Abstract of Article Prepared for Publication

AUICK Action Plan Progress Report - How do you Know if a Workshop Works?

The workshop is one of the most common tactics used in promoting any form of social and economic development. It typically involves transmitting skills and experiences from “presenters” to “participants”, to give the participants greater capacities to address problems and carry out mandates. This is known as “capacity building”, one of the most common stated goals in development promotion programs.

A critical problem faced is how to tell whether or not the workshop actually works. Does it impart skills and knowledge which are put to good use? Does it increase capacities and help to promote social and economic welfare?

AUICK’s specific program to address this problem involves all workshop participants developing an action plan on the theme of the workshop to take back to their cities for implementation. The plan is developed over a 2-3 day period on the theme of the workshop to take back to their cities for implementation. The plan is developed after guidelines, presentations, site visits and discussions on the policies and practices developed in Kobe and nine AUICK Associate Cities (AACs). The plans are then to be implemented by the participants upon returning to their cities, and follow-up monitoring visits and studies determine the extent of the implementation.

A study carried out in the latter half of 2007 analyzed in detail the progress of the 45 action plans developed by 9 participants from each of 5 workshops since 2005. Five reports were unobtainable due to participants’ departmental transfer or demise. Reports on 40 action plans made by 37 (93%) of the other participants were submitted. Each step of the 40 plans was scored by degree of completion, from which an average score was awarded. A six-point scoring device was used:

0. - No action
1. - Preliminary Action
2. - Decision taken
3. - Beginning Action on the Plan
4. - Actions well underway
5. - Plan completed, work sustained

To demonstrate the study’s scoring system, the table shows the points awarded to each of the four key steps of a plan implemented in Weihai, China.

Reflecting the second of the eight United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the plan aims to improve primary education and achieve 100% enrollment and completion in the city. This plan was made during the AUICK Second 2005 Workshop on Universalization of Primary Education for Urban Poor. Under the plan, the city built more primary schools, extended the school bus service, and developed further teacher training to ensure that students would stay on to completion.

Two of the 40 plans were awarded 0 points, due to their discarding because of similar policy implementation in the cities concerned. Of the 38 other plans, the overall mean of the scores was 3.6 (“Beginning Action and Action Well Underway”). Seventeen of the projects score 4-5, and another 13 (34%) projects with scores of 3-3.9, have begun and are moving along. These 30 projects represent the great majority (79%) of the 38 projects planned and capable of being implemented.

A successfully implemented Weihai action plan

By city, Chittagong had a mean score of 2.7, while three cities had mean scores of 4 or more: Chennai, Faisalabad and Weihai. Four cities, Surabaya, Danang, Khon Kaen and Olongapo had scores in the mid-three range, while Kuantan stood at 3.2. By workshop topic, Primary Education and HIV scored highest around 4.1 and 3.7. But these were also the earliest workshops and had had more time to be implemented. The other three topics, Environment, Aging and Water were very close together scoring in the mid 3s.

The Action Plan system and progress study has both activated lessons from AUICK workshops and provided an empirical objective measurer of what each workshop has accomplished. 

Participants learned to adapt ideas from each other and Kobe, to form plans for their cities, where they were acutely aware of both problems faced and resources to work with. They wrote specific steps and timelines by which to accomplish them, which showed both their progress and acquired knowledge. And the plans were not of some inconsequential activities; for the most part they spoke directly to the United Nations Development Goals. 

This solves a fundamental problem of development administration: how does one transmit technical and administrative skills? Through plan implementation comes the deeply humanitarian message of how to advance progress in dealing with immediate social problems. Although relatively local, significant progress is made in promoting human welfare and improving the lives of many people. The plans also provide a way to answer a basic question: how does one know when a workshop works?