mikocanares Associates, Capacity Building, Monitoring and Evaluation

Step Up in 2nd M&E Network Forum in Manila

Michael Cañares, Managing Consultant of Step Up Consulting Services attended the 2nd M&E Network Forum held at Bayleaf Hotel, Intramuros, Manila on 7-8 November 2012.

The forum, attended by more than 100 M&E practitioners, was the second series of the annual forum sponsored by the National Economic Development Authority and UNICEF. This year, the theme of the forum was EVALUATION POLICY: A GATEWAY TO IMPROVED PERFORMANCE AND ACCOUNTABILITY, and it opened with the Keynote Address of Mr. Colin Kirk, the Director of Evaluation of UNICEF in New York. The first M&E Network Forum was held last year, on the same date, in Ortigas (please see photo).

There were four interesting sessions in the forum – In-Country Processes and Procedures for National Evaluation Framework, Evaluation Approaches and Methodologies, Innovations on M&E Approaches, and Evaluation as Undertaken by Stakeholders. Presenters coming from the development organizations as the Asian Development Bank, NEDA, Ibon Foundation, the National Statistical Coordination Board, the Department of Interior and Local Government, USAID Philippines, GIZ, UNICEF, and DBM, made the sessions interesting and insightful.

An interesting information was shared in the forum by NEDA Deputy Director Rolando Tungpalan regarding the updating of the Philippine Development Plan and the corresponding M&E framework that is expected to be publicly available by the first quarter of 2013.  The participants expressed appreciation for this new development as this would serve as a guide to various stakeholders in their work towards a better Philippines.

mikocanares Business Planning, Non-Government Organizations

Step Up Assists Vincentian Missionaries Social Development Foundation

Payatas dumpsite, courtesy of Sean Miller’s blog at seanmillerblogs.com

Step Up signs recently a consulting contract with the Vincentian Missionaries Social Development Foundation, Inc. (VMSDFI).  The non-government organization is based in Quezon City and has tasked Step Up to formulate a business plan for a community enterprise that it helped establish in Payatas.

The Journal of Environment and Urbanization (1998) described VMSDFI as “a church-based organization which has been working in the urban slum community of Payatas, Quezon City, since 1991, in pursuit of community development goals for the lowest 20 per cent of the urban poor population.”  Its office is located at 221 Tandang Sora Avenue, NIA Road, Quezon City.

In the initial fieldwork, it was observed that while technical skills and assets are available at the level of the people’s organization assisted by VMSDFI, management skills that would make a community enterprise sustainable is wanting.  Step Up envisions to refocus VMSDFI’s efforts in assisting the organization through the preparation of a business plan suited to the context of both the beneficiary group and the assisting organization. The beneficiary group, in this case, manufactures different products made from waste and other materials.

Lead consultant for this engagement is Mr. Alvin Luis Acuzar assisted by research associate Anthony Tanio.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Internships, Student Training

Step Up Interns Pass CPA Board Exams

Four of Step Up interns in the summer of 2011 passed the recently concluded CPA Board exams.  The interns, who were students of Managing Consultant Michael Cañares who spent their JBAP program in the firm now joins the select few of CPA professionals in the country.

The four interns, now CPAs, are Mr. Jayneil Nacorda, Mr. Frank Lorenzo Pizarras, Ms. Hananera Rasonabe, and Mr. Anthony Dominguez.  Mr. Nacorda is from San Francisco, Agusan del Sur and helped Step Up in its financial management and project evaluation contracts.  Mr. Pizarras, of Tagbilaran City, was involved in the finalisation of the book “Accounting for Non-Accountants” published by HNU Publication Center last year.  Ms. Rasonabe of Calape, Bohol was assigned to financial management and research consulting assignments while Mr. Dominguez of Panglao was involved in both research and capacity building engagements.

Since Step Up started operations ten years back, it has always been its goal to train future professionals in different aspects of consulting work. Step Up’s strength are on financial management, development research, and capacity building and the interns get the sufficient training on these engagements.  The training program at Step Up has been praised by its interns as contextual, productive, challenging, and inspiring.

It can be recalled that one of Step Up’s intern, Mr. Abraham Jose Apit landed 6th place in the October 2011 exams.  Almost a hundred percent of Step Up trainees since its started passed the CPA board exams.

Step Up congratulates the four new CPAs and wishes them success in their future endeavours.

mikocanares conference presentations

Step Up manager presents paper in Helsinki conference

Managing Consultang of Step Up Consulting Services, Mr. Michael Canares, presented a paper in the recently concluded conference on Climate Change and Development Policy in Finland last 26-28 September 2012.  The conference, attended by more than 150 participants from all over the world was held at the Marina Congress Center in Helsinki and was sponsored by the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research.

Mr. Canares presented his paper entitled “The Sudden Shift: What Causes Increased Local Government Response to Climate Change Challenge in the Philippines” in the session on Climate Change and Local Governance.  The paper argues that incorporation of the climate change agenda is more of a result of top-down incorporation than as an agenda understood and owned by local stakeholders.

The paper received mixed reviews with other scholars arguing that the climate change challenge is better responded by macro-actors and instruments especially in the context of mitigation.  Mr. Canares, however, argues, that it is important that local stakeholders are well-informed of the issue and the options for response because ultimately, adaptation measures need to be incorporated to local plans and processes.

mikocanares Financial Management

Step Up signs 2 new financial management contracts

Step Up Consulting Services starts today work on 2 new financial management contracts that involves preparation of financial statements. The contract signed between the firm and two repeat clients was intended to clean up financial data and prepare financial statements for three periods.

