LOCALIZED POVERTY REDUCTION VIETNAM (LPRV) PROGRAM

Transcription

1 LOCALIZED POVERTY REDUCTION VIETNAM (LPRV) PROGRAM MISSION/MEETING REPORT NO. 1 Hanoi June 4-10, 1998 The main objective of this mission was to participate in an initial LPRV program planning meeting between UBC, Laval, NCSSH and the five participating Vietnamese universities in Hanoi, June 5-6. The objectives of the planning meeting included: a. To clarify next steps in seeking final approval of the LPRV program from the Government of Vietnam, and to create general agreement between partner institutions on the first steps to be taken in the first year of the program. b. To present and review the overall program budget. c. To allow program partners to jointly plan in more detail the execution of a Program Start-up Workshop in August, as well as all activities leading to the workshop. d. To contact and update relevant CIDA staff at the Canadian Embassy. e. To clarify the needs, goals and responsibilities of the two CIDA interns assigned to assist the LPRV program in its first year. Meeting Outcomes and Forward Planning Detailed notes on the discussions at the June 5-6 meeting are attached below (see Detailed Meeting Notes Day 1 ). Contact information for all attendees was distributed at the meeting. Administrative points of agreement during the meeting: 1. Vietnam s Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) agrees with experience of NCSSH as coordinator of/contributor to LPRV program, and as state representative 2. MPI now satisfied with objectives of program and will support it when NCSSH letter answers outstanding questions. NCSSH to send letter with budget ASAP 3. timeline for preparation and submission to CIDA of a detailed five-year program workplan (by the end of September 1998) was confirmed 4. prepared outline of five-year budget for MPI s information 5. clarified income tax questions 6. discussed whether equipment should be purchased in Vietnam and agreed that it should be; also agreed to apply immediately for a tax exemption on these purchases

2 LPRV Project: Mission Report 2 Content points of agreement during the meeting: 1. The key objective of this meeting is to reconfirm the program s objectives and concept. 2. One output of the program must be a stronger role for NCSSH in national policymaking on poverty. 3. Another output is to have more effective university-ncssh ties (more universities could join later). 4. Program to build on success of previous NCSSH-UBC project and to benefit from growing regional network and experience. 5. First year focus must be to increase capacities of staff, faculty and students involved. 6. A bibliography of regional experiences in poverty alleviation would be a useful output. 7. Canadians and NCSSH need to clarify how we will work together and how the work at the universities will be launched; work planning process will expedite this. 8. Government of VN has asked that the production of information and literature resources for the poor themselves be a high priority for the program. 9. Government of VN also wants to ensure that Centres for Poverty Reduction (CPRs) at universities continue long after the LPRV program ends. 10. Agreement is that we need to have one large national workshop once final approval of LPRV program is received from the Government of Vietnam. Tentative date for this start-up workshop is Aug 24-26, In a post-meeting discussion amongst the Canadian attendees at the Win Hotel, the following suggestions were made in relation to the planned August meeting: 1. The diverse group of LPRV program partners need to spend some time building a more complete shared understanding of the objectives and processes of the program. 2. The Vietnam partners need to be asked to define the specific and general problems in relation to poverty in their locale; i.e. how do they frame the issue for study? 3. Canadians should respond to these definitions with information, experience, reports and models (both general and specific), both during the workshop and after. 4. The August meeting would examine how we can work together in sites once the overall challenge has been defined; the key for the first year would thus be to select among relevant models and methodologies and choose those most appropriate to sites. 5. The meeting should be attended by eight persons from each Vietnam partner, and graduate students should be included in this number. 6. Training in objectives and practice of CIDA s results-based management approach would be timely and beneficial for Laval and NCSSH. Julie Nguyen, Donovan Woollard, and Steffanie Scott have all expressed an interest in working as student researchers for the program later this year. Decision making regarding use of funds in the Students/Researchers budget line item for 1998 needs to be discussed. Detailed Meeting Notes - Day 1 NCSSH Vice Director Tham welcomed the group and expressed NCSSH goals and support for the program. Peter Hoffman of CIDA welcomed the attendees, and stressed his support for the

