mikocanares Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Adviser Designs and Facilitates Workshops for North Macedonia

(image courtesy of Open Society Foundation-Macedonia)

Michael Canares, strategy advisor of Step Up Consulting designed and facilitated a series of workshops for the Republic of North Macedonia as part of his consulting contract with the Open Government Partnership. The workshops aimed to assist the government in finalizing its national action plan on open government partnership. The workshops were held last 4 and 14 June, albeit online, to tackle issues on access to justice, public services, open data, and public procurement.

The Republic of North Macedonia, a country that gained its independence in 1991, is one of the early joiners of the Open Government Partnership, a global network of governments committed to promoting transparency, accountability and inclusive participation in governance. It has already developed and implemented four cycles of action plans. Currently, it is working on its fifth plan to cover the years 2021 to 2023.

The pandemic has significantly impacted the planning processes. Despite limitations in mobility, the country was able to conduct consultations and discussions in order to finish the commitments that it will incorporate in the new action plan. The workshops that Mr. Canares facilitated are one of the final activities towards the finalization of the plan.

For more details, please consult the website of the Open Society Foundation-Macedonia that you can find here. https://fosm.mk/en/current-project/e-workshop-governance-based-on-citizens-interests-and-needs/.

mikocanares Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Advisor Speaks on Open and Contracting and Inclusion for OCP

Michael Canares, Step UP strategy adviser was invited by the Open Contracting Partnership to speak on a team webinar on open contracting and inclusion last 27 January 2021. The Open Contracting Partnership is a “collaboration across governments, businesses, civil society, and technologists to open up and transform government contracting worldwide”.

Mr. Canares spoke about the lessons he has learned based on his research on open data and open contracting in the last seven years. Very recently, a paper he wrote with long-time collaborator Francois Van Schalkwyk on open contracting and inclusion was published by the Dutch NGO HIVOS.

mikocanares digital security, Monitoring and Evaluation, outcome harvesting, retooling, Training, Uncategorized

Step Up Attends Outcomes Harvesting Workshop and Data Security Training

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Step Up Research Manager, Jean Celeste Paredes, attends the Outcome Harvesting Workshop and Data Security training organized by HIVOS last October 15-17, 2019 at the Bellevue Hotel, Ortigas.  The activity is part of the series of activities that HIVOS offer to its partners in the Philippines.

Outcome Harvesting is an evaluation approach in which evaluators, grantmakers, managers and staff identify, formulate, verify, analyse and interpret ‘outcomes’ in programming contexts where relations of cause and effect are not fully understood. Through Outcome Harvesting, organizations collect (“harvest”) evidence of what has changed (“outcomes”) for HIVOS grantees, and then, working backwards, determine whether and how HIVOS interventions (grant allocation and linking and learning) have contributed to these changes.

On the other hand, the Digital Security Training aims to introduce and understand the communications model as a framework for digital security and to identify areas how each partner, including Step Up Consulting, can strengthen digital security within each  organization.

The training was attended by HIVOS partners in the Philippines, including LayerTech Labs, Bantay Kita, CODE-NGO, among others.

mikocanares conference presentations, data for development, Uncategorized, workshops

Step Up Attends WIKA Workshop in Germany

wika workshop

Step Up’s Strategy Advisor, Michael Canares, spoke at the recently concluded WIKA-Workshop 2019 that focused on “The Role of Civil Society in Cultural Relations”. The workshop was held at the WeltRaum at the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (IFA) in Stuttgart, Germany on 25-26 September 2019.

The rationale of the workshop is best described by the workshop organizers below:

“Civil society actors are gaining influence and are becoming political change-makers. Their local embedding and engagement at the grassroots level and the strength of internationally working NGOs who use their cross-border cooperation as a means of empowerment make them attractive partners for state-involved actors. The WIKA Workshop seeks to reflect on interdisciplinary topics such as “Cultural Cooperation and Shrinking Spaces”, “Youth as Civil Society Actors” and “Civil Society and Statehood” to relate them directly to fields of action of cultural relations and education policy.”

Mr. Canares presented his work on advancing digital literacy for girls in Indonesia funded by Goethe Institut Indonesien when he was still working as Senior Research Manager of the World Wide Web Foundation stationed at the Open Data Lab Jakarta.  For more details of this work, please visit the lessons learned paper written by Mr. Canares for the Jakarta Lab.

mikocanares Africa, Asia, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Inclusion, Open contracting, Open Data, Research Projects, Uncategorized

Step Up Wins HIVOS Contract to Study Open Contracting in 4 Countries

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Open Contracting and OCDS (Image taken from https://openprocurement.io/en/ocds) 

Step Up Consulting was awarded a research contract by HIVOS, a development organization headquartered in the Netherlands, to undertake a research project to understand how open contracting reforms and increased availability of contract data can be used to realize results and benefits for specific, historically marginalized groups external to government.

Step Up Consulting is one of the several firms considered to undertake the research but got the final nod of the HIVOS review panel based on the strength of its proposal and the quality of the composition of its research team. The research will be conducted in Kenya and Nigeria in Africa, and Indonesia and the Philippines in Asia.

For this research, Step Up’s team is composed of Michael Canares, strategy advisor, as research lead and Francois Van Schalkwyk, a long-time collaborator of Mr. Canares, along with Fiona Smith and Ana Brandusescu as review panel.  The research will run from July 2019 to January 2020.

