The first regional training of the ‘Value Chain Capacity Building Network (VCB-N)’ on ‘Exit strategy for value chains and market systems interventions- Design, manage and monitor’ was organized from 9th-11th Dec. 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. The training aims at enhancing the capacities of senior program development professionals in designing and managing project with comprehensive exit strategies for improved effectiveness and sustainability of development efforts and outcomes. The training was offered without any fees for the participants representing IFAD and IFAD projects in Asia and the Pacific Region and conducted by Innovision Consulting Private Limited – one of the founding members of the VCB-N.
The participants included representative IFAD country directors, mid and senior level professionals of IFAD projects in the region, representatives from GROW Asia and its members and NGOs.
The exit strategy training was undertaken with a mission to offer guiding tools and frameworks to participants that can help them in designing, managing and monitoring implementation of project work with sustainability and scalability of the project outcomes in mind- beyond projects completion. Participants were introduced to various theoretical concepts and frameworks that can be applied in their regular project implementation work, and can also help them do constant review and improvement of the project work in a view to make the outcomes more sustainable and scale-able through leveraging stakeholders contribution.
The content included various case studies from real life experience, conceptual discussions and review of project designing and management tools, i.e., concepts of theory of change, in-depth research and knowledge gathering processes, identification of key challenges and systemic constraints analysis, development of vision for change according to projects resource and scope, assessment of market actors’ roles beyond the project and tools to help develop successful exit strategy.
The training was highly interactive where the trainers used half of the time to facilitate exercises which enabled the participants to apply the tools and framework on their specific context; 30% of the time was dedicated to consultation and 20% of the time was allocated for theoretical discussion. The trainees were encouraged to speak from their own experience and contextualize the learning as the training progressed.
At the end of the training, the trainees were able to define exit strategy and apply the tools to develop exit strategy for four cases that they worked on throughout the training. However, they would still need more practice to apply the concepts of systemic constraints analysis, vision for change for sector and actors, use of adopt, adapt, expand and respond (AAER) framework, and service rendering analysis- to be able to develop the skills to the degree that they can train their colleagues to do the same. The lead trainer provided a full summary of an exit strategy concept note which the trainees can develop for all kind of projects.
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