Meeting. APMAS Steering Group

(ASG), has a crucial role in deciding the overall direction and operational ap-

proach of the programme, monitoring implementation and approving the

AWPB. APMAS Programme Manage-ment and IFAD have jointly identified

members of the ASG, Mr. Mark Wil-son (World Bank Retiree), Ms. Chase

Palmeri (IFAD), Prof. Sudip K. Rakshit (Vice President AIT), Mr. Ouk

Vuthirith (representing Mekong pro-jects) and Mr. Lamkhosei Baite, IFS

(representing Indian projects).

Through an Annual ASG Meeting in

Bangkok, 1 February 2011, this pro-posed Annual Work Plan and Budget

(AWPB) 2011 was discussed among members of the ASG. The AWPB 2011

was further enriched with the inputs and suggested capacity building ap-

proaches from ASG members,

In the new AWPB, APMAS will

broaden its focus to also address capacity building needs for local and

sub-regional service providers, which will in-turn be the resources for the

projects in the long run. APMAS will also optimize its effort to share knowl-

edge/experience and ensure availability of documents/materials related to pro-

poor, gender-mainstreamed project

management.

Full story is available at http://

apmasnetwork.org/node/99

W elcoming the New Year 2011 with a spirit

of improving capacity building approach in

APMAS client projects, APMAS starts off with planning activity in the first

month of the year. These planning efforts have taken into considerations,

Professional Development Needs Assessment (PDNA) conducted in July

2010, continuous inputs from the project, Country Portfolio Managers

and APMAS Focal Points in Cambodia, India, Laos and Vietnam during 2010.

By utilizing a demand-driven approach, hopefully APMAS will be able to ad-

dress capacity building needs for the projects in improving their pro-poor,

gender sensitive, rural development

project management performance.

APMAS Planning Workshop was held on 25 January 2011 and resulting a

proposed work plan to be discussed further in an APMAS Steering Group

APMAS Starts Off 2011 with Annual Work Planning

Summary of APMAS Activities in 2010

APMAS started year 2010 by conduct-

ing Professional Development Needs Assessment (PDNA) and Start Up

Workshop in Bangkok, Thailand, 5-9 July 2010, attended by 39 project

managers representing 21 projects from 4 countries (Cambodia, 4 pro-

jects; India, 8 projects; Laos, 4 projects; Vietnam, 5 Projects). The PDNA was

designed to capture the capacity build-ing needs in three areas: project man-

agement, community-driven develop-ment and gender mainstreaming, through CV analysis, e-survey and

further clarified during face-to-face

group discussions in the workshop.

PDNA confirms several foci of capacity

building needs in three areas as men-tioned. In summary, for project man-

agement, most immediate needs are time management skills and skill in

utilizing project management tools such as project planning and scheduling

software. In the area of Community-driven Development (CDD), PDNA

pointed out that there is an immediate need for knowledge and skill in utiliza-

tion of proper PRA tools and its pit-falls. Gender Mainstreaming area high-lights the need for Gender Basic train-

ings in Laos and Vietnam, and more applied trainings in all four countries,

specifically in Gender Sensitive Moni-

toring and Evaluation. It

APMAS Newsletter

APMAS Work Plan-

ning for 2011

What APMAS has

done in 2010

Recent and Upcom-

ing Activities

Useful references

and best practices

Highlights

Issue I, Jan-Feb 2011

Inside this issue:

Summary of AP-

MAS Activities in

2010

2

APMAS Training

on Gender

Awareness in Lao

2

References, Best

Practice and Les-

sons Learnt from

Cambodia

3

APMAS Focus in

2011

3

Participants of 1st Annual ASG Meeting in Bangkok (left to right): front row, Ms. Jagriti Shankar (APMAS), Ms.

Chase Palmeri (ASG Representative IFAD), Dr. Kyoko Kusakabe (AIT), second row, Mr. Ouk Vuthirith (ASG

Representative Mekong), Dr. Sundar Venkatesh (AIT), Mr. Mark Wilson (Chair ASG), Prof. Sudip K. Rakshit

(ASG Representative AIT), and Mr. Agus Nugroho (APMAS)

Project Managers from Vietnam discuss capacity

building needs for their PMUs during PDNA

Workshop (July 2010)

Continues...

was also pointed out that there are

demands in capacity development of managers in value chain management

and market orientation, since most of the projects deal with these issues.

Based on these findings, APMAS imple-mented several activities to address

immediate needs of project managers.