Financial management has been a core expertise of the firm for more than 10 years. The primary services offered by Step Up Consulting when it started in 1998 was training (what Step Up now calls as capacity building) and financial management.  It started with small contracts until of small firms until such time that it was able to handle corporate accounts.  The experience of Step Up on financial management is also extensive – from government institutions, to corporations, and non-profits.

In the past, Step Up has several companies – Save and Earn, Alona Palm Beach Resort and Restaurant, Dagohoy World Travel, Sparks Financing Corporation, Feed the Children Philippines among others. As it embarked on new forms of services, more particularly research, Step Up decided to streamline its financial management services and accepts only select clients in the recent years.

mikocanares Monitoring and Evaluation

Managing Consultant of Step Up an Associate of ClimSystems

Mr. Michael Canares, Managing Consultant of Step Up Consulting Services, is selected as one of the associates of ClimSystems.

CLIMsystems was incorporated on 14 April 2003. The Directors of the Company are: Richard Warrick (Chairman of the Board); Peter Urich, Wei Ye, Thomas McClunie and Subramanyan Kanakasabapathy.

CLIMsystems and the SimCLIM software system have evolved from a research-based program called CLIMPACTS that began at the University of Waikato in Hamilton, New Zealand.

CLIMsystems Ltd, a company based in New Zealand, is dedicated to providing state-of-the-art climate change risk and adaptation assessment tools and services for a wide range of clients.

Mr. Canares is one of the associates in Monitoring and Evaluation.

mikocanares Facilitation

Step Up Assists Bicol Center for Community Development

Step Up Consulting Services assisted Bicol Center for Community Development (see logo in this post) in its recent Strategic Planning Workshop held in Daraga, Albay last June 23-24, 2012. The workshop was attended by its board headed by Mr. John Abejuro and the organization’s staff headed by its Executive Director Ruby Desolo.

The workshop intends to craft the organization’s directions in the 2013-2017 by revisiting its vision, mission, and goals, analysing its current context including its organizations capabilities and the challenges confronting the communities that it served or intends to serve.  These two processes led to the redefinition of BCCD’s core services, the criteria for outreach, and the strategic directions that the organization wants to pursue in the next five years.

Ruby Desolo, ED of BCCD expressed appreciation to Mr. Michael Canares, Step Up Managing Consultant and lead facilitator of the 2-day workshop and reported that BCCD Staff and Board were so happy of what they have accomplished in two days because of the latter’s excellent facilitation.

Step Up Consulting Services has long years of experience in strategic planning exercises.  The firm is committed to assist organizations in their pursuit of better performance and the attaintment of organizational directions.

mikocanares conference presentations

Step Up Managing Consultant in Swiss Conference

Michael Canares, Managing Consultant of Step Up Consulting Services was invited by the Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne as one of the presenters in the conference “Technologies for Sustainable Development: A Way to Reduce Poverty?”.  The conference was held in the beautiful city of Lausanne, in the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and was attended by close to 250 participants from around the globe.

“The conference was multi-disciplinary and I was fortunate to be the only Filipino in the conference”, Mr. Canares commented.  He mentioned that in the conference, there were economists, political scientists, agronomists, architects, urban planners, biologists, neuro-scientists, medical doctors, among others, who wanted to answer the question as to how  technology development can be advanced so that it can respond to the challenges of poverty, more particularly in the global South.

Mr. Canares presented his paper, “Difficulty to Connect: Impediments to Collaboration for Knowledge Creation Among Developing Country Scholars” in the session on Education and Cooperation.  The session was chaired by Helvetas Board member Dr. Rudolf Dannecker. Other presenters were from India, Moldova, and Vietnam.

Mr. Canares was among the 25 scholars awarded full conference grants to attend the conference and present their work.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Facilitation

Step Up Consulting Trains Jagna Community Development Facilitators

ImageStep Up Consulting Services assisted the Municipality of Jagna by training 20 municipal government employees as facilitators. The training, entitled Facilitating for Development, intends to equip  facilitators with the necessary skills in facilitating participatory community development sessions.

Facilitating development in communities is a crucial process that entails maximum preparation on the part of facilitators.  As distinguished from training, facilitation involves not an instructive approach in bringing about learning from individuals but a bottoms-up approach in drawing conclusions based on participant’s knowledge, feelings and experiences.  Facilitation, as a process entails a lot of listening, not only to verbal but also the non-verbal cues happening at group processes and requires appreciation and not judgment of participant’s responses. The training covered these theoretical grounding.

Participants expressed appreciation to Step Up Consulting Services team for the efforts in making the training enjoyable, productive, and enriching.  The firm handled content as well as administrative arrangements for the total three-day training.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Internships, Student Training

Step Up trains three new students in various consulting work

Step Up Consulting Services trains three new students in various consulting works starting last April. The three students are incoming senior accountancy students of Holy Name University – Mari Abigael Antoni, Anthony Tanio, and Joseph Lago.

The students were exposed to the use of accounting software Quickbooks, preparation of tax returns, and other administrative works. They were also engaged in financial management, more particularly in the review of financial statements of 10 provincial government units across the country.

As the managing consultant is consistently on travel, the trainees were managed by remote and physically supervised by the administrative officer of the firm. This is a new arrangement where all meetings, outputs, and instructions are done online.  There were only limited times when the trainees were supervised physically by the managing consultant.

This is a challenging set-up. But Step Up is not new to this arrangement. In 2011, Step Up evaluated a three country program with a team composed of Dr. Lawrence based in the UK, Ms. Soriaga based in Manila, and Mr. Canares based in Bohol who also travels to Cambodia and Vietnam.  The engagement was completed in 6 months with the consultants only meeting online.

The trainees said that they learned so much, even under this set up. A processing of learning will soon be conducted with the trainees at the close of their engagement with the firm.