Summary of the Joint Terminal Evaluation
1.

Outline of the ProjectCountry: The Republic of the Union of Myanmar

Project Title: The Project of Myanmar-Japan
Center for Human Resources

Issue/Sector: Private Sector Development

Development
Division in Charge: Industrial Development andCooperation Scheme: Technical Cooperation

Public Policy Department

Project
Total Cost: JPY 450 million

Period of Cooperation: (Record of Discussions(as of the Joint Terminal Evaluation)[R/D] signed: January 31, 2013)
October 15, 2013 – October 14, 2016 (three

Implementation Organizations:years)•

Commerce

Supporting Organizations in Japan:•

Relo Panasonic Excel International Co., Ltd.

•

Japan Center Operation Support Commission

Counterpart Organization: Ministry of•

Implementing Organization: The Republic of
the Union of Myanmar Federation Chambersof Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI)

1-1.

Background of the Project

The Government of the Republic of the Union of Myanmar (GOM) has recently accelerated its
progress on the economic growth and the establishment of a stable and strong economy in line with theASEAN4 Economic Community Blueprint 2025. For economic growth, human resources developmentin the private sector, especially in the business field, is crucial and needs to be enhanced for further
development of the economic situation of Myanmar.
Based on the request from GOM to the Government of Japan, the Japan International Cooperation
Agency (JICA) and the Myanmar Ministry of Commerce agreed to implement the Project ofMyanmar-Japan Center for Human Resources Development for the duration of three years with The
Republic of the Union of Myanmar Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (UMFCCI) as aproject implementing organization. The mission of the Myanmar-Japan Center (MJC) is to train corehuman resources in facilitating business developments through the implementation of business courses.
With the aim to enhance the capacity of MJC staff and lecturers in order for them to effectively andefficiently serve the nation’s human resources development needs and to strengthen the organization
toward its sustainable management, the Project was commenced in October 2013.
1-2.

Project Overview

The Project aims for MJC to become a human resources development center for training businesspersonnel who play an important role in the economic development of Myanmar through an effective
management and implementation of business training and the development of the sustainable
management and functions of MJC.
(1) Overall Goal: Core human resources in industrial and commercial field in Myanmar is

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Association of Southeast Asian Nationsixcontinuously trained at the MJC.
(2) Project Purpose: Sustainable mechanism and functions to train business personnel who play animportant role of the development of Myanmar economy are established at MJC in UMFCCI.
(3) Outputs:
1)

Effective management and implementation of business training is enhanced, which
contributes to the development of core human resources in industrial and commercial
enterprises in Myanmar.

2)

Sustainable management mechanism and functions of MJC is established.

(4) Inputs:

Government of Japan (Total input: 540 million yen)Japanese Experts: Long-term experts 3 persons (72.00MM5)
Short-term experts 15 persons (57.23 MM)
Training in Japan: 39 persons

Provision of machinery, equipment, and materials

Operational Expenses: 73 million yen
Government of Myanmar
Assignment of C/Ps

Provision of facilities

Operational expenses
Others (Issuance of invitation letters and travel permit for JICA experts)

2.

Overview of the Evaluation Team

Members

Director, Team 2, Private Sector Development
Mr. Hiroyuki Tomita

LeaderGroup, Industrial Development and Public Policy
Department, JICA

Ms. Emi Takahata

Mr. Nobuhisa Iwase
Evaluation Period:

3.

Cooperation
Planning
Evaluation
Analysis

Staff, Team 2, Private Sector Development Group,
Industrial Development and Public Policy
Department, JICA
Partner, IMG Inc.