3 LPRV Project: Mission Report 3 program as the knowledge gap of policy actors in Vietnam is a key factor. The Vietnam government is committed to its goal of poverty reduction, as evidenced by the national strategy for Hunger Eradication and Poverty Alleviation (HEPR). Donors will meet with the national government in mid-june to coordinate activities on HEPR. Peter Boothroyd stressed that it will be a challenge to make a program of this size and complexity work. Example to date includes steps to get CIDA-UBC agreement in place, and now we have to work towards Government of Vietnam approval. Also discussed the timeline for preparation and submission to CIDA of a detailed five-year program workplan by the end of September We have the funds to start, and NCSSH will receive an instalment as soon as the Government of Vietnam approves the program, but further flows of funds depend on the submission of this workplan. Thus, we need to work hard in the next few months to detail what will happen in the program, by whom and by when. Discussion then centred on what Canadians could do to assist the Vietnam partners in getting the program activities underway. Canadians and NCSSH need to clarify how we will work together and how the work at the universities will be launched. An emphasis of planning and management must be to ensure that the program resources actually lead to poverty reduction (i.e. real change). We know that after many meetings the poor could have felt no effect, and this institutional capacity development program needs to be oriented towards producing tangible benefits. We must also acknowledge that the program will not solve all the problems of poverty in Vietnam; we do hope to make a difference for some people over the five years. We thus need to understand clearly what works and what does not, and then we can replicate the lessons at universities and in sites in both Vietnam and Canada. We need to make sure that the program s benefits go on for many years. The Results-Based Management (RBM) techniques of CIDA should help us to ensure these outcomes. We can integrate these principles as/when we ask how to develop the appropriate courses, how to approach the challenge of strengthening gender analysis and activity at each university and at NCSSH, etc. We will also have to consider what kind of teams are needed in order to effectively link NCSSH and the universities. These are complex questions, and we are here to begin to develop a plan to give the necessary details on our program to both CIDA and the Vietnam government. Later discussion focused on the writing of a letter of intent for the government, answering questions that were raised by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) after the program proposal was first submitted by NCSSH. Dr. Nam described earlier meetings with MPI which were very positive but which were necessary for clarification and to lead to MPI final approval. Several other Ministries participated and were happy to see the intent to stress co-ordination between our program and HEPR activities. Objectives, management arrangements and financial structure were also discussed.

4 LPRV Project: Mission Report 4 Other information from the meeting: Poverty alleviation and hunger reduction are key priorities of the government for the national development plan according to government, there has been a reduction in poor households in the country from 35% to 20% between % still translates to 10 million people or 2.8 million households annually, between , the government wants to reduce that number by 10% HEPR campaign has this aim; has offices in each province to achieve national and provincial governments receive a budget for HEPR activities; campaign led by Ministry of Labour, Invalids, & Social Affairs; donors and NGOs are asked/trying to coordinate in the effort all ministries support objectives of LPRV; Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) keen. They have experience in poverty reduction, and said that this program will be important because of long term effects at institutional level MARD comments at meeting: agreed to help select sites that would fit with HEPR. Min. of Labour agreed that program and case studies would contribute to HEPR. Suggested that 15 should be chosen from HEPR list of 1300 poor communes. Also suggested that their experts could be invited to program meetings to contribute experience. MARD apparently wants to use university resources in their projects more and more. Wants to see knowledge at universities transferred to people and into practical projects. Three parts to a successful project: Head (knowledge and experience); Hand (practical action to transform ideas into real work that will raise living standard of people); Heart (combine first two to raise willingness of people to raise themselves, reduce hunger). MARD said that our 15 projects could be co-ordinated with, or find support from other donors activities, and that implementation of model projects could be eased, expanded in this way. Min. of Finance is very supportive but stressed that budget distribution should be clarified for whole program. Discussed import of equipment and income tax questions. MPI now satisfied with objectives of program and will support when NCSSH letter answers the few outstanding questions, as above. NCSSH to send letter with budget outline ASAP. Budget to be prepared and forwarded by Peter Boothroyd. Program should be in co-ordination with HEPR activities. MPI also stressed that Canadians should act as brokers to attract further funding to support site work. Local impacts should be real, and beneficial to villages. If so, we can get support of local government and villagers. If the LPRV program is well co-ordinated with HEPR, our Vietnamese partners could set up a co-ordination office with other Vietnamese agencies involved in HEPR. Some of these agencies already have materials/database that would be very useful for LPRV. Example is the Statistical Bureau that is doing many surveys for HEPR. Thus, we need to identify agencies active in HEPR in Vietnam and what their activities, outputs are.