The research, using a case study approach, aims to identify and assess ways in which key aspects of open contracting reforms did or did not lead to circumstances where open contracting resulted in increased equality and inclusion in public contracting processes. More particularly, the research would like to answer the following questions:

  1. How can open contracting reforms and increased availability of contract data be used to realise results and benefits for specific, historically marginalised groups external to government? 
  2. What contextual and programmatic aspects in open contracting contribute to achieving meaningful results and benefits for these marginalised groups? 
  3. What do specific, historically marginalised stakeholders experience as significant barriers/impediments to achieving the desired results and benefits?
mikocanares Asia, Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Advisor Facilitates ASEAN Workshop

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The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the ASEAN Supreme Audit Institutions (ASEANSAI) and the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Assembly (AIPA) held a joint conference last 26 February 2016 with the theme “Laying the Foundation for Future Cooperation in Promoting Transparency and Accountability in the ASEAN”.

The workshop was held at the Sheraton Grand Jakarta Gandaria City Hotel, Indonesia and was attended in by almost 100 participants from 14 countries coming from within and outside the ASEAN. Mr. Michael Canares, Strategy Advisor of Step Up Consulting was hired by GIZ to help design and facilitate the whole day event.

The event was spearheaded by ASEANSAI, a relatively young regional organisation of ten audit offices in the ASEAN region and supported by GIZ.  The event intended to bring together the three organizations  (ASEAN, ASEANSAI and AIPA) to explore more coordinated framework for future joint action and inter-agency collaboration for fostering state-society relationships in ASEAN, including efforts towards Good Governance, transparency and accountability.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, local governance, road asset management, Uncategorized

Step Up Strategy Advisor Facilitates Local Road Asset Management Workshop

consultative workshop - Roads2SDGs

Michael Canares, Strategy Advisor of Step Up Consulting Services, facilitated the Local Road Asset Management Workshop for the United Nations Development Program’s Road 2 SDGs project, an initiative that it implements with the Department of Interior and Local Government.  The workshop is part of a series of activities lined up for the year in order to increase the capacity of local government units in the country in local road asset management.

The workshop was held on 19 February 2019 at B Hotel in Quezon City and was attended by key stakeholders from the national government agencies, namely, the Commission on Audit, the Department of Budget and Management, the Department of Interior and Local Government, and other representatives as the Union of Local Authorities in the Philippines, and UNDP.

The activity is part of UNDP’s efforts to strengthen infrastructure governance in the country to hasten the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals, as infrastructure is a key component in service delivery, impacting different SDG targets.

At the beginning of the project, it  was  found  that  provincial  local government  units need to improve their governance systems in road asset management and maintenance. Data  has  shown  that  not  all  provincial  roads  and  bridges  are  booked  as  assets,  and  life  cycle management of roads is generally not evident. This situation also has direct implication on the weak financial  management  of  PLGUs  related  to  local  roads.

Thus,  an  integral  component  of  the governance reform on local road management is on road asset management. UNDP recognizes its role  to  deliver  capacity  development  interventions,  through  knowledge  products  and  training activities that will ultimately result to a better system of PLGUs’ governance in relation to road asset management.

 

mikocanares Consulting Services, core expertise, Core services, Facilitation, Governance, local governance, Local Government Units, Monitoring and Evaluation, Uncategorized

Step Up Conducts Year-End Assessment for DILG Region VII

TET_3518Step Up Consulting was contracted by the Department of Interior and Local Government Region VII Regional Office to facilitate the review on the implementation of locally-funded projects as well as a strategic planning for the year 2019.  The activity was held on December 19-21, 2018 at the Bohol Bee Farm Resort in Dauis, Panglao Island.

The activity was attended in by the DILG officials from the four provinces of Region VII, namely Bohol, led by Mr. Johnjoan Mende, provincial director; Cebu, led by Mr. Jerome Gonzales, provincial director; Negros Oriental, led by Mr. Dennis Quinones; and Siquijor, led by Mr. Kenneth Kilat.

mikocanares Capacity Building, Consulting Services, core expertise, Monitoring and Evaluation, Training, Uncategorized

Step Up Trains DILG Region VII on RBM

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Step Up Consulting trained officials of the Department of Interior and Local Government – Region VII, on the basics of Results-Based Management.   The training intended to enable the participants, largely coming from the agency’s project development and management units (PDMU) in the Central Visayas region, to understand the basic concepts and principles of RBM as a tool in project development and management, practice the use of the RBM tools using case studies,  and craft a plan of action in mainstreaming RBM practices with Region VII’s project development, monitoring, and evaluation practices.

The training was attended by the regional PDMU office, including the provincial PDMUs of Bohol, Siquijor, Cebu, and Negros Oriental. The training was held on March 13-15 at Golden Prince Hotel and Suites in Cebu City.  It made use of a combination of adult-learning exercises, games, and case studies.

The participants expressed gratitude to the training team of Step Up Consulting for effectively carrying-out the learning exercises.

 

mikocanares Uncategorized

Step Up Facilitates Team Building for HNU Employees

hnu team building
The participants in one of the team-building activities.

Step Up Consulting was tasked by Holy Name University to conduct a series of team building activities for its employees. The team building workshop was held in two batches – on 16 January 2018, and another one on January 19, 2018.  The activities were held at the Mercederian Retreat House in Dauis, Bohol.

The workshop was mix of physical, mental, and emotional activities designed to surface key issues affecting the effectiveness, efficiency, and sustainability of teams in work-settings.  The activities ranged from personality assessment, team temperature diagnosis, role-playing, mental and physical games that the participants enjoyed.

Team-building activities draw inspiration from Matthew 7:7 (“Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock, and it will be opened to you.”) and consisted of four fast-paced discussion and team activities infused with games that teach.

teambuilding journey

The conduct of team-building activities is one of Step-Up’s core services. It has a dedicated team that facilitates these activities for organizations, corporations, and associations.