• Mid-Term Evaluation shows good progress of training of coops IT-trainers
  
• Steering Committee Meeting discusses plans for ICT-powered business development centres in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines
  

The it@coops project recently passed another milestone with a successful Mid-Term Evaluation of it’s training-of-trainers programme, which is crafted to help cooperatives and their umbrella organizations fighting poverty and working for women empowerment. Over 60 participants from Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines are provided with the most urgent IT knowledge in order to increase competitiveness of self-helping approaches. The evaluation conducted on January 24 to February 3, 2006, showed that the training-of-trainers (TOT) in all three countries Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines is progressing well and efforts to achieve the other two project objectives (see below) have been started and undertaken by all stakeholders.

The evaluation particularly pointed out to the following: The training-of-trainers not only covered technical know-how, but also soft skills training and gender awareness to meet the needs of the coops. In all three countries the progress of the TOT is more or less according to schedule. In all three groups there are few participants who are very good or even excellent, a rather big part who are good average and some, who will probably have difficulties passing all exams. It was emphasized in all three countries that the trainings institutes were not to compromise their standards to make more participants pass the exams.

In all three programs the issue of ICT-powered Business Development Centre (BDCs) has been taken up and will have to be further discussed within the countries.

Steering Committee Meeting discusses plans for ICT-powered business development centres and networking in Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines

At the beginning of February 2006, decision makers from NATTCO (National Confederation of Cooperatives) Philippines, CULT (Credit Union League of Thailand), and FORMASI (Forum for Cooperatives Development) Indonesia as well as AWCF (Asian Women in Co-operative Development Forum) and InWEnt – Capacity Building International, Germany met in Cebu, Philippines to discuss the different approaches in the countries and action plans regarding the following two objectives of the project:

• The establishment of “ICT-Area-Centres”, and local Telecentres widely accessible for the public will be initiated and supported.
  
• The establishment of virtual networks of the cooperatives and their umbrella organizations both on national and trans-regional levels will be supported and promoted.