Author: mikocanares

Step Up Consulting Services was contracted by the Metro Naga Development Council through the GREAT Women Project to facilitate the conduct of a Trainers’ Training on Results-based Monitoring and Evaluation. The training was conducted in Macagang Business Center in Nabua, Camarines Sur and was attended by selected representatives from local government units, national government agencies, non-government organisations, and academic institutions.

The training intends to capacitate future trainers on results-based M&E in the analysis, planning, design, conduct, and evaluation of capacity development interventions for local government units and common service facilities.

Michael Canares, Managing Consultant of Step Up Consulting Services was invited by Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores of University of the Philippines Baguio to be its guest lecturer on a class on Development Theory and Practice last March 9, 2012. The class was attended by graduate students in the College of Social Sciences.

Mr. Canares’ talk was on the topic “What is the relationship between government and international agencies in ‘development practice’? How alternative is alternative development?”.

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 1,700 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 28 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Step Up Consulting Services signed a new contract with Soil and Water Conservation Foundation to write a profile report for its newly-assisted barangays in the municipality of Batuan, Bohol.  The report will present the socio-economic condition of the barangay residents prior to project implementation.

Assigned to the engagement is Marijoe Narca and Michael Canares, with the administrative assistance of Marilou Epe-Sale.

Step Up Consulting Services was hired by Soil and Water Conservation Foundation to facilitate a credit management training for its assisted people’s organizations in Bohol. The training was conducted at the Bohol Biodiversity Complex in Bilar, Bohol, last 3-4 November 2011.

Step Up training facilitator Maricor Evangelista-Burbos, who has extensive experience in credit management was the resource person for the two-day activity. Step Up has developed a training module on credit management fit for use by people’s organizations. The training module was developed by Michael Canares, Step UP managing consultant, who is also a certified public accountant.

Mr. Abraham Jose Apit landed 6th place in the recently concluded board exams. Mr. Apit, from Loay, Bohol and a BS Accountancy graduate of Holy Name University, was an intern at Step Up Consulting Services in the summer of 2010 and has worked in at least two engagements with the firm.

Mr. Apit appreciated his internship at Step Up Consulting Services, as it afforded him the opportunity to apply classroom learnings in actual work situations.  He assisted his professor, and Step Up managing consultant Mr. Michael Canares in a consulting engagement with MUAD Negros, in Bacolod City, and in two other audit engagements.

Mr. Apit spent his summer internship at Step Up Consulting, together with Paul Richard Stroud, another passer in the CPA board exams, and Mr. Julius Lim.

Step Up Managing consultant Michael Canares attended the joint conference of the Development Studies Association and the European Association of Development Training Institutes last 19-22 September at York University in the United Kingdom.  Mr. Canares presented a paper in the Gender and Development working group on his work on women’s access to economic opportunities.

The conference theme was “Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty” and was attended by more than 75o academics and practitioners.  There were four plenary sessions, over 100 panels, and more than 400 papers presented.  The conference sought to find new ways of doing things, new approaches in development work, no theories from which to learn new ways of doing.

Mr. Canares’ paper was entitled “Investing in the Local: Rethinking Gender Mainstreaming Approaches for Women’s Economic Empowerment in the Philippines”.

Michael Canares, managing consultant of Step Up Consulting Services is one of the more than 50 academics invited to the Poverty and Behavioral Economics conference hosted by the United Nations University- World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU-WIDER) based in Helsinki, Finland. The conference was held at the Marina Congress Center last 1-2 September 2011.

The conference intended “to take stock of current knowledge, to draw out the major policy implications, and to chart promising areas for research” on poverty withe the perspective of development economics. Presenters were famous economics as Ravi Kanbur, Dean Karlan, and Sendhil Mullainathan and topics ranged from the economics of happiness, prospect theory, uncertainties and valuations to corruption and violence. UNU-WIDER

Mr. Canares is one of the very few young academics from the global south invited to the gathering. He has worked recently with UNU WIDER on two projects in the past – on entrepreneurship and conflict, and urbanisation and development. UNU-WIDER is ranked one of the top ten think tanks in the world.

Step Up Consulting services was contracted by the Hugpong sa Kalambuan-Dabaw (HKDI) and World Vision to conduct an end-of-program evaluation of the area development program implemented in 12 communities in Davao City.  Michael Canares served as the chair of the 6-member field evaluation team. He was assisted by research associate Jean Celeste Paredes, also of Step Up.

The presentation of evaluation results was done at Regency Hotel in Davao City last 16 August 2011 and was attended by board of trustees, barangay leaders and HKDI partners.

HKDI is a community based organization established almost 13 years ago that envisions a developed and peaceful community wherein families freely exercise their faith and live in accordance with the will of God/Allah/Magbabaya. It also desires to help build communities that model the values of social justice, respect the rights and dignity of people, take care of the environment, and actively involve in building a government that is responsive to the genuine needs and aspirations of the people.

The Provincial Internal Audit Service Office of the Province of Bukidnon conducted a training on (internal) audit report writing last 11-13 August 2011 at Loiza’s Pavillion in Malaybalay City, Bukidnon.  Step Up Consulting Services head Michael Canares was invited as a resource person for the said activity.

Ms. Gemma Borreros, Provincial Coordinator of the Provincial Roads Management Facility (PRMF) in Bukidnon invited Mr. Canares.  It can be noted that Step Up also was hired by PRMF in Bohol to assist the Provincial Internal Audit Office (PIAO) to capacitate the newly created PIAO in the conduct of risk assessments, and the formulation of the internal audit manual and annual audit plan.

The participants were very appreciative of the said activity because the methods employed by Mr. Canares were very relevant to the current condition of the province. Mr. Canares used actual case studies as a learning platform to discuss theories and principles in internal audit.  Ms. Marilou Bueno, PIASO head together with her team were appreciative of the training methodology that they will be inviting Mr. Canares again in the October this year.