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 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 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.