OECD - Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance. Perspectives on How Improving Corporate Governance Frameworks Can Support Capital Market Development - 2017

Countries Involved:

Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar.

Project Description:

Established in 1999, the OECD-Asian Roundtable on Corporate Governance serves as a regional forum for exchanging experiences and advancing the reform agenda on corporate governance while promoting awareness and use of the OECD Principles of Corporate Governance.

In this assignment, MKE conducted in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders, produced and presented a Report on Sharing Perspectives on How Improving Corporate Governance Frameworks Can Support Capital Market Development in Cambodia, Lao PDR and Myanmar.

IFC - Market research on Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Vietnam with a specific focus on those owned by women (WSMEs) - 2017

Project Description:

MKE assisted the lead firm, providing input for desk research including the facilitation of explorative interviews, conducting 300 WSMEs (SMEs owned by women) surveys and 200 male-owned SMEs. MKE delivered the raw data, translated the answers to open questions into English, and facilitated 9 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and wrote a brief report describing the main findings for each FDG. MKE also wrote selected sections in the Inception Report and Final Report, and participated in the meetings with key informants and IFC.

State Government of Victoria (Australia) - International Education Opportunities in Vietnam - 2017

Project Description:

The South East Asia Victorian Government Business Office (SEA VGBO) seeked to commission a project to scope international education barriers and opportunities in Vietnam for Victoria State’s universities and education service providers. MKE delivered a comprehensive report that provided strategic recommendations to support market access for Victorian higher education, vocational education and training (VET), English language and professional development providers.

Other tasks included: Undertaking desk research to define and broadly scope the sectors in Vietnam, and understanding the activities of Victorian organizations in Vietnam and Victoria’s comparative advantage; Outlining 4 case studies of successful foreign and local “commercial cooperation models” in Vietnam; Conducting 10 in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City; Developing an itinerary for the Kuala Lumpur VGBO’s market visit to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. MKE was to deliver a report with rich findings and recommendations.

An overseas firm - Natural gas’s substitute fuels in Vietnam: market research into the scope of supply for the industrial sector - 2017

Project Description:

The client wished to study the market of key substitute products of natural gas in order to develop a comprehensive understanding of the big picture of fuel supplying markets in Vietnam. Therefore, the client commissioned a study on the goal of outlining a macro perspective of some fuel sources, how each market functions as well as profiles of the key suppliers. There were a number of fuels subjected to the study, including: Fuel Oil; LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas); Coal; Biomass (woodchip, rice husk and cashew oil).

ICRW - Endline research for career & life skills program among Village Saving and Loan community members of SreAmbel district and Koh Kong province - 2017

Project Description:

ICRW served as an evaluation partner and strategic advisor for P.A.C.E. (Personal Advancement and Career Enhancement) a financial and life skills program that had been operational among female garment workers in factories. The program was now complete and had offered 254 female and 6 men from about 11 VSLA’s education and life skills training. The mission’s main objective was to conduct interviewer-administered quantitative surveys and qualitative in-depth interviews to obtain endline information on participant characteristics as well as knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding key learning’s and objectives of the program.

In this context, the mission designed quantitative and qualitative data collection approaches; selected and recruited investigators for data collection; trained investigators and led data collection missions; recorded clean versions of the data; analysed and interpreted results in a final report submitted to ICRW.

LIFT - Interim Review of LIFT 2015-2018 Strategy - 2017

Project Description:

LIFT is a multi-donor fund designed to address the food insecurity and income poverty of poor and vulnerable people in Myanmar. In light of Myanmar’s political, social and economic transformation, LIFT developed a new strategy in 2014 supporting the transformation of Myanmar’s rural economy by promoting inclusive growth and providing new knowledge, technologies and access to finance and markets with more opportunities for agribusiness with the private sector.

MKE’s role was to review LIFT’s strategy in order to improve LIFT’s performance and governance, and to inform future possible funding mechanisms beyond 2018. This required reviewing key documents relating to LIFT’s strategy including specific project documents, such as project proposals, MEAL plans, and project reports, were made available for the review team. MKE also conducted meetings with key Fund Board members, FMO staff, and other stakeholders. The team visited all four agro-ecological target areas to review project progress. Finally MKE produced a final report highlighting key findings with regards to the performance of LIFT, and providing recommendations for future funding strategies.

