APMAS CDD Report

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Best Practices and Lessons Learned on Community Driven Development and Gender Mainstreaming from the APMAS training/workshops, Hanoi and Delhi, November/December 2010

Contents

Background 2

Summary of lessons learned 2

Community Participation versus CDD 2

Women in Development versus Gender and Development 3

Intervention Logic and Responsibility 3

See-Do-Get – Self-fulfilling management attitudes 4

Why and Challenges of Community Meetings 4

Adult Learning Cycle 4

Stakkeholder Analysis 5

Key issues and lessons concerning PRA tools 6

Methods used in WB Watsan film Nepal 7

Comparison of some tools 7

Working with Cards 9

Notes on Wealth Ranking 9

Options Prioritisation Matrix (OPM) 10

Lessons on Visual Aids 11

Monitoring (versus supervision) 11

Examples of indicators in community self-monitoring 11

Monitoring the effectiveness of your project community facilitators 12

Annex A: Participants’ Evaluations 13

Annex B: Participants’ Recommendations 18

Annex C: Trainers’ Recommendations 20

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Background

The Asian Project Management Support Programme (APMAS) aims to enhance capacity of project managers in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and India to implement and effectively manage gender sensitive, pro-poor rural development interventions, through training, information access and innovation. Late 2010 MDF Indochina has implemented two 4-day training programmes in Vietnam and India on Community Driven Development (CDD) and Gender Mainstreaming, from which the below lessons were drawn. The report below is a only a summary of highlights, as APMAS documented the events in full through pictures, and also captured facts tools at its website http://apmasnetwork.org (particularly at the community driven development tab) Further note that IFAD has published a kit with CDD decision tools which is available at http://www.ifad.org/english/cdd/pub/decisiontools.pdf Besides the summary of lessons, this report also contains: • The participants’ evaluations of the two trainings (Annex A) • The participants’ recommendations for further capacity development (Annex B) • MDF’s recommendations regarding further capacity development efforts (Annex C)

Summary of lessons learned

Community Participation versus CDD

Project Community

Participation

Project Manager

Supporting Community Driven Development

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Women in Development versus Gender and Development

Intervention Logic and Responsibility

$

WID: A gender unit organises separate activities for women

GAD: A gender unit ensures mainstreaming of gender by all units

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See-Do-Get – Self-fulfilling management attitudes

Traditional Modern See Lazy employee

Wish to control Focus on activities

Self-motivated employee Wish to stimulate Focus on results

Do Forcing Setting deadlines Keep-in-the-box Check time &money

Listen and suggest Help think through Encourage out-of-the-box Delegate and empower

Get Just meet standards Sight

Innovation Smile

Changes in Doing (Skills), yields small gains. Changes in Seeing (Paradigm) allows for quantum leaps. Project managers and community facilitators have to able and motivated to get the best out of the projects. Managers moreovver need genuine convincing and excellent lsitening skills if they are to lead their staff to different convictions and behavior.

Why and Challenges of Community Meetings

Why have Community Meetings? • Get agreement with communities • Democracy • Community Consultation • Seeking experiences and ideas from communities • Planning with communities, need assessment, fund using • Voting for the households, who can be beneficiries of project. Priority • Conflict settelement • Problem Analysis • Information Dissemination • Implementing activities • Raising awareness

Challenges of Community Meetings

• Not fully participatory, not all communities give inputs • It is difficult to gather all people, levels of knowledge are different • Participatory is not as the same levels • Women are often shy and quiet • Incline to be a small group discussions • Diffirent in languages, diffirent interlecture and cultures • Illustration tools are poor and out of date • Old people are often dominated • Not understanding local languages and customs • Difficult to get agreement of every people.

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Adult Learning Cycle

Kolb’s Adult Learning Cycle (ALC) is a simple yet powerful concept a faclitator or trainer can always keep in mind in structuring efffective workshoops, meetings and trainings.

