Designing Effective Regional Cooperation for Human Resources Development

Dynamic human resources are one of the dominant factors for developing countries (DMCs) to achieve sustainable economic growth. Donors, including the ADB, are eager to help teach DMC policymakers how to formulate a wide range of public policies, such as fiscal, monetary and tax administration, project management and enforcement of laws and regulations. Although the trend is now mainly towards training using the case study method, many DMC officials lack even an elementary understanding of macro and micro theories and statistics.

Frequently, policymakers in transitional economies learned only Marxist economic theories as schoolchildren. They have limited exposure to contemporary economics and current market trends. Therefore, donors should first check the educational background of their trainees closely and then consider the correct balance between practical case studies and traditional economic theories.

Many popular case studies originally came from developed countries, particularly North America. Certainly economic, social and political conditions differ among countries, and especially between the developed and developing world. Success stories from the American Midwest may not always be helpful to DMC policymakers who are under vastly different political regimes and stages of development.

The relevance of studies from developed countries must always be rigorously checked with the conditions found in each DMC. To ensure demanddriven training, it is essential to obtain meaningful assessments and feedback from participants. In practice, getting frank evaluations is challenging. And how these classroom programs are contributing to solving problems in the real world of the DMCs is proving even more difficult to analyze.

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1. Bala Bhaskaran
   (posted 21 April 2008 / 11:12:39 AM)
   
   The brief paper offers insight into the dynamics of currency apreciation and its impact on the economy. Can it not give references of research papers and case studies on the same subject? That will be a lot more useful to the researcher.