“Kenan Institute Asia”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

Kenan Foundation Asia (Kenan) is a Thailand based non-profit organization which serves the sustainable development needs of the Greater Mekong Subregion (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand,Yunnan Province in southern China), and Vietnam.

Founded in 1996, Kenan organizes programs in five main areas: education; financial literacy; healthier lives; small business competitiveness; and community development.

History

Evolving from a project funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) mission in Thailand, Kenan was founded in 1996 with an endowment provided by USAID, the Thai government, the William R. Kenan, Jr. Charitable Trust and the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise, part of the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun serving as the founding chairman, the Institute initially focused on fostering development partnerships between U.S. and Thai organizations based on the belief that challenges facing South East Asia could best be addressed through free enterprise mechanisms, boundary-spanning partnerships and expertise gained through practical development experience.

Within its first few months of its existence, Kenan was faced with responding to the 1997 Asian financial crisis. It did so through the American Corporations for Thailand (ACT) Program, launched in 1998 chaired by former Prime Minister of Thailand and the then-current Kenan chairman Mr. Anand Panyarachun and Dr. Henry Kissinger, former U.S. Secretary of State. The project worked with major U.S. companies in Thailand to support human resource development, retraining those left unemployed by the crisis. Ten donor companies and organizations contributed US $1.1 million for ACT’s first three years. The donors provided another $700,00 for the project in 2001 to expand the program to include secondary and environmental education. In total, ACT awarded over 50 grants on a competitive basis to Thai universities, non-profit and government training organizations throughout the country, training approximately 700 trainers and 2,700 trainees.^[1]

In 1999 the U.S. government provided Kenan with a cost-shared grant for a program of economic recovery and reform for Thailand called "Accelerating Economic Recovery in Asia" (AERA) as part of the Thailand Competitiveness Initiative, with a specific focus on development of cluster competitiveness.^[2] The project had three objectives: 1) creating and saving jobs, 2) improving the targeting and coverage of safety nets, and 3) improving economic governance. The institute worked towards these goals through technical assistance and training complementing ongoing structural adjustment loans funded by the International Monetary Fund or multilateral development banks. Partnering with a wide variety of local organizations, the program had significant impact, particularly in the areas of competitiveness, economic governance, financial and corporate debt restructuring.^[3] The program was renewed several times to implement projects that ranged from cross-border public health cooperation to trade capacity building for small companies. By the time it was concluded in 2008, AERA had supported development projects with more than $25 million in USAID funds along with more than an equal amount of cash and in-kind donations made by the Thai government and other Thai organizations.

When the 2004 tsunami devastated the coast of southern Thailand, Kenan implemented the Tsunami Recovery Action Initiative (TRAI), with core funding provided by the William R. Kenan Charitable Trust and the Frank Hawkins Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise along with a variety of smaller donors.

Today, Kenan employs over 80 full-time staff at offices in Bangkok, Thailand and Hanoi, Vietnam. Currently, Kenan is partnering with a wide variety of organizations, including the Thailand Ministry of Education, the Thailand Ministry of Science and Technology, USAID, the US Department of State, Boeing, the Citi Foundation, Chevron, and Coca-Cola to achieve its vision.

Areas

Kenan works with corporations, governments, state-owned enterprises and multilateral organizations to implement projects in five key areas.

21st Century Education

Kenan has partnered with the Thai Department of Skill Development (DSD) and Microsoft to implement the "Building Employability Through Technology and Entrepreneurship Resources" project, which provides ICT training and ICT for entrepreneurship training through the DSD for unemployed and at-risk workers, as well as small SME operators. The specific objectives of the project are to make training recipients more employable through increased ICT skills; to better prepare potential and existing entrepreneurs for engaging in entrepreneurial activities; and to develop the capacity of the DSD to create and market their training courses to better serve industry demand. Ultimately, the goal was to successfully take over and expand the project at the end of the three-year trial period.^[4]

Financial Freedom

Kenan has worked with Citibank Thailand to promote sound SME financial management and financial literacy training since 2006, with the goal of providing sustainable opportunities for the economically disadvantaged. Working closely with Thailand’s Office of Small and Medium Enterprises Promotion, the Thai Chamber of Commerce, and prominent universities in Thailand, Kenan, supported by Citibank, surveyed more than 100 SMEs and analyzed data relating to their financial training needs. It then offered financial skills capacity training to SME managers and owners, bringing in managers with practical experience, such as executives from Black Canyon Coffee (a popular Thai restaurant/café) to share their knowledge with participants. Kenan also implemented the Citi At-Risk Women Financial Literacy program, which provides at-risk women with financial skills, specifically in saving and investment, money management and household budgeting.^[5]

Healthier Lives

Kenan played a major role in the Thai malaria control program, supported by the World Health Organization (WHO), which monitored malaria drug resistance in six sentinel sites since the early 1980s. In 2000, with US $3 million provided by USAID, the program was expanded through Kenan to include three additional sites, which played critical roles in identifying and controlling drug resistant malaria along the Thai-Cambodian border. The project strengthened national capacity by establishing a network for sentinel surveillance of drug resistance and a systematic process for evidence-based policy changes in treatment regimens to respond to emerging resistance to anti-malarials. Kenan’s public health team supported development of new models of cooperation and partnership to enable community-based action, and supported pilot implementation of program reorientation from malaria control to a strategy for elimination. The project strengthened the national capacity for surveillance and response covering an at risk population of 17.6 million population in 26 provinces.^[6]

Small Business Competitiveness

Kenan provides training to small businesses. It has also undertaken research on the role of innovation in the Thai economy.^[7]

References

1. ^Jiravisitkul, Jarusri. "American Corporations for Thailand Program: Combined Corporate Action for Human Resource Development". Asian Development Bank
2. ^USAID. "Final Report: Thailand Competitiveness Initiative- Accelerating Economic Recovery in Asia." < http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PDACG139.pdf>
3. ^USAID. "ANE Regional Activities: Activity Data Sheet". 29 May 2002
4. ^Chaiwong, Suphada. "Department of Skill Development, Microsoft and Kenan Institute Asia announce ‘Building Employability Through Technology and Entrepreneurship Resources’".
5. ^Thubdimphun, Pongpon. "Citibank Thailand Leads the Way in CSR Programming to Meet Financial Training Needs." Thai-American Business American Chamber of Commerce Thailand 1(2009).
6. ^Vijaykadga S, Rojanawatsirivej C, Cholpol S, Phoungmanee D, Nakavej A, Wongsrichanalai C In vivo sensitivity monitoring of mefloquine monotherapy and artesunate-mefloquine combinations for the treatment of uncomplicated falciparum malaria in Thailand in 2003. Trop Med Int Health 2006;11:211–9 {{doi|10.1111/j.1365-3156.2005.01557.x}}
7. ^Bengt-Ake Lundvall, Patarapong Intarakumnerd, Jan Vang-Lauridsen. Asia’s Innovation Systems in Transition. Cheltenham, Glos, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2006.