“Revenue Management and Poverty Reduction”

The KDI School, World Bank Institute (WBI), and Laos National Organization for the Study of Politics and Administration (NOSPA) held a joint Laos NOSPA Capacity Building Workshop at NOSPA in Lao People’s Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) on February 26-27, 2007.

NOSPA, the main training institute in Lao PDR for civil servants and government officials, has been widely recognized as a central institute for capacity building. The two-day capacity workshop was designed for Korean experts to share Korea’s experience and knowledge of revenue management and poverty reduction with their counterparts. The topic mainly focused on rural poverty reduction issues, especially Korea’s New Village (Saemaeul) Movement, and revenue management. The workshop consisted of presentations given by experts, case studies, and discussions.

The World Bank Institute and the Laos country team have been working together to implement a capacity enhancement (CE) strategy that will increase focus on the design, implementation, and monitoring of CE investments in lending and non-lending activities. In line with this, last year, the World Bank proposed activities focusing on public financial management that specifically catered to the needs of the Ministry of Finance as well as activities aimed at building capacity of NOSPA, in which the KDI School participated.

The Workshop was attended by approximately 44 participants from NOSPA, Ministry of Finance, Vientiane Municipality and Committee of Planning and Investment (CPI). The presentations were conducted by experts and professors from the KDI School, Laos Ministry of Finance (MOF), CPI and KIPF. The sixth Capacity Building Workshop will be held in Seoul, this summer.