[KOICA Project Fellowship Program] Rural Community Leader Course

– Integrated Rural Development Project in Lao PDR

11 ~ 23 September, 2017, Suwon, Korea

The KOICA offers a global SMU project program, the Integrated Rural Development Project with Saemaul Undong's Participatory Approach in Lao PDR. The Project is based in thirty (30) villages of Vientiane and Savannakhet provinces as well as the capital, aiming to establish a community-based rural development model in Lao PDR by utilizing the practices learned from the development experience of Korea's New Community Movement (Saemaul Undong). KOICA extends a grant of US$14.55(equivalent to 117 billion kip) from 2015 to 2019. And KOICA entrusted the implementation of the Project to the Korea Institute for Rural Development(KIRD).

Entrusted by KOICA, KIRD, the Project Consultancy (PC), carried out a comprehensive field survey and made a detailed master plan for the Project, then is leading the field implementation of the Project which is now under the final stage of the first phase of the Project started in 2015. Under the frame-work of the Project, KIRD designed a couple of invitational short-term fellowship courses in harmony with the Lao Integrated Rural Development Project which is now under the 3rd year implementation. Two(2) training programs for two(2) weeks are scheduled in September and October 2017 respectively: (¥¡) Rural Community Leader Course; (¥¢) Cattle Feeding & Management Improvement Course.

In prior to this fellowship program this year, a series of short-term invitational fellowship courses were given each in 2015 and 2017*: The Course for Capacity Development of Women in Lao Rural Community: and the Course for Strengthening Capacity for Programming Lao Rural Development Program. The Rural Community Leader Course this year in 2017aims to help policy practitioners and farmers develop capacity for implementing successfully the Lao Integrated Rural Development Project by sharing and learning knowledge and experience in agricultural and rural development, particularly in the area of community-based rural development and rice farming.

For two(2) weeks of the fellowship program from September 11 to 23 in Suwon, Gyeonggi-do (Province) area the invitees will have a number of lectures in the class and on the site during study visits. The Lao delegation will visit the some local government institutions including the Gyeonggi-do Agricultural Research and Extension Services and the Yangpyeong County Agricultural Technology Center. The participants will have chances to travel to a rural village community to become familiar with Korean rural surroundings and to observe farming practices and rural community activities. And the delegation is required to develop a number of action plans(A/P) for addressing some of the current issues in the area of Lao rural development and the Lao SMU Project implementation.