February 7-20, 2016

Type of Evaluation:

Terminal Evaluation

Evaluation Results

3-1. Achievements of the Project

The following are the achievement levels of Outputs and the Project Purpose, evaluated based on theassessment on the achievement levels of its indicators and the assessments by the Project’s stakeholders(i.e. JICA experts, MJC staff, local lecturers, and former business course participants).
(1) Achievements of the Outputs

Output 1 (effective management and implementation of business training): Achieved
Output 1 is evaluated to have been achieved. MJC Business courses were designed based on the5

Up to October 2016x

needs survey results conducted in the beginning of the Project and have been conducted in accordancewith the MJC annual implementation plan. Since the trial implementation of business courses started in
December 2013, there have been steady increases in the number of business courses6 (25 in FY72013,
71 in FY 2014 and 90 in FY 2015) and the number of business courses done by local lecturers (4 in FY
2014 and 15 in FY 2015). MJC seminars are implemented in a wider area (eight regional cities in 2015)
than originally planned. MJC’s capacity to manage and implement business courses has been enhanced
through project activities and MJC staff is able to prepare the business course schedule, conduct
monitoring and evaluation (M&E) on business courses, reflect M&E results to improve the businesscourses. The questionnaire/interview survey results indicate that business course participants are highly
satisfied with MJC’s business programs. The continuation of TOT of local lecturers through OJT andthe periodic implementation of market needs survey for business training hold the key to further
increase in the quality of business training.
Output 2 (establishment of a sustainable mechanism and functions of MJC): Mostly achieved
Output 2 is evaluated to have been mostly achieved. Through project activities, the Project has laid asolid foundation for MJC to be managed and function continuously. The MJC’s Ten-Year-Financial
Plan, which serves as its management policy and strategy, was developed and was endorsed by projectstakeholders in the JCC meeting held in March 2014. The division of duties among MJC staff has been
defined, and the rules and regulations for working conditions of MJC staff was also developed and put
in force. Noting these achievements, when its expected roles and functions are taken into consideration,
MJC is still at the fledgling stage and is fragile to be evaluated as a “sustainable” implementing body.
One of the factors making the organizational to be fragile is that the number of official (permanent)
staff is insufficient. The workload of MJC staff has become very heavy, due to the increase in activities,
particularly in areas other than Yangon and the resignation of three staff members in October 2015.
Although the organization’s financial situation has improved, the financial sustainability depends on asteady flow of business course/seminar applicants; therefore, there is a need for MJC to continuously
attract new applicants (customers) by expanding the target audience through offering more varieties ofbusiness courses in a strategic manner or offering business courses in other regions. It is also necessary
to make continuous efforts to find and meet the changing needs of the target audience.
(2) Prospect of the Project Purpose being Achieved

Project Purpose (the development of a sustainable mechanism and functions to train businesspersonnel in MJC) : Mostly achieved
The Project Purpose is evaluated to have been mostly achieved. On one hand, all indicators set for the
Project Purpose has been achieved or mostly achieved, which indicate that the foundation for operating
MJC has been established. Through the Project, the MJC annual activity plan and the Mid-term
Strategic Plan have been developed. The numbers of business courses/seminars as well as the total
number of participants to MJC activities have steadily increased resulting in the increase in the MJC’s
annual revenue, which greatly exceed the target (i.e. 60 million MMK/ year) in the last two years (75.5
million MMK in FY 2014 and 88.5 million MMK in FY 2015). Through TOT, mainly by OJT, the local
6
7

