National policy promotes a “People Centered” approach to achieve the objective of “Growth with Equity”. In line with this approach, the communities, NGOs and stakeholders in socio-economic development activities, have been encouraged to participate. This approach is relatively new and so unfamiliar to most national agencies. There is no established practice to deal with this matter.

Currently, public consultation workshops start during the feasibility study as part of the EIA for medium and large hydropower projects. These workshops are organized at community, district, provincial and central level. In the irrigation sub-sector, as well as the rural water supply sub-sector, selection of projects takes into account the readiness and the willingness of the community to participate in the project implementation, operation and maintenance.

The NGOs have contributed in the development of community-irrigation schemes and rural water supply in the remote areas. The Department of Irrigation has estimated that there are about 150 to 200 irrigation schemes ranging from 5 ha to 100 ha supported by the NGOs. NGO sponsored water supply schemes have utilized rainwater, surface, groundwater supplies.

Activities by NGOs

• Clean Water awareness Activity “Learning with Joy kit has been developed over the past decade known as the “Blue Box” for in-school youth” (UNICEF-Lao PDR)
• Poverty Reduction Fund Project “Natural Resource Conservation” for the poor people” (The Poverty Reduction Fund Project)

Activities by CBOs

• Environmental Education and Awareness “Training Program on Environmental Education and Awareness Foundation Training for Developing Strategy and Action Plan Framework” (Environment Training Centre, Environment Research Institute, STEA)

Summary

This activity targets to school sanitation which aims to bring hygiene promotion to over 8,000 schools.The blue box kit use learning participatory approach in the classroom through games and stories. The key messages are focused on hand washing, personal hygiene, environmental sanitation, water and latrine use for better health. These activities focus on the child-to-child and child-to-adult approaches in teaching, therefore the messages learnt in the classroom are spread by children. Moreover, these messages also spread to their family first, then to the community.

The IEC materials of this activity were developed and reviewed many times by various organizations working in the water and sanitation sector. The main purpose of this activity is to decide on an effective participatory toll kit to promote the teaching and learning of health and hygiene in primary schools across the whole country. Consequent of combined efforts of the Ministry of Health, Ministry of Education, UNICEF and WHO, a standard resource was developed to create a child-friendly and health promotion environment in schools.

Summary

This activity targets to the poorest areas of the three provinces. Natural Resouce Conservation is one of the major poverty reduction fund project activities, which try to enhance local capacity and ability to protect their natural resources. These resources including forest, land and water are rich areas for the local people gathering some foods from theses sources.

The aim of this activity is to supply the needs of the poor villagers, to upgrade knowledge and awareness raising of village on important of livelihood by themselves that dependence on natural resources, to empower initially natural conservation and management, to make the natural resources come to be the products for improving the economy and income generation of people in villages and to conserve the fish and aquatic livings have the chance to breeding and more growing to supply the need to consumption of poor people. The training of this activity has introduced at the district level. It also gradually to expand at local “Khet” level in this year.

Summary

The three-weeks training program “Environmental Education and Awareness Foundation Training for Developing Strategy and Action Plan Framework” was held in Vientiane and in Thalaat February 18-22, and March 4-15, 2002.The program was carried out as part of the Environmental Education and Awareness (EEA) component of Sida supported “Strengthening Environment Management through STEA (SEM) Project”. Organizers and facilitators of the training program were the STEA EEA Core Team consisting of officials from the Department of Environment (DoE), and Environment Training Centre (ETC), together with the Long-Term Advisor in the SEM Project, and Sort Term Advisor from Scandiaconsult Natura AB in Stockholm.

Purposes

• Capacity building for STEA staff in organizing EEA training
• Foundation training in EEA for members of EEA Working Group, and also for the STEA EEA Core Team,
• Strengthening of training skills for the STEA EEA Core Team, and for members of the EEA Working Group,
• Starting the process of formulating a Lao EEA Strategy and an Action Plan, responding to the recommendation in the ASEAN EE Action Plan.

Contents

• The Environmental Crisis: Issues and Risks
• Responses to the Environmental Crises
• Environmental Education Methods and Processes
• Program and Resource Development
• Development of Framework for Lao EEA Strategy and Action Plan

Each theme was dealt with throughout the course, and a balance was obtained between lectures, group work and discussions, practical exercises, excursions, and individual work.

Outcomes

• STEA’s capacity in plan, organizing, carrying out, and evaluating a training program of this magnitude was strengthened through on the job training together with the LTA and the STA,
• Through lectures, group work and discussions, practical exercises, excursions, and individual work, participants acquired foundation knowledge of concepts and thinking in the discipline of EEA. Through working with their individual course to their own work - to identify applications and possible EEA initiatives in their own work in different sectors,
• Participants in the training program started to build their capacity as trainers in EEA through Trainers experience, trying out training methods in practice and giving and taking feedback for improvements,
• The group of participants were introduced to the process of developing a national EEA Strategy and Action Plan, and gained knowledge of the challenges involved and the choices to be made through the process. The group agreed on a suggested framework for a strategy and a suggested framework for an Action Plan appropriate for Lao PDR.
• All participants produced and presented a plan for an EEA activity or resources to be implemented and used in their own work.

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