1.EXPERIENCING

4.APPLYING 2.PROCESSING

3.GENERALISING

Doing / Seeing something

Using the insights Reflecting / Analysing

Abstracting from

experience to life

Stakeholder Analysis

This tool is to prevent that participation in participatory events is random, unbalanced and unrepresentative. 1. Establish the objective of your stakeholder workshop/meeting 2. Identify ‘stakeholders’: All who have an interest (think broadly) 3. Categorise the stakeholders and decide whom to involve how (and how many

representatives to invite), considering the below matrix Importance High Protect

Empower Involve

Work together

Importance Low Ignore Advocate and • Collaborate and/or • Oppose

Influence Low Influence High In which importance is judged from the point of view of the programme or project: Whether this group is the target group (poor, disadvantaged, women), while influence stands for power from the stakeholder to the others. Note that in the last box, stakeholders of low importance but high influence (often commercial companies), development thinking has evolved. Whether in the past such stakeholders were often looked at as a threat to be excommunicated, nowadays they are

Double people’s awareness and

engagement

Double the depth of analysis: From

symptoms to causes

Double the impact by

ensuring use

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equally seen as an opportunity, specially if they are sensitive or can be convinced to benefit from adopting Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR).

Key issues and lessons concerning PRA tools

• Does this tool and your attitude encourage or undermine community leadership? • On a very practical level: Consider alternatives to the situation in which the facilitator

stands and the community sits, looking up • Is this tool really provide information needed by the community, or is it aimed to

extract data for the government/donor/NGO? What is the exact purpoose of using this tool. Tailor the tool to that purpose, and skip it if not essential (e.g. Some projects make 7-year plans. It is questionable whether communities need this)

• Go with ladies, if you want to meet with ladies (whether to meet separately or jointly depends on the culture)

• Initial stage: Realise that you need several meetings to build rappport and trust • Be patient and accept people as they are, also realising that you can learn from them

and their perspective • Be aware of outsiders in the meeting, who may usefully or unduely influence • Be prepared (with charts etc), so you can run ‘the show’ smoothly • Check for balanced representation • Attend to community conccerns (e.g. to get a loan), but do not commit what you (and

your project) cannot or do not want to commit • Facilitate so that all speak – espacially the high importance, low influence groups • Explain at the start why you are there, and why you propose to discuss what. Explain

what the project can and cannot offer • Consider stickering (lettting people express their view through anonymous votes),

because this quickly gives all participants a voice, while in discussions often some dominate

• Match your explanations to the vocabulary and way of thinking and communication of the participants

• Do not blindly assume everything should be decided democratically, and that that willl be better (G.B. Shaw: Democracy is a system that ensures that government is not better than the people deserve)

• Always reflect on who can best and permanently perform a function. The project can temporarily provide e.g. a market-price information service, but this fucntion should at least at the project end (if not from the start) be performed by other actors

• If community priorities and proposals need project/government approval: Establish and communicate crystal clearly the criteria, so that no surprises take place

• Balance problem-oriented and opportunity-oriented thinking. Asking communities for what they see as their most pressing problems, may lead to less innovative and viable plans then identifying opportunities with them, because the former sticks to an old mindset (which brough the community where they are)

• A concrete action plan has at least the dimensions What, Who (responsible) and When. But one may also add: Who helps, What rerources, Who monitors (and when) and Who evaluates (and when)

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Methods used in WB Watsan film Nepal

The following tools were recognised to be used in the Watsan project in Nepal (DVD): • Filming (which can have a powerful self-reflection effect) • Contract signing (community representative body, donor, support organisation in

social mobalisation – contracts with contractors are to be signed between community representative body and contractors. Likewise the project does not interact with individual households, once it endorses that there is a true representative body)

• Physical mapping • Social mappping (question: Is this really needed, from the community perspective?) • 4 Phase approach (which informs the community of the sequence of steps of the

project) • Planning cards, helping communities visualise and agree the sequence and timing of

steps • Estimating and discussing time extenditure on water collection and hygiene gains, as

a realistic motivator how much laboour may be saved through the project and other benefits (this is a tool where objective expert assessment is useful, rather than subjective community views only)

• Management game (board game, inspired by ‘Snakes and ladders’), to prepare for management issues and possible frictions

• Money contribution (this can be a key tool, requiring them to get their act together rather than ‘training’ them in it, which tends to make them pasive recipients)

• Public displays of accounts to all • Informed design choices (and service levels, notably public or in-house conections),

with price tags, made by the community • Pocket chart, to depict and reflect on current sanitation practices

Comparison of some tools

In general: Use tools for prioritising and decision-making; not just for describing the situation. And take into account: • Communitty majority insights and priority • Objective situation and opportunities (as you know and assess them) ‘Lead the contents through the process’: Whenever you believe the view expressed by the community is not yet balanced, facilitate until they consider the issues you felt lacking (you can bring in the knowledge, but have to await their accceptance, or accept their rejection).