Total number of project managers and staff trained during the period of this

progress report is 36 PMU members from 15 projects with the following

composition: Cambodia, 2 projects (out of 3 ongoing projects); India, 7 projects (out of 8 ongoing projects);

Laos, 1 project (out of 3 ongoing pro-

jects); and Vietnam, 5 projects (out of

8 ongoing projects).

The gender composition of participants

participated in APMAS by end of 2010 is still unbalanced with 86% male par-

ticipants compared to only 14% female participants. On the functional aspects

of the participating PMU managers and staff, most participants have managerial

function (67%), followed by technical function (14%), Finance, M&E, Procure-

ment/Admin, and External Relations

functions within the project.

To achieve the improved availability and sharing of pro-poor specific project

management and implementation infor-mation, APMAS has been developing

APMAS website, “APMAS Knowledge Network”, at http://www.apmasnetwork.org/,

which is now ready as a platform for

the projects and other stakeholders in

sharing and networking.

The implementation of APMAS capacity

building activities during 2010 faced several shortcomings and issues, among

others, selection of in-country service providers, service delivery mechanism

among SPs and projects, time availabil-ity of project staff for APMAS activities,

language barriers, and gender balance in participation. IFAD and AIT will

continuously work together to address and resolve these issues with the sup-

port of the projects in future activities.

Full story can be found at http://

apmasnetwork.org/node/102

gender mainstreaming activities in their

projects. Some participants also shared

Gender Mainstreaming Action Plan of

their projects.

Thirty participants attended the train-

ing, including 24 female and 6 male

participants. Participant were from

IFAD projects and line ministries.

Three participants from Ministry of

Planning and Investment, 2 from Ou-

domxay Province, 1 from Champasak

Province, 1 from Sekong Province, 1

from Saravan Province, 1 from Savan-

nakhet Province, 3 from Attapue Prov-

ince, 2 from Ministry of Agriculture and

Forest, 4 from Sustainable Natural

Resources Management and Productiv-

ity Project (SNRMPEP) Project in

Vientiane.

The training was conducted by Lao

T he training on „Gender Equita-

ble Development Projects‟ was

carried out in Vientiane, Lao

PDR during 24-26 January, 2011. The

training was first of APMAS‟s capacity

building activities for Lao PDR. The

need of gender training was identified

during the PDNA workshop last year.

During PDNA, IFAD project managers

and country program manager had

expressed that projects need basic

gender training which will make pro-

jects staff aware of importance of

gender mainstreaming in projects.

Many reports and studies have shown

that most of the development projects

staff are unaware of the necessity to

mainstream gender into project activi-

ties.

The main purpose of the training was

to make participants aware of Gender

issues related to rural and agricultural

projects. The training was conducted in

a participatory manner. The training

also focused on experience sharing

among participants. The experience

sharing sessions were quite successful

as participants were quite eager to

share the challenges they faced during

Women‟s Union which is a mass or-

ganization in Lao PDR and work to-

wards gender equality and advance-

ment of women with an aim to im-

prove the living standard of all Lao

people.

During the evaluation session, partici-

pants voiced that such basic gender

training was a good experience for

them, but some participants suggested

that the duration of the training should

have been more, so they could get

more time on discussions and experi-

ence sharing. Participants also sug-

gested that APMAS should conduct

more trainings, some particular train-

ings suggestions from participants

were: Gender mainstreaming in project

planning and management, Gender

mainstreaming in different sectors,

gender equality in rural areas, gender

mainstreaming in management and

Summary of APMAS Activities in 2010 (continued)

APMAS Training on Gender Awareness in Lao PDR

Page 2 APMAS Newsletter

“The gender

composition of

participants

participated in

APMAS by end of

2010 is still

unbalanced with

86% male

participants

compared to only

14% female

participants”

Number of Participating Projects in APMAS

Capacity Building Activities

(April - December 2010)

Gender Composition of APMAS Capacity

Building Participants

(April - December 2010)

APMAS tried to utilize participatory delivery

methods in its capacity building activities

Project Management

Using MS-Project

(Bangkok, 20-22 Oct

2010)

PDNA Workshop

(Bangkok, 6-9 July

2010)

Participants involved in a group work during

gender training

Participants posing for a group picture

D uring a public ceremony the

Provincial Department of

Women‟s Affairs (PDoWA)

award the title of Model Farmer of the

household of the village that best

shares the roles and responsibilities

between the man and woman in family

and community life and that also best

adapts the agricultural techniques to

increase their productivity and improve

their livelihood.