5 LPRV Project: Mission Report 5 MPI s conclusions: that the agencies meeting together agree with the objectives, content and steps of the program. Match between CIDA and Vietnam government goals. Agree with experience of NCSSH as contributor to program and state rep. Ask for a little further information. Also suggest that the timeline be accelerated so that we have a real contribution to poverty reduction ASAP. Nam told the ministries that there would be three groups of beneficiaries in the program: policymakers, professors and students, the poor. All would reap different benefits. Discussion of benefits stressed that all outputs (even courses, materials, tours) should result in real benefits for the poor. The ministry attendees asked that the production of information and literature resources for the poor themselves be a higher priority for the program. Also want to assure that the CPRs continue after the program ends. (Note that we can use this for RBM planning). Nam finished by saying that the key for this meeting (June 5-6) is to have all program participants understand and support the program s objectives and concept. Attendees then gave comments. A bibliography of regional experiences would be a useful first output. Universities described their progress in creating the CPRs at their universities. Hue has chosen a management team and a gender team, a field work team, and has selected three sites already. Program office has been set up, and 20 faculty identified as members. HCMC has established a Centre for Social Development and Poverty Alleviation, and selected members from different departments. Stress experience with urban villages. Dalat has set up the program and has selected six staff as participants. One is female. Local officials supportive but want to see direct co-ordination with HEPR activities and their settlement project. When government approval is confirmed, locals will support. Women s union, children s union, youth league are ready to join.. Thai Nguyen has set up management staff, contacted local officials and has contacts with local colleges. Feel it will be difficult to get 50% female participation. Have appointed their College of Agriculture and Forestry to be Project leaders at their university. Have selected three appropriate villages. Have collected local info/stats in a database. Thai Nguyen participants suggest that NCSSH help the university to inform provincial officials when final approval of the program is given; this notification will smooth things. Vinh reports that program is very much supported by local government and university. Local government has helped them to contact three appropriate communes. Have involved female professors in planning, as well as women s union. University currently implements other donor projects (WRI; East-West Centre); have established a Centre for Environment and Resources, and a Centre for Rural Economic Development. Have a Department of Informatics with modern equipment. University has a project ongoing on rural economic surveys, and will support our program in all ways. Suggest that we all listen to ideas of local people in activity planning.

