Through a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed in Bangkok, SVI-School for Management and Social Change and AIT will establish a joint venture for the launch of an Executive Master’s pilot program on Third Sector Management and Fundraising, a program which is already offered in Europe.
The agreement opens the door for an Asia-focused advanced training platform for managers of third sector organizations, particularly in relation to social change. The joint venture will give AIT access to best practices in Europe and on Executive Master’s programs in Fundraising, Europrojects, International Cooperation, and Social Business.
For Dr. Marco Crescenzi, ASVI President, who was welcomed at the signing ceremony by AIT President Prof. Said Irandoust, AIT is suitable partner for its first overture in to the Asian higher education marketplace.
“We are with the right institute here at AIT,” he told the AIT president and officials attending the signing ceremony. “Our dream is to change society, and to build a new education platform for social sector managers.”
This being the first partnership for ASVI in Asia, Dr. Crescenzi said AIT’s globally recognized expertise and experience in knowledge management of sustainable development in the region provides a good entry platform for the joint venture.
AIT President Said Irandoust expressed his excitement over the private sector-academic and Asia-Europe linkages inherent in the partnership. Since the program will stress private sector validation of its graduates, the program dovetails with AIT’s emphasis of higher education for the today’s professions, he said.
A United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) report recently outlined an ongoing shift in international development cooperation away from finance towards other factors that contribute to positive sustainable development.
According to Dr. Sandro Calvani, Director of ASEAN Regional Center on Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the globalization of news coupled with less structured societies has produced a large number of well-informed citizens around the world, especially among young adults, who are continuously increasing their awareness on global issues, such as human rights, MDGs, climate change, fair international trade, social business, corporate social responsibility, and inequity in access to education and to credit.
This development makes global citizen action a real catalyst for modern change and innovation in policy analysis and in policy-making on good governance of global public goods, he said.
People’s participation in civil society awareness-building and policy formulation continues to grow, both in terms of quantity as well as of quality and depth of insight. “More people are actively seeking to be protagonists in designing how societies change and grow.”
These fundamental shifts in terms of practical ways of living democracy and international cooperation create a growing demand for non-traditional knowledge management and action-oriented training on social change trends, Dr. Calvani said.
The AIT-ASVI program reflects how the public sector, civil society and the private sector will cooperate to achieve the progress and well-being of peoples. It will start as a short training program and later develop into a full-fledged Professional Master’s program under AIT Extension, AIT’s ASEAN Regional Center on Millennium Development Goals (ARCMDG), Yunus Center at AIT, and CSR Asia Center at AIT. E-learning will be one of the means for conducting the program. ASVI and AIT will share profits and technical support for the program.
