course content was overall satisfactory. Program activities included a wide range of learning and social activities. Participants felt that the main learning activities, including lectures, class discussions, presentations and group work were useful. Participants especially enjoyed field research visits. They further felt that the socal activities were excellent. Participants found MI to be a clean, well-run facility wth dedicated, friendly staff and excellent IT and related services. Outcomes of the programme include knowledge and skills gained for professional development. Participants further developed professional skills, such as presentation, computer application and English communication. Participants felt they attained the new knowledge and professional skills presented in the curriculum. Further,they fully attained the "Greater Mekong Spirit and new friendships and professional contacts. This report concludes, based on the above feedback, that the learning programs were successful. Recommendations for future program improvement are provided on section 5 of this report.