TA-9723 REG: Support for Human and Social Development in Southeast Asia - Preparing the MYA: Improving Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) Prevention and Treatment (52335-001)

Description of Project:

The project aimed to support the Myanmar Ministry of Health and Sports (MOHS) to enhance capacity of prevention and treatment services for non-communicable diseases (NCDs). The project was proposed to have three components: (i) policy planning and coordinated implementation for NCDs response strengthened; (ii) health promotion and prevention of NCDs improved; and (iii) NCDs diagnosis and treatment capacity enhanced. The project was prepared by a project preparatory technical assistance (PPTA), supported from various resources within ADB. The main tasks included:

·   Financial analysis and financial management assessment of executing and implementing agencies;

·    Development of a detailed investment plan;

·    Preparation of a gender analysis and gender action plan;

• Preparation of environmental, involuntary resettlement and indigenous people due diligence and develop risk mitigation plans.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

MKE implemented the following tasks in cooperation/ consultation with the project team:

·   Assisted in the preparation of the country project investment plan, financing plan, country projections of future incremental costs; identified cash flow requirements and recommended appropriate fund flow mechanism and disbursement schedule; helped complete financial management assessment (FMA) of the executing and implementing agency (EA & IA); discussed with the Borrower the financial management assessment, the basis and results of financial projections, and relevant proposed financial risk mitigation measures;

·     Assisted in conducting a gender analysis and confirming project gender categorization; and in the preparation of a gender action plan; collected sex-disaggregated data; developed mitigation measures and enhancement measures;

·         Assisted in orienting the EA and IA on ADB’s safeguard policy requirements and procedures; helped assess the national policy and legal framework for resettlement if any, and proposed measures to bridge any gaps; recommended appropriate grievance redress mechanism to handle complaints; assisted in developing an internal and external monitoring and evaluation plan, conduct of training; helped determine whether ethnic groups in the area qualify as "Indigenous Peoples"; reviewed and assessed the capacity of the responsible institutions; organized investigations and consultations with affected persons; ensured overall project compliance with ADB’s involuntary resettlement and indigenous peoples safeguards, and summarized social analysis results;

·     Conducted meetings with local authorities;

·   Provided inputs for the Inception Report, Draft Reports and Final Report.

MOE -Transformation of higher education and TVET in agriculture in Myanmar (TransformAGR) Phase 1 – Feasibility Study for Pathein and Shwebo Universities - 2021

Description of Project:

The Republic of the Union of Myanmar National Education Strategic Plan (NESP) 2016-21 has identified human resource capacity as one of the five drivers of change that will facilitate and sustain NESP reforms over the long term.  MOE established a Capacity Development Fund (CDF), in partnership with Embassy of Denmark in Myanmar, to strengthen MOE systems and build human resource capacity to support implementation of the NESP. The Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (GoM) has received funding from the Embassy of Denmark in Myanmar to support the Capacity Development Fund (CDF).

The Feasibility Study will build upon best-practice lessons learned from ongoing, demand responsive education and training programmes being implemented by: (i) MOE Capacity Development Fund (CDF);(ii) Myanmar Sustainable Aquaculture Programme (MYSAP), Department of Fisheries, funded by GIZ;(iii) Strengthening of Agricultural Vocational Education and Training for Food Security (2016-2020) Project, Ministry of Agriculture, Livestock and Irrigation (MOALI) funded by The Netherlands; and, (iv) other development partner funded projects.

The MOE and NEPC are proposing a first phase of the TransformAGR Project involving a Feasibility Study for Pathein and Shwebo Universities. The overall aims of the Feasibility Study are:

1. Undertake a detailed assessment of the demand and supply of agriculture occupations and skills in the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Regions over the next 10 years;

2. Draft a detailed and costed investment plan for strengthening agricultural education at Pathein and Shwebo Universities; and,

3. Draft a detailed and costed investment plan for strengthening agricultural TVET training programmes in the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Regions.