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Comparison of some tools (continued)

Mapping Ven-diagram Pro-poor prioritising Paire-wise prioritising What can it do?

Express the develoment of community and project

See areas of common interest of upto three actors

Transparent and participatory prioritisation between different options – while doing justice to differing views

Transparent and participatory prioritisation between different options – requiring agreement among participants

Before you meet: Objective

It is useless to make maps (out of habit) if it is unrelated to decision-making

Works best with three cicles only

First establish your focal group, then focus on their needs/opportunities

Be clear whether the options are all realistic. Else participants priopritise thin air

Before you meet: Who to involve

Be aware of interest if you use it to plan

Decide on which sub-groups and keep them unless genuienly convinced otherwise

Consider giving votes per group rather than individual (so that women have more vote, even if in minority)

This assumes there is one community opinion (or you have to make people vote rather than agree)

Success factor at the start: Overall objective

Include (and agree) purpose of the exercise

Can use cards to assess the needs of each area

Success factor at the start: Specific objective

Tell the purposes before drawing – else it seems only entertainment

Process pitfall Guidance should be short and crisp

Cannot define exactly the needs in areas in general (heterogeneous) groups

Takes long time and may therefore be hard to keep participants meaningfully awake and aware

Community must to get agreement on voting majority

Pitfall in the conclusion

What is the mapping activity for?

Some people think that the area of shared activity is by default the most important

Theoretically high validity, but if math are ill understood transparency is lost

Quicker but less meaningful than pro-poor prioritising

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Working with Cards

The comments on what are ‘Bad’and ‘Good’cards could be slightly different if this where in a different context (e.g. solutions, brainstorming, or naming cluster, which are allowed to be vague). The below notes apply to cards in a problem brainstorm. Bad Card Good Card Reason (for Good and Bad) ICIMOD has not been able to show that its work is relevant to the poverty reduction agendas of the RMCs, and that its work adds value and impact to these

RMC’s not convinced of ICIMOD’s relevance to poverty reduction

KISS (Keep It Short and Simple) and KILL (Keep It Large and Legible)

Political instability and increase in infectious diseases

Political instability One problem per card Increase in infectious diseases

Communication problems

Staff does not know the company strategy

No balloons (be specific)

Not enough trucks Most vegetables not timely transported to market

Fight ‘absent solutions’

Bad politicians Rural poor mistrust politicians

Accept views as views

Politicians accepted 1,000,000 $ in bribes

K. or find facts

Not enough money Leaking roof destroys stored produce

Fight ‘absent solutions’ (again, because this happens so often)

Sme dev. org. sld lrn to bcome PDQ

Some development organizations not quick enough

Those abbreviations! For info: PDQ = Pretty Damn Quick

Steps in Conducting Wealth Ranking

1. Explain why and how you want to do this activity with the community 2. Set the critteria with the community (or beforehand). Preferably use objective criteria

such as: a. Land size b. Household status (...) c. Other property d. Animals e. Education f. Health: E.g. underweight infants

3. Review the status of each household. For objectivve criteria: Establish the fact. For subjective: Vote

4. Announce the outcomes and start your pro-poor targeting Notes: Distinguish between nice to know and need to know information. Wonder who needs to know. If it is you rrather than the community, take care not to unddermine CDD.

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Options Prioritisation Matrix (OPM)

All too often decisions on what to do, and how to do it (e.g. whether to build a school or a health unit, and on where to locate it) are determined by who speaks most, and who pushes his/her view best from the start. Best decisions, that moreover unite and mobilise maximum community support, however, separate the stages of identifying options, listing criteria (why to prioritise which option), and then matching them. • Brainstorm on options, not allowing ‘Yes, but’ and ‘No, because’ discussions at this

stage: Just list • Brainstorm on criteria or reasons, again ensuring only listing • Let all participants individually (or by group) ‘vote’ on the importance of the criteria

(giving important groups a higher weight than minor groups, even if they are represented by an equal number of persons)

• Make a matrix and jointly assess (as this is more an objective fact than a subjective value) to what degree the criterion is satisfied by the option (giving 3 for maximum and 0 for not at all)

• Multiply importance of each criterion by the degree to which each option fulfills it • Use the sum outcomes as input for final informed discussions and decision making –

Do not allow “mechanical decision making” (that is: Do not just look at the highest outcome and ignore the rest. Take the outcome of the voting as the input for a good final debate, which hopefully unites the people).