Including seminars
Japanese fiscal year: April - Marchxilecturers’ capacity has greatly improved and the transition of teaching business courses and seminars
from JICA experts to local lecturers has made a good progress. There is, however, a need tocontinuously secure a sufficient number of (prospective) local lecturers and establish the training
mechanism of newly contracted local lecturers. Furthermore, for an effective operational managementof MJC, there is a need to increase MJC’s administration staff members and to strengthen theorganizational implementation structure, which is currently excessively dependent on the Business
Course Manager and the Chief Advisor (long-term JICA expert).
3-2. Summary of the Evaluation Result(1) Relevance: HighThe relevance of the Project is assessed as high. The Project is highly consistent with development
policies of the Myanmar Government. The Myanmar Government has strengthened the national legal
framework for the commercial and industrial sectors to facilitate the market-oriented economic reform
through the introduction of various laws, including the Export Import Law, the Consumer Protection
Law, the Competition Law, the Small and Medium Enterprise Law, the Myanmar Foreign Investment
Law, and the Myanmar Special Economic Zone Law. The Project is satisfactorily consistent with theneeds of Myanmar people. As the country moves towards a market-oriented economy and become more
integrated into the regional and global economy, it has created needs to foster human resources inbusiness fields, especially at the executive and the middle-management levels to modernize the business
management and become competitive. The Project is in line with the Government of Japan’s assistancepolicy for Myanmar, which sets the capacity building and development of a system to sustain economy
and society as one of its three priority areas. Since the uniqueness of the Japanese-style management
techniques lays in its practical applicability to businesses, Japan has comparative advantages insupporting the human resources development in the private sector that demands fast and concrete
results. Moreover, JICA has accumulated its know-how and experiences in assisting operation of “Japan
Center” projects in other ASEAN countries, such as Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
(2) Effectiveness: Relatively highThe effectiveness of the Project is assessed as relatively high. The Project Purpose (“Sustainablemechanism and functions to train business personnel who play an important role of the development of
Myanmar economy are established at MJC in UMFCCI.”) is envisaged to be mostly achieved by the endof the project period. The Project has conducted an extensive range of activities, including the capacity
development of MJC managers, staff and local lecturers, the development of the MJC annual activity
plan and the MJC Mid-term Strategic Plan (which contains the MJC’s Ten-Year-Financial Plan), and theplanning and implementation of business courses. As a result, three local lecturers are already able toimplement MJC business courses by their own with a high level of satisfaction from course participants.
The numbers of MJC business course participants have steadily increased over the project period,
resulting in the steady increase in the MJC’s annual revenue.
(3) Efficiency: HighThe efficiency of the Project is assessed as high. In the Project, most inputs for implementing
activities have been duly allocated as planned and used for the production of two outputs. The Projectxii

has not only implemented originally planned activities set in PDM, but also carried out a broader rangeof activities to meet human resources development needs of the private sector in Myanmar, including
the provision of one-day seminars, training in regional areas both for business community and forgovernment officials, and the support for the establishment and utilization of business networks (e.g.
MJC Upper Myanmar Alumni). The expansion of project activities have contributed to winning agreater support to the Project from project stakeholders and have resulted in additional inputs (e.g.
training and office spaces in MRCCI and MOC in Mandalay and in other regional cities in upper
Myanmar region) provided by the Myanmar side. The project implementation process was alsoenhanced by the use of the accumulated experiences and know-how on Japan Center projects inside
JICA as well as good communication and collaboration with other Japan Centers in the ASEAN region.
The factor that may have hampered the Project’s efficiency is the instability of MJC. Three MJC staff
resigned their positions in MJC in October 2015, resulting in under-staff and a large increase inworkload for the remaining MJC staff.
(4) Impact: Relatively highThe impact of the Project is assessed as relatively high. The prospect of the Overall Goal(“Continuous training of core human resources in the industrial and commercial field in Myanmar.”) tobe achieved within three to five years after the project completion is promising, judging from theassessment on the achievement level of its indicator and the observation by the Project’s stakeholders.
The number of MJC business course/seminar participants was 2,559 persons in FY 2014 and 3,200
persons in FY 2015, greatly exceeding the Overall Goal’s indicator target (1,000 persons a year). In
addition, MJC has been conducting joint seminars with external organizations, such as the Policy
Research Institute (PRI) under the Japanese Ministry of Finance and the Sumitomo Mitsui Banking
Corporation (SMBC), as well as various networking activities with Japanese business organizations,companies, and local governments in Japan, which will contribute to increasing the scale and quality of
the achievement of the Overall Goal. The follow-up survey results on former business course/seminar
participants confirmed positive impacts of the Project, notably the increase in company profits (75% of
respondents) and the expansion of company (more than 50% of respondents) due to the expansion of themarket, the effective networking and the improvement in teamwork. Furthermore, more than 80% of
respondents reported that the knowledge acquired through MJC training helped their career. Following
the recommendations by the Mid-term Review, MJC has accelerated to expand the range of activities
based on the changing needs and the request for related activities, not only in Yangon but also in otherregions, collaboration in holding seminars, and so forth. If the Project successfully continues
implementing additional activities, it will bring about significant positive impacts of the Project for
promoting human resources development in business field in Myanmar in the future. No negative
impact was found by the time of the Joint Terminal Evaluation.
(5) Sustainability: Relatively high, but is still fragile