Description of actual services:

●   Undertake an in-depth literature review and draft two reports for the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Regions;

●  Analyse all reports, research papers and other secondary data sources to understand the current and long-term demand for agricultural occupations and skills in the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Regions;

●   Systemically assess all known agricultural production areas/sub-industries in terms of demand for occupations and skills;

●  Undertake consultations and research in the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Regions;

● Organise and hold a one-day consultation meeting with 150 key stakeholders based in the regions;

●  Hold key informant interviews with experts and private sector companies in the regions;

●   Draft a qualitative interview questionnaire to be used in both regions to interview agriculture workers, private sector company owners and employees, region-based industry representatives, independent agriculture experts and advisers, and any other relevant experts in the Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Region;

●   Review the data collected from the Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Region;

●   Update and finalise the report: Demand for agriculture occupations and skills in the Ayeyarwady and Sagaing Regions

●  Draft a detailed and costed investment plan for strengthening agricultural education at Pathein and Shwe Bo University; and, a detailed and costed investment plan for strengthening agricultural TVET training programmes in the Ayeyarwady and Sagain Region;

●    Make four separate presentations to NEPC in Yangon, MOE and MoALI officials in NPT and faculty at Yezin University to get their comments and inputs;

●   Hold half-day consultation meeting in Pathein University and another meeting in Shwebo University with all key stakeholders they have met and consulted with to date;

●  Finalize the main outputs.

Enhancing Evaluation Use: Rubric Methodology In Program Evaluation

Description of Project:

This research project aimed to increase the analytical and conceptual rigour applied to using how evaluation evidence is used to inform decision-making. Though the goal of evaluation was to inform policy and practice, the processes through which evaluation evidence was used to inform decision-making was relatively under-researched. While a considerable amount of guidance and tools had been produced, these seemed to be based on anecdotal information and case studies of ‘best practice’. There was scope to build a more rigorous conceptual framework for effectively enabling the use of evaluation evidence, particularly in development contexts that might be characterised by weak institutions and limited capacity and resources.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

●        Prepared inception report detailing purpose of the research; methodology for conducting the research; and research hypothesis.

●        Designed an experimental research approach where a control and treatment group would be asked to evaluate a WASH programme in Myanmar with groups being given different information. The treatment group will be given an evaluation rubric in order to see how this framework changes the evaluation conclusion.

●        Submitted four quarterly reports detailing progress on the project and how it would be adapted in the wake of COVID-19, including using innovative solutions to continue to conduct research to inform future programming.

● This project was suspended by CEDIL after the UK FCDO ODA budget was decreased and in the wake of COVID-19.

ADB/EGEN - Equipping Youth for Employment Project - Country: Myanmar - 2021

Description of Project:

The project aims to provide an array of technical inputs to support the government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar—particularly the Ministry of Education (MOE) and Ministry of Industry (MOI), in cooperation with the Ministry of Labour, Immigration and Population (MOLIP) and other agencies—to implement the
Equipping Youth for Employment Project (EYE), which is financed by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) under Loan 3472. EYE aims to help Myanmar strengthen its Myanmar's education and skills base, supporting Myanmar's transition toward a modern, market-based economy, and promoting inclusive growth and job creation. In particular, it will advance national reforms of the secondary education subsector (SES)—herein used to refer to academic or general-track secondary education—and technical and vocational education and training (TVET) aimed at realigning these 2 subsectors to effectively meet Myanmar's evolving workforce needs.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

• Select the CVs of local teams including Specialist on Industry Stakeholder Engagement, Specialist on Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), Specialist on Social Marketing and Advocacy for Education and Training, Specialists on Competency-based TVET (construction), Specialists on Competency-based TVET (Welding), Specialist on TVET System-Industry Linkages, and other specialists as required by e.Gen.

• Manage the consultants through the project course, and provide administrative management

• The local consultants will directly support implementation of interventions focus on but not be limited to interventions described in the Project Administrative Manual. The team members focus on support for secondary education subsector (SES) curriculum development will also be expected to contribute to development and implementation of support for teacher training linked to the new SES curriculum. The consultants will additionally provide as any other tasks as may be reasonably requested in support of EYE implementation.

BRIGHT (Breaking Barriers, Improving Girls’ education, Hope and Totality)

Description of Project:

The project aims to provide women and girls with pathways for inclusive and equitable primary education, accelerated learning, and livelihood training that will enable them to have more equal access to livelihood opportunities usually dominated by males.