Options Between B&C In C Central+Bridge 3 Schools

Criteria or reasons

Importance

A B C=A*B D E=A*D F G=A*F H I=A*H

Harvest holiday 4 1 4 1 4 1 4 1 4

Girl safety 18 2 36 3 54 1 18 4 72

Conflict with village A 0 0 0 0

More kids in C 5 0 3 15 0 0

Not in village: kids would

leave 2 3 6 1 2 3 6 1 2

Free for girls 7 0 0 0 0

Construction cost 10 2 20 3 30 2 20 1 10

Other benefits 18 2 36 1 18 4 72 3 54

102 123 120 142

Strength of OPM • Can alllocate scarce resources optimally • Enables to reach a wise and supported community decision, shaping the process • Better way to come to concensus • Facilitates to bring out in-depth issues, turning ‘Yes, but’ or ‘No, because’ fights into

‘OK, and’ mutual enrichment • Completely participatory and transparent • Best example of ‘By the the people, of the people and for the people’

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Limitations and challlenges of OPM • Complicated for villagers to completely understand (needs excellent facilitation lest

the majority will disengage mentally). If ill understood, ‘Garbage in, garbage out’ applies. If stickering is done, correct understanding should first be tested (e.g. ask a participant to explain what a sticker in a certain field would signify)

• Requires facilitator skills to help identify the best options and criteria – not just what surfaces immediately

• Time consuming and therefore difficult to apply in a llarger forum, where atttention will drift

• If participants are not a balanced representation, the voting also is not (unless you give corrective weights to different groups)

Suggestions on Visual Aids

• ‘Less is more’ – leave out distracting details. E.g. in LogFrame generallly do not display OVI’s and MoV

• Be clear on your main message and target group bbefore design • Pretest before publishing and accept the feedback without response and defense:

You can’t explain the poster, film or other means once it is ‘out there’ • Use local language and symbols • Text should moostly just confirm what the picture already conveys

Monitoring (versus supervision)

• Project and process-oriented (as opposed to control and people oriented, pinpointing individual mistakes)

• Mostly in-house; mostly self-monitoring (rather than by superior and higher level) • Learning and improvement oriented (at it least it should be!) • Is about imporving more than proving (although transparency to donors is also a

function)

Examples of indicators in community self-monitoring

• Construction can be seen • Committee can discuss invisible aspects • Keep record of labour and display publicly • Disaggregate men and women in construction and benefit projections • Income indicator: Festival dress • Preference for single (non composite) objective indicators: Possibly dirty, but

undisputable • Decrease in money lenders coming to the village • Child drop-out rate • Infant underweight percentage • Repliccation of demo’s

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Monitoring the effectiveness of your project community facilitators

• Increase IGA loans • Impact in the village: Adaptation of technologies • Record keeping and bank account management • Friendly relationship wiith alll households • High participation, even from non-ttarget groups • Moore demand from village (for training and facilitation, rather than funding) • Communities discuss social issues • Communities question and discuss fund management and their banking • Communities start social audit • People are clear about the project objectives, possibilities and limitations • How communities discuss priorotisation issues in groups – whether all voicces are

heard and respected • Selling processed produce collectively • Note: The above is all based on field visits, looking at impact. Office discussions with

your staff on bottlenecks and developments, can also give you information, and you can contribute to learning on effectiveness of your staff

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Annex A: Participants’ Evaluations

Title Managing Community-Driven Development Process

Date 30 Nov - 3 Dec 2010

Duration 4 days

Venue Fortuna Hotel, Ha Noi

Coverage Sub-Regional

Service

Provider

MDF Indochina

Trainer(s) Diederik Prakke + Tran Thi Le Tho

Course Evaluation

No Aspects

Participants Total

Score Average

1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1 Achievement of training course objectives 4 4 3 4 3 3 4 25 3.57

