GRIPS Executive Vice-President Professor Kiyotaka Yokomichi, DAP President and CEO Engelbert Caronan Jr., and GRIPS representative Mr. Kiichi Tomiya (sixth, seventh and eight from left) with the participants of the 2019 Knowledge Co-Creation Workshop last July 22-23 at the DAP Building in Pasig City.
The Development Academy of the Philippines (DAP), through its Public Management Development Program (PMDP), recently hosted the 2019 Knowledge Co-Creation Workshop of the Leadership Enhancement and Administrative Development for Innovative Governance (LEADING) Asia Project which aimed to surface applications of Phronetic Leadership in completed and ongoing projects of each participating country towards creating new knowledge in effective management and development style in Asia last July 22-23 at the DAP Building in Pasig City. The workshop was attended by some 52 Phronetic Leadership advocates from Japan, Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Philippines.
The two-day workshop was led by Professor Kiyotaka Yokomichi, executive vice-president of the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) and Masaei Matsunaga, deputy director general of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), with Professor Kiichi Tomiya, GRIPS senior adviser, as facilitator.
The Filipino presenters include Undersecretary Rosemarie G. Edillon of the National Economic and Development Authority, former Mandaluyong City Mayor Benjamin de Castro Abalos Jr., and Professor Alex B. Brillantes Jr. of the University of the Philippines-National College of Public Administration.
Edillon, an alumna of the PMDP Phronetic Leadership Training (Batch 1), shared how she applied her learnings in the implementation of NEDA’s project, Understanding Agricultural Labor Migration, which aimed to hypothesize the rising employment loss percentage in the agricultural sector, using the SECI (Socialization, Externalization, Combination, Internalization) Framework. According to her, the study presented secured policy recommendations to minimize or eliminate the factors that affect the agricultural labor migration which include, among others: (1) addressing coordination failures between and among government agencies; (2) developing investment instruments, including diaspora investments for agriculture; and (3) engaging the youth in farming by incorporating agriculture into the elementary and high school curriculum.
Abalos revealed how he transformed the economic and industrial image of Mandaluyong City and contributed into minimizing some of the country’s leading problems by highlighting the importance of immersion through social relations and continuous research in applying Phronetic Leadership in order to achieve sustained development. Brillantes highlighted the background concept of phronesis and what it means to be a phronetic leader.
The LEADING Asia Project is a cooperative research project of the JICA which is operated in collaboration with the GRIPS and several universities from the participating Southeast Asian countries. The project commenced in 2016 and has held seminars, workshops and fora that aim to produce case studies and projects related to public organization development as well as share the outcomes of such to the participating countries as their model in creating their respective projects. JICA and GRIPS also serve as the PMDP’s partners in its Phronetic Leadership Training for undersecretaries and assistant secretaries.
The workshop concluded with a tour to the National Museum of Anthropology. – Sophia Marie Castro