mikocanares Capacity Building, Governance, Lectures, local governance, Local Government Units, road asset management, Training

Step Up Conducts Training of Trainers on Local Road Asset Management

ToT for LRAM

Step Up Consulting facilitated the conduct of a Training of Trainers on Local Road Asset Management (ToT on LRAM) sponsored by the United Nations Development Program‘s Roads2SDGs Project in partnership with the Department of Interior and Local Government.  The ToT on LRAM was held at the Bellevue Resort – Bohol  last August 19-23 2019.

The training gathered together close to 20 experts that are envisioned to become a resource pool for local road asset management in the country. The training aimed to enable the participants to (1) understand the basic principles underpinning the Local Road Asset Management (LRAM), as well as the different processes in ensuring that local government units achieve better road service delivery for its constituents; (2) learn the necessary knowledge and skills in rolling-out the local road asset management manual to local government units; and (3) realize the importance of asset management principles and practices to properly manage local road assets. 

The ToT was designed to enable participants to actually design and implement LRAM training sessions for local government officials.Those who performed well in the ToT will be asked to apply their skills in an upcoming run of the LRAM for provinces in the Visayas and Mindanao.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Consulting Services, Core services, Local economic development, project development, project management, Training

Step Up Conducts Project Development and Management Training for Iloilo LEIPOs

Iloilo training pic 1

The Provincial Government of Iloilo, through its Local Economic Development and Investment Promotions Center, invited Step Up Consulting to train more than 40 of its Local Economic and Investment Promotions Officers (LEIPOs) on project development and management. The training, which was held at the Century 21 Hotel in Iloilo City last 29-30 July 2019, aimed to build the capacity of the LEIPOs in applying project management and development concepts to local government projects and initiatives.

More specifically, the training aimed to enable the LEIPOs to understand, define, and clearly explain what is project development and management; understand the role of project managers, specifically in the local government scenario; identify the key activities in the project life cycle; learn the knowledge areas of project management, and identify what strategies can be used in each project management knowledge area; and know what is a project charter and how to develop one for their own projects in each LGU.

mikocanares Africa, Asia, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Inclusion, Open contracting, Open Data, Research Projects, Uncategorized

Step Up Wins HIVOS Contract to Study Open Contracting in 4 Countries

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Open Contracting and OCDS (Image taken from https://openprocurement.io/en/ocds) 

Step Up Consulting was awarded a research contract by HIVOS, a development organization headquartered in the Netherlands, to undertake a research project to understand how open contracting reforms and increased availability of contract data can be used to realize results and benefits for specific, historically marginalized groups external to government.

Step Up Consulting is one of the several firms considered to undertake the research but got the final nod of the HIVOS review panel based on the strength of its proposal and the quality of the composition of its research team. The research will be conducted in Kenya and Nigeria in Africa, and Indonesia and the Philippines in Asia.

For this research, Step Up’s team is composed of Michael Canares, strategy advisor, as research lead and Francois Van Schalkwyk, a long-time collaborator of Mr. Canares, along with Fiona Smith and Ana Brandusescu as review panel.  The research will run from July 2019 to January 2020.

The research, using a case study approach, aims to identify and assess ways in which key aspects of open contracting reforms did or did not lead to circumstances where open contracting resulted in increased equality and inclusion in public contracting processes. More particularly, the research would like to answer the following questions:

  1. How can open contracting reforms and increased availability of contract data be used to realise results and benefits for specific, historically marginalised groups external to government? 
  2. What contextual and programmatic aspects in open contracting contribute to achieving meaningful results and benefits for these marginalised groups? 
  3. What do specific, historically marginalised stakeholders experience as significant barriers/impediments to achieving the desired results and benefits?
mikocanares conference presentations, Data empowerment, data for development, innovation, Lectures, Open Data, workshop design, workshops

Step Up Strategy Advisor Attends Data Innovation Clinic in Istanbul

11July2019 (7)Michael Canares, Step Up Strategy Advisor, is one of the individual experts invited by the United Nations Development Program Regional Hubs based in Istanbul and Amman to speak and attend in a Data Innovation Clinic held at the Hilton Istanbul Bosphorus last 9-11 July 2019.