The identification of the Model Farmer

is based on the following eight criteria:

1- No cases of domestic violence

2- Men are involved in the daily domes-

tic tasks

3- Good morale and relations with the

neighbors

4- General health status of the family is

good

5- Encourage women participation in

the community development related

activities

6– Encourage school attendance and

achievement of the children with equal

attendtion given to daughters and sons

7– Both spouses are engaged in close

consultation for decision making

8– Active in the group activities imple-

mentation

This story is taken from the publication

„Reaching Poor Rural Women: Gender

Mainstreaming in Agriculture‟, „IFAD

Cambodia Country Program: Lessons

learned and emerging best practices

Year 2010‟. Available online at:

(http://www.apmasnetwork.org/node/98)

Credit:

Mr. Ouk Vuthirith

Deputy National Project

Director,

RULIP, Cambodia

Certificate for Best Gender Performing Household

APMAS Focus in 2011

engagement, delivery of services, rating

by the project users, identification of capacity building needs and implemen-

tation of capacity building programme

for service providers.

There will be also focus to engage with

relevant national agencies and NGOs which concern with pro-poor, gender

mainstreamed rural development ef-forts. By involving them and develop

awareness on tools, case studies and

approaches introduced within APMAS

Programme, hopefully will contribute to stronger policy development in rural

development area.

With regards to the demand-based

approach of APMAS, hopefully with more interactions with APMAS focal points and the projects itself, will open

up more channels to capture demands. Among of these channels is online

forum and mailing list which will be established and activated during this

period. APMAS will also establish a system to document and publish the

ongoing demands and continuous cap-turing of new demands and inputs from

projects.

D uring the previous year,

APMAS focused on basic capacity building needs

fulfillment which was identi-fied during PDNA, namely: Utilizing

Project Management Tools (Project Management Area), CDD and participa-

tory tools (Community-driven Devel-opment Area) and Basic Gender

Awareness (Gender Mainstreaming Area). These interventions were tar-

geted directly to project managers and other members of project management unit. Capacity building of local/sub-

regional service providers was not a main priority during previous reporting

period, interaction were limited only on engagement for services, such as

done with ITSS and MDF Indochina.

This year, there will be emphasis to explore and engage with potential

service providers (local/sub-regional). During this period, there will be selec-

tion process for service providers,

Issue I, Jan-Feb 2011

“This year,

there will be

emphasis to

explore and

engage with

potential local/

sub-regional

service

providers”

Page 3

Components % of achievement to

date (estimation)

Focus for new

AWP&B period?

Component 1, Project

Management Cap Building

15% Yes

Component 2, Awareness

Raising for Govt and NGO

10% Yes

Component 3, Programme

Management 50% No

Summary of Main Achievements to Date

and Focus in New AWPB Period

Component 160%

Component 26%

Component 334%

Budget Allocation by Component in 2011

I. Workshops,

Seminars5%

II. Training

Mentoring and Other Cap Build

Activities62%

III. Service

Contracts3%

IV. Programme

Management & Admin Costs

30%

Budget Allocation by Expense Category in 2011

APMAS Knowledge Network, a

web-based sharing and net-

working platform in APMAS

apmasnetwork.com

Supporting Community-Driven

Development Process (New

Delhi, 7-10 December 2010) APMAS Gender

at Facebook

APMAS Project Investigators

Vice President - Research Office

Asian Institute of Technology (AIT)

PO Box 4, Klong Luang

Pathum Thani 12120

Thailand

T. +66 (0)2 524 5551

F. +66 (0)2 524 8001

E. anugroho76@ait.asia

E. jagriti@ait.asia

Asian Project Management

Support Programme (APMAS)

Asian Project Management Programme (APMAS) is a 3-year regional pro-

gramme aiming at improving the development effectiveness and efficiency of pro-poor rural development programmes in the Asia and the Pacific region.

Initially, APMAS supports the development of national project management

capacities in Cambodia, Laos, Viet Nam (grouped as Mekong sub-region) and

India. Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), a regional institution specializing in

management education has been entrusted with the implementation of AP-

MAS.