Belgian Development Agency (BTC Vietnam) - International consultant on human resources development and capacity building strategies - 2017

Project Description:

Facility to Capacity Building (FCB) project was a part of the Vietnam – Belgium 2011-2015 Indicative Cooperation Program that aimed to “Contribute to the socio-economic development of Vietnam through institutional capacity development to support the implementation of the SEDP 2011-2015”. The General objective of FCB was “to contribute to the sustainable development and growth of Vietnam by facilitating Vietnam to become a knowledge-based industrialised country by 2020”.

International Finance Company (IFC) & a Private Client - Ecosystem Service Assessment - 2017

Description of Project:

Around 70.2 ha land in a hilly area of a commune (of one province in Vietnam) was acquired for the Client to develop a Solar Power Project. The Client, being a client of IFC, was required to manage the environmental and social risks associated with the project as per IFC’s sustainability framework. This assessment focused on the applicability of PS6 ‘Biodiversity conservation and sustainable management of living natural resources’ and PS7 ‘Indigenous Peoples’. It was estimated that a number of households (HHs) were economically displaced by the Project, which were compensated by the Client during the land acquisition and compensation process. Besides, an additional number of HHs from nearby hamlets accessed the Project site and adjacent areas for grazing livestock and fuelwood collection. The study strived to assess, considering IFC’s Sustainability framework, the ecosystem services provided by the area containing and surrounding the project site by: determining the impact of the loss of ecosystem services on local HHs living adjacent to the land acquired for the project; and subsequently identifying sustainable alternative livelihood services to replace the lost services.

The following tasks were undertaken:

• Reviewed the Project’s Environmental and Social Impact Assessment for relevant background information on the Project scope and impacts on its area of influence;

• Developed a representative sample of Jrai and Kinh households. Using this representative sample, survey household patterns of use/dependence on livestock grazing, fuel-wood collection and other services at the Project site and other common, resource areas surrounding the project site.

• Undertook a rapid ecosystem services assessment within the Project site based on the social impact

European Commission/Cardno Emerging Markets Ltd - Final Evaluation of the Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme -2016

Project Description:

The mission is the final evaluation of the EC-funded Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme (ESRT Programme in Vietnam). The overall project objective was: "To mainstream responsible tourism principles into Vietnam’s tourism sector to enhance competitiveness and contributing to achieving the Socio Economic Development Plan (SEDP)."

The programme worked in three key component areas:

(1) Policy Support and Institutional Strengthening

(2) Product Competitiveness and Public-Private Dialogue

(3) Vocational Training and Education.

The main objective of the Final Evaluation was to review project progress, to check results against targets, and to provide a clear and concise opinion and assessment whether the progamme has met its objectives. In this respect the mission assessed the relevance, efficiency, effectiveness, impact and sustainability of the ESRT programme related to its stated purpose and expected results, in accordance with EC evaluation guidelines. By identifying weaknesses and challenges, the evaluation helped the European Commission Delegation and the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism to assess the impact of the programme as well as consider lessons learnt.

Care - Facilitation to enhance women’s participation, increased access to information and market in the Rubber Sector - 2016

Project Description:

The project aimed to conduct a series of pilot intervention activities, with the ultimate aim of determining the best method to support women and men small-holder farmers (SHFs) to increase their rubber productivity, quality and gain secured access to land and ultimately to increase their income through improved market actions.

MKE designed and conducted a feasibility study to determine app/phone usage in the area, interviewing target beneficiaries and conducting key informant interviews (KIIs) with rubber sector engaged organizations; interpreting the results and ensuring suitable iterative planning and implementation of the pilot training activities. MKE team discuss where shortcomings in the SHF exist and what broad types of trainings or apps would be most suitable and train activities to rubber farmers and to demonstrate certain tools are used or certain techniques.

MKE conducted all monitoring and evaluating of the use and uptake of apps and those of trainings; produced a final report analysing the results (achieved through “outcome harvesting”) from the pilot interventions, and provided recommendations and considerations towards upscaling such interventions on a region-wide level.