Step Up Consulting strategy advisor was invited by the Provincial Government of Negros Oriental to conduct a training on Local Road Asset Management for the members of its local road network management committee. The training was conducted online last October 29-November 5, 2021.
The participants comprised of representatives from the provincial offices of engineering, accounting, planning and development, budget, treasury, internal audit, general services, and assessor. The training was based entirely on the Local Road Asset Management Manual (see picture above) prepared by Mr. Michael Canares for the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) with funding and technical support from the United Nations Development Program.
On 16 November 2020, DILG Secretary Eduardo Ano issued DILG Memorandum Circular 2020-155 mandating the adoption of the Local Road Asset Management Manual by local government units. This aims to improve the valuation and recording of local road assets for better local road management.
The regional project “visible unearthing”, implemented by Goethe Institut aims to use open data to analyze the interactions of air-water quality and other indicators (groundwater level, etc.) that are important, especially in climate change in very specific environments (cities, regions, ecosystems). As an important part of the process, a data inventory was undertaken to identify the datasets that can be used to capture a condition of interest and visualize it in ways that could generate meaningful discussions. Step Up Consulting was the lead researcher for the project.
With COVID-19 impacting the Southeast Asian region and globally, the initial plan was to look at environmental data with a certain level of relationship with COVID 19. Given that restrictions in movement have significantly impacted mobility during lockdowns, and with transportation as one of the identified contributors of air quality (EPA 2019), the main focus of the assessment was the availability of open air quality data.
The research was implemented in four cities across SouthEast Asia, namely, Hanoi (Vietnam), Manila (Philippines), Bangkok (Thailand) and Jakarta, Indonesia. Despite limitations in data, there are at least emerging findings that came out of the research.
As indicated in the graph above on Bangkok, three patterns are emerging from the visualization. First, during hard lockdown periods, mobility within Bangkok significantly decreased when compared to baseline figures. Second, during hard lockdown periods, air quality data is consistently below the baseline figures, except for December to January. Finally, lockdown impacts mobility significantly within the period immediately following its imposition and gradually increases towards baseline over time. The same effect can be said of air quality, where lockdown periods result to better air quality but the effect wanes in succeeding periods.
The same can also be said of the Jakarta dataset that can be seen in the graph below:
The above visualization compares the air quality index in 5 data collection points across three years. A specific date was chosen using the lockdown scenario as the primary determinant. Jakarta, in this case, implemented its first hard lockdown in the second half of March 2021, imposing work from home arrangements and restricting religious worship. The choice of the specific date (March 29) is conditioned by data availability within the three-year period from 2019 across the different data collection points where researchers gathered the average.
Figure 1 indicates a significant improvement in air quality index when we compare 2019 with 2020 data when successive lockdowns were imposed in the city by the government. Towards the end of March 2021, lesser restrictions were imposed by the city government.
In the next three months, Step Up researchers will be publishing three papers as a result of the research. These are as follows:
Openness of environmental data and its implications on data governance. The paper will utilize the findings of the inventory conducted by the researchers and its implications on measuring environmental health, as well as on monitoring the Sustainable Development Goals
A review of alternative data sources to capture air quality data, with particular reference to the use of satellite data that can potentially reveal anomalies in the relationship between lockdown, mobility, and air quality. This is particularly true in Hanoi, where there seems to be only a slight improvement despite mobility restrictions. It has been argued that pollutants for the city are outside the city itself, particularly those coming from the powerplants and the industrial clusters.
A deeper investigation of lockdown, mobility, and air quality, using the results of this study and other analyses conducted by other researchers in the last six months.
Michael Canares, strategy advisor of Step Up Consulting was invited by the Municipality of Catigbian to facilitate the Gender and Development (GAD) planning and budgeting workshop for 2022. The activity was held at the Bohol Bee Farm Resort in Dauis, Bohol last March 3-5, 2021, and was attended by department heads and key officials of the municipality as well as representatives from civil society groups.
The workshop was held after a series of sessions on gender sensitivity, the Magna Carta of Women, Gender Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, and Gender Analysis Tools facilitated by several resource persons, including Step Up’s gender expert, Ester Espinosa.
In the workshop, Mr. Canares emphasized the essential elements of GAD Planning and Budgeting, namely, GAD focal point system (GPFS), GAD capacity development, gender audit, and GAD database and sex-disaggregated data. He advised the municipality stakeholders that if these elements are not yet present, they should invest considerable resources to have these in place. For example, he emphasized that without a GAD database, the identification and analysis of gender issues will be difficult.
Vice Mayor Esteban Angilan Jr. in his closing remarks, encouraged the stakeholders present to consciously monitor the plans and programs they were able to identify during the workshop to ensure that this will result to concrete benefits to the people of the municipality.
Step Up Consulting launched last 29 July 2020 its first online training offering on local road asset management. The training consists of two synchronous online learning sessions of three hours each and 8 hours of asynchronous learning activities over a span of five days. The recipients of this first online training were the provincial governments of Bohol and Siquijor.
