Publications

Written by Mekong Institute

Governance issues are at the center of many of the most pressing challenages confronting any county including those of the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS). Governance issues greatly affected a multitute of stakeholders, including banks, financiers, donors, suppliers, consumers, governments and regulators, world-bodies, shareholders and investors, and society generally. The promotion of good governance (including corporate governace) in the GMS has been identified as a priority by these stakeholders including the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and GMS governments.

In recognition of this priority, the Mekong Institute (MI) organised the course on "The Role of Corporate Governance in GMS Growth". This course is also part of MI's ongoing effort to link its training to the major regional integration programs of ASEAN, ADB, and major regional organizatons. It is the first MIcourse on corporate goverance, held from 14 July-22 August 2003, with financial assistance from the New Zealand Agency for International development (NZAID) and the ADB.

This course was organised to enable course participants to understand and deal more effectively with the issues of coporate governance in the region and their respective countriesand to provide a forum for participants to exchange views and experiences in the area with one another. In addition, the course aimed at improving participants' skills for analysis and presentation, achieving their Internet literacy; strengthening the "Greater Mekong Spirit"; and fostering a network of professional contacts.

A variety of course activities and methods were organised to achieve optimum outcomes as specified against the course objectives above. These included two broad groups of activities: teaching and learning activities (lecturing, class discussion, group assignment, guest presentation, field research visit, English training, training on Internet searching, Power Point and presentation preparation and delivery); and social and recreational activities. The course adopted participatory course delivery mode, focused on capacity (knowledge and skill) development, and was action-oriented.

Thirty-four participants from the six GMS countries attended this course. They are from government departments, enterprises/ coporations (including SOEs), central and commercial banks, researc or training institutes, etc. Twenty-five of them (74% of the total) were women, the highest proportion of all MI courses. Thirty participants were funded by NZAID, and 4 by ADB.

Four experts from Malaysia and New Zealand taught this course. Two of them had taught previous MI courses. In addition, four practitioners-two from private companies, one from Bank of Thiland, and one from Bureau of Budget, Thialand delivered guest presentations. The involvement of these experts expanded MI databse of resource persons.

On-course monitoring and post-course evalutaton indicated that the course topics and objectives were generally well considered. Six modules were designed and delivered as the main part of this course. Fifty percent or more participants rated 4 of these modules as "very useful and interesting". Two modules ( module 2 and module 6) received slightly lower ratings mainly due to the less relevance of topic in module 2 and the lack of participants familiarity with capital markets on module 6.

Lectures, class discussions and guest presentations were well delivered or organised, as participants rated them as "very helpful". Same as with the another group of course activities such as weekend trips and welcome and farewell parties. The rating on course organisation and support services was high as well.

As a result, the outcomes of this course are satisfying and the course achieved its objectives. The majority of participants indicated that from this course they gaind a lot of knowledge and skills for dealing with corporate goverance issues, developed skills for analysis and presentation, achieved computer and Internet literacy, and built a spirit of cooperation and a network of professional and personal contacts among themselves. Overall, 15 (44%) of the 34 participants were "very satisfied" with the course and 17 were "satisfied" with it.

There are rooms for improvement, of course. These are reflected in those recommendations from both participants and presenters. All these will be useful lessons and have significant implications for future MI courses in particular and courses on such theme/ topic elsewhere in general.

Written by Mekong Institute

The Training Course "Sustainable Rural Development and Water Resource Management" was held at the Mekong Institute (MI) on the campus of Khon Kaen University , Khon Kaen, Thailand from 30 September-18 October 2002. The course was arranged by MI in conjuction with the Office of International Agriculture (OIA). Five participants attended from the Information Center for Agriculture and Rural Development (ICARD), Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) Vietnam.

Fifteen presenters working at various institutions in Thailand taught the three course modules. The thress modules were:

Module 1: Poverty Alleviation and Food Security

Module 2: Harness Market Information for Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Development

Module 3: Water Resource Management

The Academic Director at MIworked closely with presenters to provide course continuity between modules for the participants. OIAwas responsible for presenters. MI provided further organisational and day to day support for the particiapants and presenters and prepared this course evaluaton report.

The achievement of course objectives was assessed through feedback from participants mainly by using a participant questionnaire and discussion interview. THe participants' objectives for the course appeared to be very well achieved.

The participant questionnaires indicated a high level of participant satisfaction with the course. The presenters overall ratings were good to excellent in assessments. All learning activities of the course rated very well. Learning activities included lectures, field trips, and Internet and library use.

Comments from group discussions and participant evaluations were positive. No specific recommendations were made. Overall, the course was considered to be very successful.