6 LPRV Project: Mission Report 6 Professor Do Thi Bing, Centre for Family and Women s Studies, NCSSH, stated that the causes of inequality and poverty are many, both subjective and objective. But everywhere they find that women are the majority of the poor. Her Centre works to develop the capacity of women, and for education to reduce inequality. Centre has useful contacts with other centres with similar goals in region and throughout the world. Has experience both in training and research. President Quy asks that each university appoint an Executive Officer to be responsible overall for the program. He reiterated the three aims of the program: 1. to contribute to poverty reduction. Key is to produce models for replication throughout the country. 2. co-ordinate and build links between scholars in two countries 3. increase the skills of 5 universities and NCSSH The projects at the 5 universities need to support these three goals. Also need to actively support gender analysis and equality activities. NCSSH will strive to create the best conditions for these goals to be met. Relationship will be supportive and co-operative. NCSSH will create the best conditions for partners to participate. Peter Boothroyd then described how CIDA and the World Bank, among others, are interested in how our programs will show that university resources can contribute to poverty reduction, in coordination with government. Our overall goal is to contribute to global poverty reduction, but must first have a strong set of pilot projects. The lessons we learn from the sites will enrich knowledge of practical applications, and this will help in other locales. Eventually, it can help in other countries as well. NCSSH will co-ordinate work of 5 partners. UBC is the lead agency overall, and co-ordinates with CIDA and Laval. Laval is a partner of UBC, and will receive funds from UBC. Laval will hold receipts, and will report back to UBC; NCSSH does same. UBC then reports to CIDA. NCSSH has same type of agreement with UBC as does Laval. NCSSH is responsible to forward funds to the universities, to manage reporting. UBC will depend heavily on NCSSH for management, reporting, accounting. NCSSH is at the centre of what needs to be a very efficient management system for Vietnam. All partners need to see and agree with how the funds will be spent. Budget outline will be presented (see attached). Approximately $2.5 million CND of CIDA funds is to be spent by the Canadian institutions, and the same amount is to be spent by the Vietnamese institutions. The operating principle is that Laval gets approx. 25% of Canadian budget. These funds cover our equipment and staff costs. Vietnam side of the budget is to cover their work and preparation costs. Principle is that each VN university gets an equal amount to spend on activities, as does NCSSH. NCSSH gets an extra portion to cover management costs. This is not rigid! Amounts might change depending upon needs and capacities of partners and sites.

7 LPRV Project: Mission Report 7 Terry McGee talked about program inputs and outputs. 1. Training. 2. Knowledge. 3. Capacity for measuring and alleviating poverty. 4. Return knowledge to government for policy. Can see that program is concerned with three levels: 1. introduce knowledge about how poverty alleviation is carried out in different contexts (e.g. micro credit, gender, natural resources, income generation). This will flow mostly from the Canadian side. Also to bring in other Asian experience, to universities and communes. Process will build capacity of Vietnam partners. 2. Actual project site activities, working with pilot site communes. Must be an interactive process between the universities and the communes in terms of identifying what is to be the most important element of local poverty reduction activities. This is participation - communes define the problems. The universities feed in the examples of solutions from elsewhere. 3. Policy evaluation function comes from experience in sites over time. Upscaling means that info and learnings are moved from sites/grassroots to the government policy makers. While the university has critical role, this is not the universities doing the research and telling the government what to do! Detailed Meeting Notes - Day 2 Budget discussion - 5 year outline presented (see attached). The program cannot pay salary or consulting fees for the work of our Vietnam partners. We were able to get funds to support the gender positions, and for program management support at NCSSH, but the details are not settled yet. CIDA would not accept our request for funds to support an administrator at each university. Did get funds for students to be assistants to the program. One line on Vietnam budget shows $220,000 over 5 years for senior students - cannot call them staff! Second objective of the program is the establishment of the CPRs and the establishment of a network. NCSSH has this as a responsibility and gets some budget support for this. Note that moving amounts within budget rows (i.e. for same item) is okay, but movement between row items needs prior approval. Small changes okay but larger may require CIDA approval. If you want to make such a change, you should inform NCSSH in advance. Steering Committee (see proposal) is the mechanism to approve such requests. Goal of the program is stated on p. 3 of the proposal. Building capacity to do/teach planning methods and models of local development. Behind the goal is a philosophy: to reduce poverty we need better planning, at the local and the central levels. It is very difficult to plan well. One list of the elements of planning: 1. define the problem (what is the poverty problem) 2. identify people s goals (instead of assuming that we know what is good for them; often there is a trade-off here, like with culture v. material goods; planning is not choosing what is right but is search for most win-win answer)

