Written by Mekong Institute

The Mekong Institute was commissioned by Thailand International Development Agency to conduct a four-week annual international training course on “Income Generation and Poverty Reduction for Development” for eighteen goernment officials from fifteen developing countries. The course aims at enhancing particpants’ knowledge and skils in addressing successful poverty reduction strategies. It provded a venue for senior and mid-level government officials from developing countries who are involved in rural development to share experiences and best practices on interventions that create lasting impacts and advance disadvantaged people’ quality of life.

Specially the curriculum focuses on:

• Meaning and measurement of poverty;
• People-centered development;
• Participatory framework;
• Monitoring and evaluation of result framework; and
• Strategies and interventions for poerty reduction.

The training course was designed and delivered using modular trainign approach, of which, all particpants went through three progressstages; 1) “Learn to do”- training on concepts. techniques and tools to be employed; b) “Do to learn”- the paricipans are required to apply wat they learn to their group work assignment and exercise with proper coachng from assigned advisors; and c) “Share to learn”- paricipants will have an opportunit to present their group works/ findings and share their learning experience and new innovatons.

There were seven resource persons/subject experts who contributed to the design and delivery of the lectures, wokshops and structured learning visits namely (1) Dr Krailert Taweekul, (2) Assoc Prof Nongluck Suphanchamart, (3) Assoc Prof Suchint Simaraks, and (4) Assoc Prof Wongsa Laohasiriwong of Khon Kean Universty, (5) Mr Sansonthi Boonyothayan of Sakon Nakhon Provincal Agriculture and Cooperates Offce, and (6) Dr Suchat Katma, and 7)Ms Sanda Thant of the Mekong Institute. The results of evaluation show tat these resource persons were qualifed, experienced and employed effective training deliery methods.

The training ourse s comprised of four inter-related modules. Each module comprises three interrelated stages; Training on concepts and tools, study visit to observe related projects, and sharing session to reflect on the newly acquired knowledge and experience.

Integrated or Meta-currculum was employed in designing and delivering the learning program. Salient features of this currculum are that project design and planning competencies are carefully selected, project management concept is ntegrated wth skill pracitce and essential knowledge is learned to support the performance of skills, and above all, the functional competencies like team and communication skills, information management and facilitation and networking are integrated across the curriculum.

The evaluations conducted throughout the course showed that the learning program was successful.

Despite not achieving perfection, the learning program can still be considered “Highly successful” iin having provided concepts, tool and strategies to address poverty reducton and some concrete examples and best practices of income generaton and povert reducton initatives in Thailand.