2 Effectiveness of course delivery methodology 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 27 3.86

3 Facilitation skills for adult group 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 27 3.86

4 Quality of training course materials 4 4 4 4 3 3 3 25 3.57

5 Trainer’s Knowledge of development project management 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 28 4.00

6 Relevance of case studies/examples used to development context 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 26 3.71

7 Applicability to my work 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 26 3.71

8 Overall outcome of the training course 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 27 3.86

9 Duration of the training course 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 27 3.86

10 Training facilities (classroom, equipments) 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 28 4.00

11 Administrative and Logistics Arrangement 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 27 3.86

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12 Trainer: Mr. Diederik Prakke 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 28 4.00

13 Trainer: Ms. Tran Thi Le Tho 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 26 3.71

Daily Evaluation (SMILEY)

No Aspects

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

���� ���� ☺☺☺☺ ���� ���� ☺☺☺☺ ���� ���� ☺☺☺☺

1 Facilitation 0 1 7 0 0 7 0 0 7

2 Training Material 0 1 7 0 1 6 0 2 5

3 Time Management 0 6 2 0 0 7 0 0 7

4 Group Dynamics 0 2 6 0 0 7 0 0 7

5 Logistics 0 0 8 0 5 2 0 0 7

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Title Supporting Community-Driven Development Process

Date 7 - 10 December 2010

Duration 4 days

Venue Icon Towers, New Delhi, India

Coverage Sub Region India

Service

Provider

MDF

Trainer(s) Diederik Prakke & Sathasivam Thilakan

Course Evaluation

No Aspects Participants Total

Score Average

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

1 Achievement of training course objectives

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 67 3.94

2 Effectiveness of course delivery methodology

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 4 4 66 3.88

3 Facilitation skills for adult group

4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 62 3.88

4 Quality of training course materials 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 66 3.88

5 Trainer’s Knowledge of development project management 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 67 3.94

6 Relevance of case studies/examples used to development context 4 4 4 3 3 4 3 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 64 3.76

7 Applicability to my work

4 4 4 3 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 3 65 3.82

8 Overall outcome of the training course

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 67 3.94

9 Duration of the training course 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 3 4 3 3 4 4 4 3 3 3 58 3.41

10 Training facilities (classroom, equipments) 3 4 3 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 4 4 3 56 3.29

11 Administrative and Logistics Arrangement 2 4 3 3 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 52 3.25

12 Trainer: Mr. Diederik Prakke 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 68 4.00

13 Trainer: Mr. Sathasivam Thilakan 4 4 3 3 3 4 3 3 4 4 4 4 4 3 4 4 4 62 3.65

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Daily Evaluation (SMILEY)

No Aspects

Day 1 Day 2 Day 3

���� ���� ☺☺☺☺ ���� ���� ☺☺☺☺ ���� ���� ☺☺☺☺

1 Facilitation 0 0 17 0 0 17 0 2 15

2 Training Material 0 1 16 0 0 17 0 2 15

3 Time Management 0 0 17 0 0 17 0 9 8

4 Group Dynamics 0 7 10 0 0 17 0 2 15

5 Logistics 0 1 16 0 1 16 0 5 12

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Annex B: Participants’ Recommendations

Note: The brainstorm on further development needs was requested by APMAS/AIT. From MDF side a note of caution is that this is more of a wish-list, and often more-of-the-same, than a list of strategic and farsighted priorities. Nevertheless it may be useful for inspiration and to be informed of the current interest – if APMAS/IFAD wish to set more visionary priorities, they will have to ensure buy-in. Vietnam For Project Managers Training • Management skills • Communications skills with community at the grassroot level, meeting organization

skills • Work delegation for senior managers • Leadership skills • Llistening skills • Result-based management • Management skills for implementing activities in the field For Community Facilitators/ Project Staff/Government and NGO counterparts Training • Community motivation • Observation skills • Skill development in working with the community • Skill to use PRA tools • Planning skills • Organize meeting skills • Training on M and E • Community-driven development process training (as done in 2010) Workshop • Experience sharing • Availability of documents on M and E (local language)

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India

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Annex C: Trainers’ Recommendations