8 LPRV Project: Mission Report 8 3. appraise the facts 4. generating ideas (think creatively rather than argue a position) 5. set choices (mutually exclusive options) 6. assess each option (+/-; many planning technologies like EIA for this) 7. local people decide; planners help. Projects controlled by people. Assist national and provincial policymakers by bringing in better info from the grassroots level. Building capacity for policy assessment. Some discussion as to whether 2 comes after 3. Agree that once a decision has been made, planning goes on in recursive pattern. In our goal, methods includes capacity for teaching development models and process methods. Now we need to decide how to proceed to develop that capacity; how do we choose among useful models? Review our objectives again (see handdrawn impacts diagram attached): 1. CPRs - interdisciplinary node within university. Centre to help all at university; build capacity over 5 years. 2. Network - capacity building throughout the country. Network brings info from the world. Through work on the models in test sites, will give info back to outside world 3. Pilot projects 4. Dissemination of knowledge 5. Learning from each other In first year of preparation for site work, should think about criteria for selection. It is up to the universities to make the final choice, but there are many factors (e.g. if selected communes are on list of HEPR s 1300). The group should set a number of basic criteria so that we get full learning value from the pilots. Also use 1 st year to develop the hypotheses which will be tested in the site action research. Also acquaint people in CPRs with methods/models that can be tested in sites. Regional conferences can start planning this, or we can have a team of Canadians and NCSSH go to each university. Agreement is that we need to have one national workshop once final approval is received. Tentative date for this start-up workshop is Aug 24-26, Location is not decided. We could inform the media throughout the country, which will help local people to understand program objectives, and will help with local official s support. Workshop can include presentations on various models and methods. After large meeting, could have smaller workshops to go further. Starting focus for our 1 st year must be to increase capacities of faculty and students involved. At August meeting, we can discuss partners current levels of understanding; it may be too early to invite outside experts. Setting up steps to increase capacity is a first need. Re: learning by doing - local people will tend to see us as teachers, not as we intend to be - learners. We need to be prepared to give the people something. CPRs in network need to have a common understanding of how to do projects in sites, and how to work with local authorities.

9 LPRV Project: Mission Report 9 3 ideas for criteria for poverty level - discuss: Min. Labour produced stats based on rice income - simple and clear. Bureau of Statistics - calories as basis (recently compromised with above); level using this is 20% World Bank - basic needs of peasants - converted to $ - 50% Since Min Labour is head of HEPR, perhaps we should adopt their criteria and stop debating. HEPR national committee has recently agreed on national definition. Communes are poor if: 40%+ of households are poor; or if commune has less than 3 of six infrastructure measures (electricity, roads, schools, clean water, market, health care station); or if 40%+ people are illiterate. On this basis, defines 1300 communes as poor. More discussion re: choice of commune sites. Some attendees are adamant that sites should be chosen only after criteria and terms of reference are finalized. Conclusion: even if sites are already selected, we should not begin our learning-by-doing work until plans are fully thought through. Final comments re: August meeting: must include a report on HEPR project from a high ranking official will invite reps of MARD, Labour Canadian reps can present info from world s models on poverty alleviation tentatively plan a three day workshop proposes an outtrip to a commune for practical assessment a mix of plenary and workshop sessions (pb) steering committee to meet beforehand (pb) Laval to meet UBC team in Vancouver before (RdK) Professor Tang - called for much preliminary work. Centres should be formulated. Steering committee should build relations with CPRs. Wants clarity (a report to govt beforehand must clarify the objectives and outputs) so we can go into meeting prepared. UNDP Research Donovan Woollard, Geoff Hainsworth, Julie Nguyen and I went to UNDP on the morning of Monday June 8 th. We visited their resource library, looking for information on relevant UNDP programming and projects, statistics, and donor/ngo projects. They have a searchable database which Donovan will use in his future data collection. We located several relevant reports which will also be reviewed by Donovan in detail. The following published materials were purchased for the program information database: UNDP Vietnam Program Portfolio Project profiles in the area of Poverty Elimination, Social Policies and Development. Full reports can be obtained. UNDP in Vietnam: Some Lessons Learned in Supporting the Transition from Poverty to Prosperity. A short UNDP staff paper published in September, 1997.

