The Mekong Delta 2023 report

The International PAOT Workshop was held on 31 August 2023 with 125 participants from 7 countries

Mekong Delta 2023, the International Participatory Action-Oriented Training (PAOT) Workshop to exchange experiences in participatory improvement activities, was held on August 31, 2023 as remote workshop.

Mekong Delta PAOT workshop programme was annual event in Can Tho City since 2000, however we changed to remote workshop since 2021 due to COVID-19 pandemic.

This year, in the support of Nescafe cooperation and TMT consulting, we could conduct International Remote Workshop in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The number of participants were 125 from Afghanistan, Indonesia, Korea, Thailand, Nigeria, Japan, and Vietnam.

Two good practice contests were held in the workshop

In the programme, we had two good practice photo contests. One was Central Highlands Coffee Suply Chain, and another was good practices of international participants (Refer website right side of the top page).

Dr. Ton That Khai, a specialist of PAOT, presented keynote report, and Dr. Kazutaka Kogi, a creator of PAOT programme, reported special report (Refer website right side of the top page).

Six PAOT reports presented by international delegates

There were six interesting PAOT reports were presented after tea break. Department of Education and Training Can Tho City reported participatory action-oriented environment protection education programme named WINDY.

LION in Indonesia, Non-profit Organization in supporting victims of occupational diseases and accidents, also presented WINDY in Indonesia activities.

Korean delegate introduced improvements of small and medium sized enterprises, and Juntendo University, Japan introduced Sports PAOT programme that developed for improving professional sports environment.

From Highlands in Vietnam, Nescafe agronomist team and TMT consulting practitioners reported WIND of coffee suply chain achievements.

Khristina Kurths, ILO specialist, presented Vision Zero Fund in coffee supply chain. She pointed out new topics with relevance for WIND programme such as gender issues.

Meeting again next year in Vietnam

At the final session, all the participants divided into 10 groups and discussed about “2 or 3 ideas to strengthen international PAOT improvements”.

Discussion results were Exchanging experiences using social media, Conducting Training of Trainers courses in fostering adequate follow-up skills, Introduce PAOT into new OSH researches and Applying PAOT tools to risk assessment.

As common impression, many participants stressed to conduct next Mekong Delta 2024, as real face-to-face workshop in Vietnam.