This market assessment consultancy agreement is a crucial component of the project made to look at the labor market context and provide up-to-date data on the labour market, market driven practical recommendations to inform the organization interventions on livelihood skills development through employability training. Furthermore, the findings will also inform efforts of the project partners in developing competency-based vocational training curriculum and aid in the future programmatic decisions of the organization.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

Mekong Economics implemented the following tasks:

1.       Socio-economic profiling of selected beneficiaries: Collect and analyze information about target beneficiaries to provide an overview of the income level, education, work experience and capacities, HHs expenditures, coping mechanisms and financial risks management strategies. It should also provide a clear picture of the challenges and barriers that women and girls are facing in access to vocational and self-employment opportunities in the target area. 

2.       Market and skill analysis: Assessment of the local market with particular focus on economic opportunities for employment through skills development and enterprise creation.

3.       Areas of focus included:

●        Identification of gaps and opportunities for market driven skills development and business creation.

●        Conduct of overall market opportunity mapping and Identify four economically viable sectors that the most vulnerable people living in project areas are working or offered work opportunities in.

●        Value chain analysis/mapping: Produce value chain map of key sectors identified and value chain analysis to identify areas of skills development and knowledge transfer that can be improved with regard to the specific value chains.

●        An overview of existing financial and business support services (formal/informal) as well as regulatory constraints and opportunities for the economic development in the project target areas

● Ethnic, gender and social exclusion analysis shall be considered into the methodological approach, and collection of data will be disaggregated (sex, age, ethnicity), to understand labor sector profiles, challenges and opportunities for all.

Consultancy subcontract regarding ‘Ex-post evaluation of the Dutch Risk Reduction Team’

Description of Project:

As the world population rises and the climate changes, challenges around water security and water safety are rapidly building up. To address these challenges, minor and major innovations are needed, as recognized by the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). To help achieve these SDGs, the Dutch government wants to put the knowledge and expertise of the Dutch water sector into practice, while simultaneously creating new business opportunities for this sector. As part of this ambition, the Dutch Risk Reduction (DRR)-Team was established in 2013, directly connecting to SDG 6 (water), 11 (smart cities) and 13 (climate action).

This is the ex-post evaluation (EPE) of the DRR-Team programme. The scope of the evaluation spans a period from 2014 until 2019 (and if possible early 2020). The overall objective for this evaluation is: “to assess the contribution of the DRR-instrument in the prevention and mitigation of water-related calamities and structural water problems”. The EPE will provide insights into the programme achievements as well as the processes that led to these results, in order to learn lessons for the potential next DRR-Team phase (after June 2020). The evaluation demonstrates whether or not the programme achieves what it set out to accomplish, i.e. support countries in urgent need with altruistic (free) valuable top advice while at the same time creating openings to expand commercial developments for the Dutch water sector. Furthermore, the evaluation will provide valuable key lessons on the programme elements that function as planned and aspects that are in need of improvement.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

Sten te Vogt served as local experts to assist the Ecorys team in completing case study research for the country where they are based/ affiliated. The specific tasks are: 

●      Analysis of specific issues and need in the receiving country (water-related natural disasters occurrence risk...)

●      Local factors that have or might have affected the result of the mission and its follow up

●      Description of the measures of the government of the recipient country to reduce risks and improve resilience

●      Water-related bilateral/ multilateral activities of donors, DFIs & IFIs in the recipient country (other than DRR)

● Schedule, carry out and report on 5 semi-structured interviews

Final Independent Evaluation: More and Quality Jobs are Created Through Better Policies, Frameworks, and Strengthened Labour Market Information Systems Project

Description of Project:

The evaluation was carried out for accountability and organisational learning. It aimed to assess the extent to which the project objectives had been achieved and to identify lessons learned and best practices and to provide recommendations to project stakeholders to promote sustainability and support the completion, expansion or further development of initiatives that were supported by the project.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

MKE implemented the following tasks in cooperation/ consultation with the project team:

• Conducted desk review of the project documents;

• Conducted interviews with the project team and key stakeholders to validate information and data collected through various methods and shared the preliminary findings with the ILO and relevant stakeholders.

• Provided inputs on the draft report.

