Written by Mekong Institute
The Mekong Institute (MI) organized the one-month training course on “
Sustainable Community Development” under the financial support from Thailand International Cooperation Agency (TICA), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand. Ten Cambodian central and provincial government officials from the Ministry of Rural Development participated in this training program, which was organized from June 29 to July 24, 2015, at the MI Residential Training Center in Khon Kaen Province, Thailand.
The course aimed to a) increase participants’ skills in community analysis; b) enhance participants’ knowledge of concepts and process of community development in Thailand; c) strengthen participants’ skills to facilitate local participation in rural community development; d) improve the participants’ knowledge and ability to plan for strategies and interventions to cope with the community issues in their work location; and e) advance the participants’ ability to employ monitoring and evaluation concepts and tools to help improve the performance of community development strategies.
Five interactive modules were conducted to cover the above objectives. The first module was about Concepts of Sustainable Community Development whichgave an overview of trends and interventions as well as problem and potential in different national and regional contexts. Next, the second module was the discussion on Sustainable Community Development: Diagnostic Processes and Tools. These enabled participants to use participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and stakeholder analysis in community development. In the third module, it was focused on Planning and Implementation Framework in Community Development. Planning technique, SWOT analysis, logical framework, monitoring, and evaluation were emphasized in the session. Afterward, the fourth module was explained about the Leadership in Community Development. Participants learned about the role of leader, people-centered development approach, and management in community development. In addition, the fieldwork was designed as the fifth module for the participatory rural appraisal (PRA) fieldwork which was conducted in Surin province where it gave opportunities for participants to learn about the real practice from the Thailand’s village development. In the final week, participants were brought to the indigo-cotton weaving group in Sakhon Nakhon province, and rice cracker group in Khon Kaen province to learn of some successful community-based enterprise (CBE) in Thailand.
Two resource persons, Dr. Suchint Simaraks , and Dr. Chamnan Wattanasiri , responsibled for delivering lectures and facilitating the training program. Multi- learning methods, from theories as well as practices, were employed. Participatory was a core component; discussion were encouraged. The participants produced a planning and fieldwork report at the end of the course.