The sustainability of the Project is assessed as “relatively high, but is still fragile.” The institutionalsustainability of the Project is deemed as high. Although there is an uncertainty for the policy change
due to the scheduled change of the government in April 2016, there will not be a drastic change in thexiii

policy support for the market-oriented economy reforms since the manifest by the new government
stresses the importance of acceleration of transforming its economy into a market-oriented, liberalized
economy through increased promotion efforts for foreign direct investments. The organizational andfinancial sustainability of the Project is deemed as a challenge with some tasks lying ahead. As
discussed in “3-1. Achievements of the Project,” MJC has established a foundation for its operation;
however, MJC is still a new organization that requires further organizational strengthening throughmeasures to ensure a stable placement and further capacity development of human resources (i.e.
managers and staff, and local lecturers.) While the foundation for securing sufficient financial resources
has been made through the development of a long-term financial plan, the increase in savings to be used
as a revolving fund and the start of the cost sharing from the revolving fund, there is a need to accept
more participants for business courses, seminars and other relevant activities and to further diversify
revenue sources. The technical sustainability of the Project is deemed relatively high. The training
contents were applicable to businesses in Myanmar. The capacity development of MJC staff including
local lecturers and the Business Course Manger has been in a good progress; however, for the increasein the technical sustainability of the Project, there is a need to increase MJC staff and train them.
3-3. Main Factors Promoting the Production of Effects(1) Factor Concerning to Planning
1) Public-private partnership: By having both private and public sectors in the project

implementation framework such as MOC and UMFCCI, the Project was able to efficiently
implement activities utilizing both know-how and networks of the public and private sectors.
The project design that placed importance on the public-private partnership made it easier forvarious external actors to cooperate and collaborate with MJC.
(2) Factors Concerning to the Implementation Process
1) Team-building: In the Project, hou-ren-so (report-contact-consult/discuss) practices have been

reinforced for team-building. This facilitated the improvement in the relationship among
project team members and increased their understanding on the effectiveness of project
activities. The project team was also staffed with managers and local lecturers who haveoverseas study experiences in Japan and MJC staff who have a keen interest in MJC’s
functions as the base for cooperation and exchange between Myanmar and Japan and thecenter for developing core industrial human resources in industrial and commercial fields;
their appreciation towards Japanese-style management and production methods and Japan ingeneral and their high motivation for MJC work have contributed to building a strong projectteam.
2) Effective cooperation/collaboration with other organizations: MJC conducted several joint

seminars with external organizations as a way to become a self-sustainable organization. The
cooperation and collaboration have contributed to tightening the network between UMFCCI
and Japanese business communities (e.g. KEIDANREN and KANKEIREN). It also
contributed UMFCCI to have a greater appreciation toward benefits of working with MJC and
to be more proactively involved in project activities.

