IRI Trains Village and Community Leaders

August 29, 2003

In early August IRI conducted training for local community leaders in China in order to build their capacity to govern more effectively.

August 7 to August 8 -- IRI sponsored a training seminar for 250 elected urban community leaders in Xiamen City, Fujian Province. The seminar trained the leaders to more effectively serve and represent their communities in light of changes that are currently taking place in the city, such as re-districting and the urbanization of villages. The topics included the importance of improving self-governance and democracy in communities, the benefits of community building and development, and the types of tasks best handled by resident committee meetings. Participants visited three recently developed communities in Xiamen, which are to serve as models for constructing other communities in that city.

August 10 to August 11 -- IRI sponsored a training seminar for recently elected village committee leaders in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, using an innovative participatory training method. In stark contrast to the lecture style format traditionally used in China, the trainers divided the 75 committee leaders into three groups of 25, creating a classroom environment that facilitated active participation. The training focused on fundamental components of democratic village governance, including clarifying the duties of village committee chairmen and dealing with violations of election law. The seminars included role-playing exercises and simulated meetings between the elected committees and the village branch of the Communist Party. These exercises helped participants learn how to solve problems and conflicts that often arise at the village level.

IRI brought 35 election administrators from other provinces to observe the Kunming training. These administrators became exposed to an alternative and more effective good governance curriculum that they could implement in their respective provinces. Following the training, IRI facilitated a roundtable discussion during which the participants discussed the aspects of the training they found most useful as well as areas to improve in future seminars.

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