Table 1.  

Table 1 provides a general picture of how many activities the A-Team have been involved in since the start of the fourth phase of the FAO Regional Programme  in January of 1998.  The Team has enhanced Community IPM in the region through four general strategies: training support, consulting, joint action and networking. These strategies are explained below. 

Origin refers to home country of trainers undertaking international assignment; abbreviations as follows:

CMB = Cambodia

INS = Indonesia

PHI = Philippines

VIE = Vietnam

TOT IPM Field Trainers (x2)

Training Support.  Community IPM begins with strong training at the TOT level.  IPM Field Trainers or Farmer IPM Trainers must be able to facilitate high quality FFS’s for farmers.  The expertise supplied to season long training teams by members of the A-Team has been a key reason in the success of IPM training for farmers throughout the region.  The usual process is for a member or members of the A-Team to live at the TOT training site with local trainers for the entire period of the training activity.  They will pair-up with the trainer(s) identified as the leader(s) of the TOT training team and help them to develop a training team that can provide a strong TOT for the participants.

Consulting. Besides providing support to season-long training activities, the A-Team has also provided short-term consulting for many types of TOT’s.  An example of the consulting process is when an A-Team trainer from one country works with another A-Team trainer in the second’s country.  In this case the consulting trainer usually acts as a resource person with a specific task in support of his or her colleague.  In this way, an Indonesian trainer supported a TOT for Farmer IPM Trainers in Cambodia.  He helped the training team to analyze the TOT process and improve their work besides doing training in how to conduct “peoples theatre”.   

Joint Action.  Another option that can be used to improve a program’s capabilities is joint action.  Joint action describes a situation where A-Team trainers from several countries come together as a team to help still another country improve its program.  A-Team trainers from Vietnam, the Philippines, and Indonesia worked together as a team to assist IPM trainers in Nepal to review field activities and plan future training activities.  In this case, Nepalese trainers got the benefit of a broad range of experience from trainers who had all played important roles in the development of IPM training in their own countries.  The visiting trainers also were able to learn from each other and gain experience in establishing an effective working team in a short time.

Organizing and Networking.  The A-Team is in the process of building a network that includes IPM-trained farmers, IPM Trainers, and A-Team trainers across the region.  The process of organizing networks begins in a country by getting the network among IPM trainers and farmers in one’s own country established.  The next step is to establish a means for “hooking into” the networks of neighboring countries.  Indonesia and Vietnam have both begun this process.  The idea to get a network organized and operating took shape in July of 1999 in an A-Team workshop held in Indonesia for A-Team trainers from five countries.

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