Dubbed as #NextGenUNDP, the data innovation clinic aimed to reflect on data innovation work implemented by UNDP in both regional hubs, introduce approaches, methods, and tools in data innovation, and frame ways forward.  The activity was attended by 47 participants from 16 countries across Europe, Central Asia, Arab States and Africa, with 10 speakers from Asia, Africa, Europe and the United States.

Different topics were discussed during the data clinic. Michael Canares talked about the concept of data empowerment, one of his primary advocacies, while others talked about positive deviance, thick data, artificial intelligence, behavioral insights, big data, satellite data, machine learning, among others.

mikocanares Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, National Government Agency, Non-Government Organizations, workshops

Step Up Facilitates OGP Commitment Design Workshop for the Philippine Government

IMG_20190416_114217Step Up Consulting Strategy Advisor Michael P. Canares led the design and facilitation of the Philippine Government’s commitment design workshop as part of the several processes in formulating its National Action Plan for the Open Government Partnership.

The Philippines is a pioneering member of the Open Government Partnership (OGP), a multilateral initiative that aims to promote transparent, accountable, participatory, and responsive governance.

The workshop gathered several representatives from national government agencies and civil society organizations to dissect and analyze two Philippine government commitments – the Digital Imaging for Monitoring and Evaluation (DIME) proposed by the Department of Budget and Management, and the commitment on Open Contracting, proposed by the Government Procurement Policy Board.

The workshop was held at the DBM Conference Room in Manila last 15-16 April 2019 and supported by OGP Support Unit‘s team based in Asia Pacific lead by Shreya Basu.

mikocanares Asia, Business Planning, Consulting Services, labour markets, local governance

Step Up Writes Labour Market Assessment for the Rakhine State

ILO reportMichael Canares, Strategy Advisor of Step Up Consulting was tasked by the International Labour Organization to write a consolidated report that looks into the opportunities and challenges of labour market development in the Rakhine State in Myanmar.  The report that Mr. Canares wrote, together with his team at Step Up was based on primary field work that was conducted by Synergia Consulting and Training and Myanmar Survey Research.

The report, entitled “Rakhine State Labour Market:  Assessing Assets, Projecting Demands, and Identifying Areas for Intervention” looked into current and projected demand for labour skills in the Rakhine state, quality and quantity of labour supply in the area, and potential areas for intervention to strenthen labour market quality and labour to industry matching processes.

mikocanares Asia, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, labour markets

Labour Markets Project Design Workshop for Indonesia

miko in action day 2Step Up Managing Consultant Michael Canares led the design for the Labour Market Information Systems exploratory workshop for Indonesia and facilitated the same last April 9-10, 2019 at the GIZ Headquarters in Jakarta Indonesia. The primary question that the workshop tackled was whether non-traditional data sources can help overcome information deficits in labour market development programs.

The workshop brought together policy makers from relevant education and labour market related institutions, providers of relevant data and technical experts across Indonesia, more particularly those in the food processing sector, the current test case. The workshop aimed to initiate an in-depth discussion with respect to the following overarching questions:

  1. On which basis are education and labour market policies currently formulated in Indonesia?
  2. Are the currently used data sources enough to serve as a basis for informed policy formulation?
  3. What are known data/information gaps that may lead to sub-optimal policy decisions?
  4. Can non-traditional data sources, in particular, data from job-platforms and social networks, be used to enrich the existing information base and strengthen the evidence base in order to allow for more informed policy decisions?
  5. What gains can be expected from the use of non-traditional data sources?
  6. What are the related prerequisites and the costs related to the use of non-traditional data sources?
  7. What process needs to be in place to develop a system of integrating new data sources to existing systems?

outputThrough intensive workshops and meaningful conversations designed primarily to harness different ideas, the workshop resulted to at least four experiments in the use of different data sources – big data, open data, thick data, and citizen-generated data – to be able to capture traditionally unavailable information that are critical to labour market decision making processes.