The training started off with an online survey and pre-test of all 30 participants, half of which come from Siquijor and the other half from Bohol. The survey intended to gauge the knowledge and skills of participants in local road asset management while at the same time collect their views and expectations of the training. The results of the survey were used by the learning facilitator, Mr. Michael Canares, in designing the course content and schedule.
Mr. Canares , strategy advisor of Step Up Consulting, is also the author of the book, “Local Road Asset Management for Local Governments: A Manual for Local Government Units”, that will soon be published by UNDP in the Philippines and the Department of Interior and Local Government.
The first session was successfully conducted last 29 July 2020. The second session will be conducted on 6 August 2020. In the meantime, participants are busy completing their Session 1 post-test and their work assignments that include the preparation of asset booking requirements and definition of service standards and road sub-sector performance targets.
Step Up Consulting presented the results of its recently conducted research on the socio-economic impact of COVID-19 on Tagbilaran City to stakeholders from government, civil society, and the private sector last 17 July 2020.
The research was fully funded by Step Up Consulting, with the technical support of the City Government of Tagbilaran and Dr. Rosalinda G. Paredes, city coordinator of USAID SURGE. It seeks to answer the following questions:
a. What are the key socio-economic impacts of the COVID 19 pandemic more particularly to the businesses, employees, and informal and on-account workers?
b. What is the level of economic vulnerability of the groups mentioned above to withstand a prolonged enhanced community quarantine?
c. What policy measures and programs are needed to be in place to protect the most vulnerable from the adverse economic impacts of the COVID crisis?
During the public presentation held via zoom, Step Up also launched the research website that will communicate research findings in digestible chunks. You can find the website on this link – https://covidimpactresearch.com/
Step Up strategy advisor, Michael Canares, works with Konsil LSM Indonesia (Indonesian NGO Council) on a systems mapping research together with Open Data Lab Jakarta to develop a deep understanding of the systemic challenges in affecting gender-inclusive development in the cities of Jakarta, Banda Aceh, Bandung, and Pontianak in Indonesia.
The system mapping research consist of three main components: 1) desk research, 2) interviews with key civil society and government stakeholders in each of the target cities, and 3) system mapping workshops. Mr. Canares was engaged by the project implementation team to design the online workshop using different online tools.
Mr. Canares designed the different workshops aimed at (a) identifying and validating priority issues related to gender-inclusive development in each city; (b) recommending strategies or solutions to gender-inclusive development issues in each city and identify ways in which open data can be part of the solution; (c) identifying and prioritizing skills gaps and data gaps needed in implementing the solutions; and (d) identifying key actors and validating coalitions between actors within and inter-city, including support needed to strengthen the collaboration.
The workshops started in June 2020 and will wrap up in the next three weeks.
Step Up Consulting recently completed the feasibility study of establishing a regional cultural hub for the Visayas. The research seeks to determine the viability and sustainability of a permanent center and venue of productions and creative enterprises in the Central Visayas region.
The feasibility study focused on the five key aspects – market, technical, organizational, financial and socio-economic feasibility. Conducted in 2019, it involved different approaches: a combination of survey, focus group discussion or key informant interview, ocular inspection and site visits, and evaluation of documentary evidence.
The research team of Step Up is composed of Michael Canares, Jean Celeste Paredes and Mary Therese Pepito with the support of Marilou Sale. It was funded through a grant from the National Commission for Culture and the Arts managed by the Bohol Integrated Development Foundation.
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.
Step Up Consulting conducted a strategic planning workshop for the Local Government Capability Development Division of the Department of Interior and Local Government-Region VII as the division prepares for another year of coordinating capacity building programs for local government units.
The workshop, held on January 30 to February 1, 2019 at the Ranch Resort in Toledo, Cebu, was participated in by a dozen of local government officers and their division chief Ms. Marithel Oporto. The workshop was able to tackle the division’s mandates, current accomplishments, future targets, and enabling strategies to achieve division goals.
Assistant Regional Director Louella Luceno graced the event on the third day and encouraged the participants to pursue the plan and be inspired to do more for the success of the division. She also expressed her renewed commitment to strengthen the Local Governance Resource Center of the region.
Mr. Michael Canares, Step Up’s strategy advisor, designed and facilitated the whole event with the assistance of Ms. Jean Celeste Paredes, research associate.
Step Up Strategy Advisor Michael Canares started the year 2019 by attending a workshop on local governance in the Asian region along with other experts in the field. The workshop was held on January 3-7, 2019 at Swiss Embassy in New Delhi as part of Swiss EDA’s program on local governance.
The workshop tackled the current situation of local governance in Asian countries, how learning and knowledge sharing can be facilitated across different local government units, and what enabling mechanisms are necessary to make learning processes across different actors can be made sustainable to promote local government development in the Asian region.
The workshop was organized under the auspices of the Local Governance Initiative and Network.
Step Up Strategy Advisor Michael Canares started the year 2019 by attending a workshop on local governance in the Asian region along with other experts in the field. The workshop was held on January 3-7, 2019 at Swiss Embassy in New Delhi as part of Swiss EDA’s program on local governance.
Step Up Consulting 