Written by Mekong Institute

Course B11 "Managing Change in the GMSEconomies" was held at the Mekong Institute on the campus of Khon Kaen University, Khon Kaen, Thailand from 22 April to 14 June 2002. There were 30 participants, five each from Cambodia, Yunnan Province of China, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam, and of the total number of participants 16 were women.

The modules and the module presenters were:

Market Economies and GMS Countries in Transition (Dr Steven Lim)

Regional/Internationa Trade and Negotiating Skills (Dr Anna Strutt)

Social and Environmental Impacts of Development (Dr Marilyn Waring and Dr Christopher Gan)

Managin Public Sector and Enterprise Reform (Dr Chrsitopher Gan and Dr Steven Lim)

In addition, there were four guest presenters and a further five people gave presentations during field-research visits associated with the course. The Honourable Mr Boonyarong Nilavongse, Governor of Khon Kaen Province gave an address titled " The Vision of the Greater Mekong Sub-Region (GMS) and the East-West Economic Corridor (EWEC)" at the closing ceremony.

The "Selection Issues" section on participants assessed compliance with the selection criteria with particular emphasis on meeting the gender and EL proficiency aims. These aims were achieved for Course B11. There was a good and equal distributon of gender among particpants and presenters of the course. English language profinciency among participants was very good to adequate. This course more fully achieved overall selection criteria compliance than many previous courses.

The overall responsibility for managing the course lay essentially with the Academic Director, the Course/ Research Manager and the course team. Mr John Askwith, Consultant, was mainly responsible for the B11 Curriculum Design Statement. The Academic Director co-ordinated closely with presenters towards providing course continuity between modules for the participants. The course team provided further organisational and day to day support for the participants and presenters and prepared this course evaluation report.

The achievement of course goals was largely assessed through participant questionnaires. The behavioural objectives of the modules were generally well achieved except for some relating to conceptual difficulties on social impacts of development in module 3. Achievements of specific goals for OELT are given by OELT provider reports and participant questionnaires for ELT. Achievements reported were good but the provider from Vietnam and participants from Cambodia indicated that further instructional resources from MI to their providers would enhace the outcomes. This may also apply to the other two OELT providers. The on-course ELT did assist the participants, however the quality of the ELTteaching was perceived to be disappointing considering the overall high quality and success of the course.

The specific learning outcomes of the course were concerned with meeing the learning needs of the participants. Response towards this end are given in the participants questionnaires. A high level of participant satisfaction with the course was indicated. The module presenters rated well to very well. The guest presentations were considered very useful and one of the four guest presenters received a high rating. All learning activities of the course were generally rated very well. These included group discussions, self-study, lectures, use of the sound laboratory and library, morning and country reports, vocabulary lists and time alocations gien to the activities. Ratings on field research visits and using the computer and Internaet however varied. An important factor for this was that two weeks of the course was conducted in Vientiane, Lao PDR where the Internet and general room facilities were of a lower standard compared to at MI.

Coherence with NZODA policies on Education and Training and on Gender and Development were taken into full account from the design to organising and conducting the course. The course was developed to meet the needs of relevant GMS country personnel. Presenters, as required in their contracts, integrated NZODA policies into the course material ofo the modules. Presenter reports also documented how gender and enviornmental issues were included in the modules taught. Action oriented and participatory teaching techniques were employed. Achievement of the aims was actively sought through the participant selection criteria and during the selection process.

Comparisons on outcomes and outputs between courses were made for OELT and MIcourses according to factors including country, gender, ELproficiency, age, employer and location status. Overall, on OELT courses Cambodia and Lao PDR have had lower female representations at 20% and 23% respectively. Yunnan (China) and Vietnam have had relatively higher female representations at 41% and 40% respectively. These are reflected by similar percentages for overall representations of women attending MIcourse.The B11 course had 53% women comprising 40% women from Yunnan (China), Lao PDR and Myanmar, 60% from Cambodia and Vietnam, and 80% from Thailand. This shows stronger equal gender participation than overall course averages.

Participants of course have generally been between the ages of 30 to 45 years. In this age category the gender balance has generally been good. For participants more than 45 years the gender balance favours men. For the B11 course generally middle to senior participants attended except for Cambodia and Yunnan (China) where representations were made by junior and middle aged participants.

Further evaluation results for the B11 course, Oelt and on-course ELTare presented in the report in addition to those directly supporting the points above. Additional information is avaliable from the module and ELT questionnaires, presenter reports, ELT and OELTreports, and country and women's group discussion reports.

Suggestons and recommendations have been made in response to presenter and participant evaluation. Recommendatons for change arising fromCourse B11 are given at the front of the report. These are accompanied by a description of appropriate action for each recommendation. Recommendations from previous courses and how these have been implemented have been reported at the back of this report.