xiv3) Use of accumulated know-how in managing a Japan Center: The Project used the knowhow ofand resources for operating a Japan Center that have been accumulated from previous Japan
Center projects conducted by JICA (e.g. TOT of center staff, formats for monitoring financial
indicators, and operational procedures). The Project was also able to use the network of Japan
Centers to support a MJC alumni organization.
4) Increase in contributions by the Myanmar Side: Through project activities, a general

understanding of MJC services’ effectiveness and impacts have increased among projectstakeholders. This has resulted in the increase in contributions by the Myanmar side (e.g. theprovision of facility by the Mandalay Region Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MRCCI)
and the MOC Mandalay Office.)5) Word-of-mouth advertisement by Business Course Participants: The review/comments on the

MJC business program by MJC business course/seminar participants through the social
networking services (SNS) have contributed to the promotion and advertisement of the MJCbusiness program.
3-4. Main Factors Inhibiting the Production of Effects(1) Factor Concerning to Planning

•

None

(2) Factors Concerning to the Implementation Process•

Under-staffing of MJC staff members

3-5. Conclusion

The Project has made a steady progress towards the achievements of both two Outputs and the Project
Purpose, which are likely to be mostly achieved by the end of the project period. While not specificallyindicated in the PDM, it should be noted that a variety of activities that contribute to the further
achievement of the Overall Goal and the increase in the Project’s impacts and sustainability have been
conducted with joint efforts by the Myanmar and the Japanese sides. Synergy effects and the increase in
the Project’s effectiveness and impacts are expected, if MJC ensures its continuation of currently
implementing activities. While MJC is expected to function as the center for developing “core industrial
human resources” that corresponds to expanding and advancing market needs, in essence, it is still a
new organization established in less than three years ago. At the time of the Joint Terminal Evaluation,
the development stage of the organization can be categorized as in the “rapid takeoff stage”. It will
require more time for MJC to reach the “smooth cruising stage” and become a matured organization
with a strong and stably operational capacity. Based on this understanding of MJC’s operational andmanagement situation, it is deemed that the Project’s sustainability is relatively high at the time of the
Joint Terminal Evaluation but the MJC has some vulnerability.
Major examples of the vulnerability are; (1) Mobilization of local lecturers to MJC business course
continuously participating in the MJC activities, (2) Institutional framework of the MJC, in which theestablishment of the current MJC solely depends on the R/D, and (3) Rapidly expanding expectation for
the MJC activities by the Myanmar side.

xv

Based on the above findings, the Joint Evaluation Team concludes that the Project should be extended
for another year. In the extended period, the Project should continue implementing project activities forthe expansion of/increase in the Project’s impact and sustainability and take measures to develop andimplement more detailed and integrated medium- to long-term strategy and implementation plan for the
expansion of/increase in the MJC’s medium- to long-term impact and sustainability.
3-6. Recommendations(1) Establishment and enhancement of the function as a platform for business between Myanmar andJapan through the continuation of the current activities: It is recommended that theimplementation of following activities be continued for the increase in the sustainability of the
Project.
1) Collaboration with Japanese companies, local governments, etc. in Japan,
2) Enhancement of network by assisting the activities initiated by MJC alumni,
3) Inclusion of students and fresh graduates from universities that intend to start their businesses

in the business courses,
4) Provision of services for Japanese companies and Myanmar companies that have business

relations with the Japanese businesses,
5) Provision of seminars and trainings in the regions other than Yangon in accordance with theirneeds, and
6) Implementation of trial bookkeeping course.
(2) Consideration and co-planning of the future institutional framework of the MJC: It is

recommended that the following key issues be discussed by relevant stakeholders for MJC’s
sustainable operations and its medium- to long-term plan formulation.
1) Institutional framework of the MJC including resource management (financial and personnel

management),2) Stable procurement and continuous capacity development of local lecturers,3) Coverage of MJC activities including the issue of a satellite office and expansion of target

beneficiaries,4) Expansion and enhancement of networking activities, and
5) Enhancement of proactive networking with other Japan Centers in Southeast Asia.
3-7. Lesson Learned
1) Effectiveness of the “Public-Private Partnership” in project implementation

xvi