10 LPRV Project: Mission Report 10 Vietnam s Development Partners: Profiles of Development Co-operation. Overview of the institutional structures, policies, programs, and plans of official development partners (i.e. foreign donors); some NGO programming info also. November Social Policies & Development: Strategy & Action Plan for UNDP Vietnam Technical Assistance in Vietnam: Trends and Implications. October Microfinance in Vietnam: A Collaborative Study based upon the Experience of NGOs, UN Agencies, and Bilateral Donors. May, UNDP and Microfinance: Summary of Activities in February Smallholder Reforestation in Central Vietnam: Experiences from the implementation of UNDP/FAO project VIE/92/022 - Provision of Technical Assistance to WFP Project 4304: Reforestation in Central Vietnam Financial Viability of Smallholder Reforestation in Vietnam. June Compendium of Environmental Projects in Vietnam to December, Details of Vietnam National Environmental Action Plan. A set of the above documents has been shipped to Laval. Please note that Geoff Hainsworth has a copy of the 1996 UNDP Human Development report (titled Catching Up ) at UBC and this will go into our program database. Geoff also has prepared a draft of the report for this year, and will forward a copy. Finally, we agreed that Donovan would accompany Geoff Hainsworth to meet with FAO representative Marcel Messier later in the week. We also found the address of the NGO Resource Centre (Le Thanh Hotel) and Donovan is going to buy copies of the NGO Directory and contact NGOs based there. Canadian Embassy Meetings I went to the Canadian Embassy with Donovan Woollard in the afternoon of Monday, June 8 th. We met first with CIDA Officer Ms. Vu Thi Yen (a former NCSSH staff). I gave her a fresh copy of the program proposal and a copy of the contact information for the meeting attendees, and briefed her on outcomes of the meeting. We then met with John Langevin, who recommends that we read a recent CECI program review. He also suggests that we speak with Peter Hoffman and Barbara Hoffman, as they are knowledgeable re: current poverty reduction programming in Vietnam. John also strongly recommends the work of an Australian economist, Adam Fforde, who writes on rural development in the Adoki papers and elsewhere. Donovan will review. We next met very briefly with Barbara Hoffman, who will review our proposal in the near future, and who is willing to share her knowledge of existing projects. She also recommended that Donovan spend some time in the library of the World Bank representative office in Hanoi, and that he try to see the representative, Mr. Paul Stott.

11 LPRV Project: Mission Report 11 Next, we met briefly with Mr. Claude Potvin, Director, Canadian Co-operation Office. Mr. Potvin has responsibility for supporting CIDA funded projects from outside the annual bilateral aid envelope, and will be a key contact for our program. Will assist our activities in any way he can. Future contact and updating is requested. Next, we met very briefly and exchanged greetings with Ambassador Marius Grinius. Finally, we met with CIDA s Canada Fund manager, Jake Buhler. The Canada Fund supports small hands-on projects on poverty reduction at the local level. We briefed Mr. Buhler on the status and objectives of the program, and then discussed Donovan s work in reviewing relevant projects. Mr. Buhler spent an hour reviewing his card file, and gave us a dozen of his best contacts working on relevant projects. Donovan will follow-up. Mr. Buhler also told us about some interesting projects he has supported, gave us a copy of the annual report for on the Canada Fund for Local Initiatives, and asked to be kept informed of our program activities. Centre for Resource and Environmental Studies (CRES) I spoke with Michael Di Gregorio, who is a project manager at CRES at the University of Hanoi (H ; W ; F ). They have completed a project called Human Dimensions of Sustainable Upland Resource Management. It focused upon training university students and teachers to do social science field research and project reporting, for the benefit of local officials. Universities of Vinh and Hue participated. He asked that Geoff Hainsworth contact him, and promised to then forward project documents to our program. Geoff has agreed to do this. NGO and Donor Project Research: Strategy Meeting Hugette Dagenais, Julie Nguyen, Donovan Woollard and myself met with Dr. Nguyen Minh Luan (NCSSH, Centre for Gender, Family, Environment and Development) on Tuesday, June 10. We began by agreeing to each contribute to the preparation of a survey of active NGO and donor/un agencies projects and programs in Vietnam, related to poverty reduction. The objective is to bring all LPRV participant institutions up to date on the current methodologies used in poverty reduction projects in Vietnam. Another benefit is the collection of contact information on relevant projects. Dr. Luan offered the following information about NGO activities in Vietnam. First, he said that he has an excellent network of contacts with both international and Vietnamese NGOs and was willing to advise the interns on their work. Second, he offered to use his contacts with the Ministry of Labour to find out more about their activities in collaboration with foreign donors and NGOs. Third, he told us that there were very few approved Vietnamese NGOs and that each of these had to have a retired state official as the head in order to be approved by the government. Fourth, he told us that the state has seven policy priorities, and that poverty reduction was being pursued in conjunction with several of these including: provision of clean water to all citizens, reforestation, agricultural extension, fishery extension.