LIFT - Endline Evaluation Of Lift-Funded Project “Promoting Agriculture Diversification and Economic Integration in Northern Chin State”

Description of Project:

The end line survey (ELS) contributed to the final evaluation of CORAD’s project implementation by LIFT, Donors. It was to measure possible outcomes and impacts of the project interventions, including agriculture extension services, value chains and nutritional status of direct beneficiaries’ households, changes in socio-economic status of targeted households as well as other area relevant to the project areas to be determined jointly with the contractor. The main tasks included:

·    Evaluating CORAD’s interventions specifically to use quantitative and qualitative measurements to track end line values for project output, outcomes and indicators;

·     Assessing the relevancy, appropriateness, efficiency and effectiveness of CORAD’s intervention in the targeted area of project implementation with its relevant information to the recommendation of designing future projects;

Comparing the Outake/Endline results with the initial Intake/Baseline data for just the direct beneficiary households.

Description of actual services:

• Conducted a desk review of CORAD project design documents, baseline report and M&E framework and other relevant documents;

• Developed a survey plan that included strategies to collect and analyse quantitative data against project targets and key indicators from the baseline and M&E framework;

• Conducted a survey of size and quality able to provide a meaningful understanding of progress toward targets and changes in the indicators being measured;

• Analysed and produced an end line report that presented the end line data compared to base line data and that highlighted significant, important or interesting findings that informed future programming.

Relief International (RI) - Market and Labour Survey in Rakhine - 2020

Description of Project:

Relief International (RI) is implementing a LIFT-funded project to provide transition support to IDPs and former IDPs and their immediate neighbours in Myebon town and Mrauk U townships in Rakhine State. The three-year project inter alia provides support to strengthen the livelihoods of (former) IDPs and host/neighboring communities, including through vocational and entrepreneurship training. The design and focus of the livelihoods activities informed by a market and labour survey in Myebon town. To this end, Mekong Economics was selected by RI to provide services in carrying out the survey.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

●        Design of market and labour survey methodology and tools, including CAPI scripted questionnaire to understand the demographics, skill level, and aspirations of IDPs; and questionnaire and semi-stuctured interview questions for rapid market assessment and field observations;

●        Carry-out a household survey in the Myebon IDP camp (total population 3,000 people) and rapid market and existing livelihoods assessment within the Myebon town (total population 9,000 people);

●        Deliver training for RI project staff/enumerators, and provide mentoring/technical assistance to RI staff for the process of field assessment/enumeration;  

●        Carry out data analysis, including quantitative data cleaning;

●   Prepare market and labour survey report, including additional findings and recommendations.

USAID - Promoting the rule of law in Myanmar: “Awareness and Rights of Kachin IDPs Under the Reformed Land Law: A Focus on Chinese Tissue Culture Banana Plantation Land Acquisition”

Description of Project:

Mekong Economics has applied for this research funded by USAID PRLM. This qualitative research project on land vulnerability among IDPs and their access to justice under the legal land framework. IDPs (Internally Displaced Persons) in Kachin were facing a three-pronged threat to their land rights. The continued lack of legal protection for customary land, the introduction of the amendment to the VFV (Vacant, Fallow and Virgin) Land Management Law in October 2018, and the influx of banana plantations across Kachin state had all heightened IDPs’ land vulnerabilities and exacerbated longstanding patterns of land dispossession. Through a combination of focus group discussions (FGDs) with marginalized communities, informants with key experts, and extensive secondary research, this project sought to analyse the avenues available to IDPs to protect their land rights.

Description of actual services provided by your staff within the assignment:

●         Provide technical expertise and inputs into the research plan, formulating the research methodology, technical inputs, data collection tools, and overall objectives of the research

●         Perform desk research on Rule of Law in Myanmar, specifically related to rights of IDPs living in Kachin and Shan States. Liaise with news agencies and reporters to obtain additional information on national perceptions/ awareness of the IDPs land rights issue;

●         Conduct a primary data collection in Kachin state, organising the FGDs (focus group discussions) and KIIs (key informant interviews) in Waingmaw and Myitkyina Townships.

●         Conduct extensive analysis of all notes from primary research through inputting into data matrices, with the inputs of external land experts

●         Collaborate with external consultants on the project to incorporate expert technical assistance and inputs into final research product

● Write and submit final report on the challenges faced by Kachin IDPs in protecting and registering their land under the rule of law. Present research findings to staff at the US Embassy and Chemonics.