The workshop was sponsored by GIZ and was part of GIZ’s efforts to harness new data sources for development projects.

mikocanares Asia, Consulting Services, Facilitation, workshop design

Step Up Strategy Advisor Facilitates LOGIN General Assembly in Bangkok

DSC_8511Step Up strategy advisor Michael Canares facilitated the Local Governance Initiative and Network (LOGIN) General Assembly held in Bangkok Thailand on April 2-4 2019 at the Renaissance Hotel. The workshop was attended by more than a hundred participants coming from several countries in the Asia Pacific region and other representatives and guests from Europe.

LOGIN is a multi-stakeholder knowledge network connecting state and non-state actors to promote a culture of learning and exchange on decentralization and local governance, more particularly in South and East Asia.  Organized in 2007, LOGIN’s members include government officials, elected parliamentarians, non-governmental and international organizations. It aims to capacitate local institutions in participatory, accountable, inclusive, and citizen-responsive governance.

Spanning 12 countries, LOGIN’s membership includes elected representatives, training institutions, think tanks, government departments, non-governmental and inter-governmental organisations, among others. It aims to capacitate local institutions in participatory, accountable, inclusive, and citizen-responsive governance.

Mr. Canares leads the design and facilitation of the 3-day activity.  He was joined by Suresh Raghavan of India as co-facilitator.

mikocanares Asia, Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Advisor Facilitates ASEAN Workshop

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI) and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) held a joint conference last 26 February 2016 with the theme “Laying the Foundation for Future Cooperation in Promoting Transparency and Accountability in the ASEAN”.

The workshop was held at the Sheraton Grand Jakarta Gandaria City Hotel, Indonesia and was attended in by almost 100 participants from 14 countries coming from within and outside the ASEAN. Mr. Michael Canares, Strategy Advisor of Step Up Consulting was hired by GIZ to help design and facilitate the whole day event.

The event was spearheaded by ASEANSAI, a relatively young regional organisation of ten audit offices in the ASEAN region and supported by GIZ.  The event intended to bring together the three organizations  (ASEAN, ASEANSAI and AIPA) to explore more coordinated framework for future joint action and inter-agency collaboration for fostering state-society relationships in ASEAN, including efforts towards Good Governance, transparency and accountability.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, local governance, road asset management, Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Advisor Facilitates Local Road Asset Management Workshop

consultative workshop - Roads2SDGs

Michael Canares, Strategy Advisor of Step Up Consulting Services, facilitated the Local Road Asset Management Workshop for the United Nations Development Program’s Road 2 SDGs project, an initiative that it implements with the Department of Interior and Local Government.  The workshop is part of a series of activities lined up for the year in order to increase the capacity of local government units in the country in local road asset management.

The workshop was held on 19 February 2019 at B Hotel in Quezon City and was attended by key stakeholders from the national government agencies, namely, the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and other representatives as the Union of Local Authorities in the Philippines, and UNDP.

The activity is part of UNDP’s efforts to strengthen infrastructure governance in the country to hasten the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as infrastructure is a key component in service delivery, impacting different SDG targets.

At the beginning of the project, it  was  found  that  provincial  local government  units need to improve their governance systems in road asset management and maintenance. Data  has  shown  that  not  all  provincial  roads  and  bridges  are  booked  as  assets,  and  life  cycle management of roads is generally not evident. This situation also has direct implication on the weak financial  management  of  PLGUs  related  to  local  roads.

Thus,  an  integral  component  of  the governance reform on local road management is on road asset management. UNDP recognizes its role  to  deliver  capacity  development  interventions,  through  knowledge  products  and  training activities that will ultimately result to a better system of PLGUs’ governance in relation to road asset management.