WARI organized a 2.5 day gender conference at the Ambassador Hotel from March 1-3, 2002.

The objective of the conference was to share knowledge and learn from each others presentation, and network for future corporation. The immediate objective was also to facilitate the participation of selected partners, and provide them technical assistance and mentoring.

The following Expected Outputs were achieved. WARI fulfilled the following commitments.

1. Facilitated the attendance of participants in the 2.5 day WARI Conference.
2. Organized the logistical arrangements for the conference and for their payments.
3. Coordinated conference contents & resource people and provided meedful mentoring & technical assistance to participants.

Details on participants
Out of sixty nine people from different countries 51 participants were from Indochina countries of Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Most all participants were from SE Asia and were all funded. Five ex-patriot individuals from Sweden, US, Canada and Australia participated and paid their own conference and hotel fee. Here is the geographical background of the participants.

Content and themes of the conference :
38 papers were presented in the conference and were compiled as a 250 page conference proceeding. The ten panels covered themes of Human resource development and natural resource development. Conference panel consisted of the following themes related to gender.

How did it go?
The conference went well. The presentations were of high standard. We worked with many participants to improve their presentation. All panels were chaired by selected and more vocal participants. The conference atmosphere was participatory, encouraging and inspiring. Most people were pleased. We include in the Appendix a sample of remarks from the participants that show a very positive and empowering outcome.

Experience of having course and conference together
While the course helped broaden the view as well as deepen the understanding on gender concepts and issue-interconnectedness for middle level development workers, the conference brought together researchers, development specialists/consultants (expats and nationals) and community practitioners to present their research findings or lessons learned from innovative projects. This sequential program is unique in a sense that the course provided space for sharing experience among local practitioners in the region and prepared the participants for an international interaction and dialogue. Anther advantage of having the conference right after the course is to reduce the cost of travel. The presentation and networking at both the course and the conference levels give participants a clearer and concrete perspective about the various aspects of gender and development in the region. It is also an opportunity to discuss and assess the progress of various initiatives concerning gender in their own countries. The training is designed to enable trainees to absorb the diverse topics at the presentation as well as to apply gender lessons into their own projects in their own countries.

Output assessment
Feedback and evaluation collected at the end of the course and the conference show that most participants benefited from this cross country meeting. For the course they benefited from refreshing the theoretical framework and small group discussion when they could compare notes on their field experiences. For the conference, they could hear experience from field workers from both GOs and NGOs. This conference is unique that it (1) focuses on the neglected zone of Indochina or Makong subregion, (2) exclusively pays attention to gender and (3) encourages both academic and field workers to have dialogue. Many government officials attended the conference from various countries. Beyond policy rhetoric they would learn indirectly from this cross country conference that brings out difficult issues that the region is facing.

Difficulties encountered
There were no significant difficulties-except the WARI staff was overworked, and some participant complained about low per diem. Language was a challenging issue. We paid specific attention to be slow and clear. Most could comprehend the presentation.

Lessons to encorporate for the future
1. We hope to continue the annual conference if donors continue to support the participants.
2. We hope to make more workshop type conference then just straight presentation and Q/A
3. We hope to increase the number of volunteers or get more of WARI staff involved in this activity as we remained understaffed and overworked during the conference.
4. The conference has no separate funding for WARI's six months of activity and preparation, including country visits to donors and visits to recruit participants. The conference fee is kept low and is utilized to meet mostly the conference expenditure. We have no plan of increasing the fee.
5. We hope to increase the number of men participants and participants from Thailand.

Conference Evaluation/feedback (2002)