12 LPRV Project: Mission Report 12 Dr. Luan agreed to act in support of both the interns and their products, and we all agreed that the outputs would be much improved through the provision of a Vietnamese perspective. It was further agreed that NCSSH should be consulted frequently on the NGO and donor research to be performed. It was also agreed that all research outputs are to be finalized by the end of August. The division of labour is as follows: Hugette Dagenais - completing her own initial interview for networking purposes. Will forward contact details and notes re: relevant projects after current mission. Donovan Woollard - see below for detail. Focus is upon smaller international NGOs, along with active Vietnamese institutions and NGOs. Julie Nguyen - collection of information related to UN agency, multilateral and bilateral donor programs. Donovan is to concentrate on NGOs but can assist with review of multilateral agencies (FAO, World Bank, ADB, etc.) and of donor country programming. Donor countries of greatest relevance: Australia, France, England, Japan, Holland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Italy, Germany. Vince Verlaan - creation and maintenance of a central, all inclusive NGO report and contact database, for duplication and distribution to all LPRV partner institutions. Dr. Luan - active support of both interns and local networking. Agreement with Donovan Woollard (CIDA Intern) I worked with Donovan Woollard to clarify his responsibilities as an intern working on NGO research for the benefit of the LPRV program. The following is a brief outline of his scope of work, to be completed by late August. Also included are concrete outputs, which will be made available to all the participating institutions in the program: Objective 1: to compile a database of NGO reports on past and ongoing local site-oriented projects that are focused on poverty alleviation in Vietnam. This will be complemented by contact information for the agency. Donovan will start with a Hanoi-based survey of who the players are, and where their interests lie. Donovan will collect materials pertaining to their workings in the country and, if possible and relevant, will conduct interviews with key staff to help our program benefit from their learnings. Output 1: a typed database and a collection of NGO project reports. Objective 2: to select roughly 20 highly relevant NGO projects and to prepare short summaries of their goals, methodologies, outputs and success rate. Relevance could take the form of compatibility of topic (community development, micro-credit, health), vision (facilitation of selfhelp and gender equity), and/or scope (multidisciplinary and multifaceted). In essence, any organisation in Viet Nam that has relevant experience shall be looked upon as a potential source of ideas, methods, and resources, not to mention as a potential partner for the future. Output 2: 20 one page summaries of highly relevant projects. Objective 3: to select, research and visit 5-10 active projects which could provide directly relevant information and/or models for our pilot sites. This will allow Donovan to see the steps that lead to a successful field project or, inversely, the steps that lead to an unsuccessful project.

