This project was aimed at fostering human resources in Myanmar, particularly public officials and young journalists. Lecturers were invited from Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand, and workshops were organized. The project sought to develop the skills of midlevel bureaucrats by acquainting them with the experience of Myanmar's neighbors and to provide an intellectual setting in which the bureaucrats would gain the ability to frame policy issues in a broader perspective. The workshops were offered to public officials in 31 Myanmar administrative organs and three independent organizations (including the courts), and the themes were selected widely from public-service fields.
Over the first three years 360 central-government officials took part in workshops on the civil service system in a transitional period, one marked by decentralization and privatization. The concepts employed for arranging the workshops were, in the first year, social development management, microeconomics (including trade and investment, industry, and finance), information-technology management (including electronic government), and environmental management; in the second year, the present and desired shape of the civil service system in neighboring countries; and in the third year, the desired shape of local public bodies in a federal system. Evaluations were made of all the participants, and the top-ranking 30 were selected for participation in training abroad. They went in groups of 10 each year to Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand (the first year) and Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand (the second and third years), where they visited civil service facilities, met with experts, and exchanged views on how to make civil service and personnel systems more effective.
Starting in the second year, in order to augment the impact of the project, regional officials as well as those of the central government were targeted. In the second year a workshop was held in Mandalay, Myanmar's second ranking city, and in the third year another workshop was held in Taunggyi, the capital of Shan State. Lecturers selected from the participants in the previous year's training abroad conducted these workshops for regional civil servants in the Myanmar language, and the text was a Myanmar translation of the text used a year earlier in the workshop for midlevel central-government officials. Also in the second year, three high-level officers of the Civil Service Selection and Training Board were sent to South Korea, which has had the experience of shifting from a military regime to a democratic system. The officials were familiarized with the reforms of South Korea's civil service system during the transitional process, and they exchanged views with their counterparts on how South Korea's experience might be applied in Myanmar. The project also commissioned the training of young journalists to the Myanmar Times, the country's only English-language newspaper. The instruction, which included on-the-job training, covered the basics of journalism, such as copy and headline writing, journalistic ethics, interviewing, and news gathering. It is hoped that the teaching aids and the human talent produced by the project's assorted activities will continue to be put to use within Myanmar.