This Newsletter serves as a media for updating APMAS stakeholders on the

recent, ongoing and future activities within APMAS, and also connecting these stakeholders in various issues within pro-poor, gender sensitive, rural devel-

opment project management area . APMAS Newsletter is issued bimonthly

http://www.apmasnetwork.org/

apmasgroup@apmasnetwork.org

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People Recent APMAS Activities:

APMAS Training Course on

Gender Equitable Develop-ment Projects” (Vientiane,

24—26 January 2011)

APMAS Steering Group Meet-

ing (Bangkok, 1 February 2011)

APMAS Training Course on “Gender Sensitive Value

Chain” (Hanoi, 14-17 March

2011).

Upcoming APMAS Activities:

IFAD Workshop on “Monitoring and Evaluation

RIMS and Knowledge Manage-ment” (Bangkok, 16-20 April

2011)

APMAS-IFAD Vietnam Office Training on “Annual Impact

Survey”(Bac Kan, 5-19 April

2011)

APMAS Training Course on

“Project Management using MS-Project (Basic)” (Ranchi, 2-6

May 2011)

This people column in this newsletter

is dedicated to share profiles of people along with their role and experience in

IFAD-supported projects and most

importantly their achievements.

APMAS is hopeful by sharing people‟s profile, their role, work and achieve-

ment, will encourage more personal networking and sharing among APMAS

Stakeholder.

The current edition introduces APMAS Project Investigators (PI) who have role

in providing technical and managerial guidance in the overall implementation

of APMAS.

Dr. Sundar Venkatesh

Dr. Venkatesh holds a

PhD in Management with specialization in

Accounting and Con-trol. He is a qualified

professional accountant. He is currently a tenured adjunct-

faculty at the School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology and

Advisor to Director of AIT Extension. He has considerable experience in

academic program administration. His recent positions include Associate Professor, School of Management

(SOM), Asian Institute of Technology (AIT); Coordinator SOM-

AIT International Business Field of Study, Course Director for Ansell

Leadership Development Programme-GTZ Distance Learning Project. Dr.

Venkatesh has been consistently rated as an "exciting and innovative" teacher

and has won best teacher for the five years in a row at the Indian Institute of

Management Bangalore. He can be

contacted at svenkat@ait.asia.

Dr. Mokbul Morshed Ahmad

Dr. Morshed is an Associ-

ate Professor in Regional and Rural Development Planning, School of Envi-

ronment, Resources and development, Asian Insti-

tute of Technology, Thai-land. His main research areas include

economic geography, regional and rural development, Non-Governmental

Organizations (NGOs)/civil society, disaster management etc. He holds a

PhD in development geography from Durham University (UK). He did his

first MSc in geography and environment from Dhaka University (Bangladesh)

and the second in Regional and Rural Development Planning from Asian

Institute of Technology. He started his career in the Bangladesh civil service

and worked in the ministries of Estab-lishment and Commerce. He also

taught in Dhaka University in the De-partment of Geography and Environ-

ment. He can be reached at mor-

shed@ait.asia.

Dr. Kyoko Kusakabe

Dr. Kyoko is an associate professor of Gender and

Development Studies at School of Environment,

Resources and Develop-ment, AIT. Her specializa-

tion is on gender issues in the informal economy, especially focus-ing on women‟s work and livelihoods in

relation to cross-border mobility, migration and trade. It has been more

than a decade since she started to work on gender mainstreaming with

IFAD. She also has been working on gender mainstreaming with other

international and bilateral organizations

such as UNDP, World Bank, UNFPA,

ILO, FAO, ADB, CIDA and JICA. She has worked on gender mainstreaming

in various sectors including fisheries/ aquaculture, transportation develop-

ment, integrated rural development, development of indigenous communi-

ties, land management and national and local planning. She speaks Thai and has

working knowledge on Khmer and Lao. She can be contacted at kyo-

kok@ait.asia

Dr. Philippe Doneys

Dr. Philippe is an assis-

tant professor in the Gender and Develop-

ment Studies program at the Asian Institute of

Technology. He received his B.A in Development

Studies from the University of To-

ronto, M.A in Southeast Asian Political Economy from the School of Oriental

and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, England and Ph.D. in Inter-

national Relations from the Institut d‟Études Politiques de Paris

(SciencesPo), Paris, France. He teaches on issues related to gender politics,

civil society and human rights, migra-tion and human trafficking, gender and

HIV, gender and new technologies and gender-friendly policies. His interest in

capacity building in the context of development projects include how

gender is integrated in design, imple-mentation and monitoring, how gender

empowerment is used by development practitioners, and how civil society

organizations influence or shape devel-opment policies, programs and plan-

ning. Dr. Doneys joined AIT in 2007. He can be contacted through his email

at philippe@ait.asia

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