UN-DESA • UNDP

Second Training Workshop
Dusit Thani Manila
Manila, 24–27 March 2009

The second training workshop was organized on 24-27 March, 2009 by UN-DESA/DPAD and the UNDP Country Office in the Philippines. It was attended by the expert teams and policymakers from four participating countries, namely Indonesia, the Philippines, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The workshop was held at the premises of the Dusit Thani Hotel in Manila.

The main objectives of the workshop were to:

• take stock of advancements in the work of the national expert teams, especially on the write up of the country narrative and the construction/update/adaptation of the Social Accounting Matrix (SAM) for use with the "Maquette for MDG Simulations" (MAMS);
• discuss progress and problems encountered in the work on the SAM, with a focus on solutions to commonly encountered problems;
• present and discuss additional data requirements for a full calibration of MAMS, including an outlook on the microeconometric estimations and other steps required for the MDG module of the model;
• train participants further in the hands-on use of MAMS in GAMS and a linked Excel interface; and
• present and discuss simulation results using a sample application of MAMS.