Background and Objectives • APMAS aims to make an optimal Capacity Development (CD) contribution to IFAD

project staff and partners • APMAS aims to balance working with CD providers on a case-to-case basis (best-

value-for-money) and a basis of long-term collaboration (trusted partners, who understand the projects well)

• APMAS combines a vision-oriented (vision of IFAD) and demand-driven (of Project Managers) approach to CD, which implies that CD is only implemented if there is genuine buy-in from the projects. APMAS and IFAD may therefore take an advocacy approach in promoting CD interventions that they assess as having the best potential to boost development results, but which are not directly requested

Approach and Procedure In order to match CD demand (by projects) and learning needs (as perceived by APMAS/IFAD) MDF recommends the following procedure (Note that we have not received the Professional Development Needs Assessment report at the time of drafting the below ideas):

• APMAS develops a package of say 10 training modules of 2-days each, and each described in a one-pagers (listing learning objectives and course contents) which is distributed (in a brochure or web-page) to projects and partners. Besides these standard modules, the brochure (web-page) also lists options of tailor made training, mentoring and experience sharing

• The projects request any of the above services for themselves or their partners, against a standard rate (e.g. 10$/pppd for national trainers/facilitators/mentors and 20$/pppd for international trainers/facilitators/mentors, besides travel and lodging)

• Projects submit their requests to APMAS, though APMAS/IFAD may try to influence the demand through advocacy

• APMAS logiscally matches demands and decides about the order and location of events (seeing which projects jointly have the critical mass for a certain event). The projects pay upfront, and the money may be used to pay the provider, or as a revolving fund for further CD

Contents of the Packages Based on discussions with APMAS, IFAD, participants and own observations, MDF recommends the following standard training modules

• Value Chains and Public and Private Partnerships. Part of the challenge here is to connect farmers to markets, seeing the private sector as a powerful partner in development, though negotiations are required to ensure fair trade. The other part of the challenge is to engage state and non-state actors beyond the project, so that the linkage and market information services will continue to flourish after project intervention

• Effective Mindset and Behavior for Empowerment and Awareness-raising. Inadvertedly assistance to community risks to undermine rather than strengthen community management. Where people were self-reliant in the past, ill-designed project support makes them dependent. In the area of awareness-raising, an ineffective mindset will try to make communities accept solutions, without convincing them of the symptoms, problems and options first.

• Facilitating Community Driven Development. Facilitating CDD not only requires a good command of some basic community facilitation techniques, but especially the

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skills and insight of how to offer them in ways that strengtehen community understanding and decision-making, rather than information extrtaction for decision-making in the offices of burocrats

• Knowledge sharing methodologies, as already taken up by the FAO/IFAD project and the IFAD India office

• Leadership and management skills • Result-based planning and monitoring, using MS Project • Introductory course to IFAD and its interventions, for new staffs, obviously

including gender • Procedures and financial management of IFAD projects. This module may best be

conducted by local service providers, but MDF wishes to flag that it has extensive expertise in making fun and efffective training packages on such rather dry issues

Mentoring modules could be:

• Personal coaching (4 persons per day) • Assistance to training module development and mentoring (through a reflection

day after joint training implementation) of local training providers Recomendations concerning the CCD/Gender training module

• We agree with the APMAS recommendation to integrate gender more throughout, rather than only in some exercises duriung the first two days

• We also agree with the APMAS recommendation to refer more to the extensive training file given to the participants during the training, so that they know more what they have and where to find it

• Translation of this training material into Lao. Khmer and Vietnamese may be considered

• As in many trainings, some participants asked for more background information, whereas experiences shows that the more material is provided, the smaller the percentage that is being studied. In this context participants from India seemed more genuinely eager to read more, whereas their English was also good. Therefore, in future courses in India, more background materials may be provided, whereas in the other countries this may not be advisable

• Repeat this module for Laos and/or Cambodia • If the above iis done, invite Vietamese partners who missed out, but then require

good English language proficiency from the Vietnamese • Through timely invitation and “massaging” that this information is communicated

through, future trainings may be more fully participated in. In this message, female participation in the events may be specially encouraged

• The groups were fairly heterogeneous in level, which posed a challenge but also opportunities (in terms of facilitating communication between them – which is key to management effectiveness). Even so, if in future more heterogeneous groups can be constituted, this may be an advantage