13 LPRV Project: Mission Report 13 It will also provide an opportunity to get local perspectives on the successes and shortcomings of a certain project. This information could be referred to in the development and implementation of any projects undertaken in our pilot sites. Output 3: 5-10 detailed project reviews/case studies (5-10 pages each) Objective 4: to prepare a summary of lessons learned and experiences gained in relevant NGO projects. The purpose of this is to develop and record a systemic analysis of the NGO community in Viet Nam in general, insofar as it is highly relevant to the LPRV program, and insofar as future researchers will have a clear picture of the barriers and opportunities to successful site work in consultation with active NGOs. Output 4: page summary report. Agreement with Julie Nguyen (CIDA Intern) Julie has agreed to contribute her expertise in several areas. First she will participate in the research on donor programs as detailed above. Julie will prepare a report on her findings as an output for the program s benefit. She and Donovan are to co-operate as completely as possible in the preparation of their respective outputs, which are to be complementary. Second, Julie will continue to play a key administrative support role at NCSSH, and will be a main contact in preparation for the August meeting. Third, we have agreed that she should accompany NCSSH staff who are planning to travel to each of the participating universities in July, in order to seek out appropriate faculty to participate in field work and program planning meetings. (This is an activity that requires some immediate analysis by Canadian participants.) Finally, Julie has agreed to interface with NCSSH in regard to the development of a program steering committee for the Vietnamese side. This will be a delicate task, and also requires immediate analysis by Canadian participants. Agreement with Laval Rodolphe De Koninck requests that I contact Laval Program Co-ordinator Marc Miller in order to provide some program management advice. I will do this as soon as possible, and will send him copies of all the CIDA project management rulebooks that I can locate. Rodolphe asked to be kept informed of planning for the August meeting. He will be available at the following (lnxh@comfor.edu.vn) between June He is planning to come to Vancouver ahead of the meeting, arriving Vancouver on Wednesday August 19 th, and departing for Vietnam on Friday August 21 st. Request from NCSSH I met with Ms. Dang Anh Phuong on Sunday in order to pay all the meeting costs. She asked me to immediately prepare and forward some guidelines on CIDA project management and

14 LPRV Project: Mission Report 14 accounting. She wants clear direction from UBC regarding management of funds and program reporting, so that NCSSH can communicate with the Vietnam university partners on these matters ASAP. I promised her that I would do so. Ms. Phuong says that NCSSH has decided to hire two new staff for the International Cooperation department, and one of these people will take over Ms. Phuong s Southeast Asia coordination duties. She suggested that Peter Boothroyd write a letter to NCSSH Vice-President Nam and President Quy (after approval of the program is finalized) mentioning the budget line for a co-ordinator (NCSSH staff person). The letter should suggest by name the person UBC wants to play this role, and should give reasons why. Finally, she said that neither Ms. Binh nor Ms. Van Anh could be expected to work on the program full time on behalf of the Centre for Family and Women s Studies. She wanted to know if someone would be hired full time at the Centre using program funds. I did not know the answer to that question, but promised to raise it with our Steering Committee. Meeting with Steffanie Scott, IDRC Researcher Steffanie, a Ph.D. candidate at CSEAR, is six months into her field research near Thai Nguyen University. We briefly discussed her work on the impacts of economic changes at the household level. She is looking at the changes in the co-operative system, and at the rise of individual and family-based economic activity, with an emphasis on gender analysis. A short interim report on her findings and on the travails of field research of this type is on file. Project title is Household Responses to Decollectivization and Land Allocation in Rural Vietnam: Negotiating the New Rules of the Game. Steffanie has expressed an interest in working for the LPRV program when her IDRC support comes to an end this fall. We discussed her capabilities in analyzing the main issues related to effective pilot site research at each of the five universities. Steffanie agreed that this would be something she would like to do, and could do. She suggested that she could also assist Julie Nguyen and NCSSH staff in the identification of appropriate participating faculty at each of the five university partners. Centre for Legal Research and Services (LERES) I met with the LERES Vice-Director, Dr. Hoang Ngoc Giao, on Tuesday afternoon, to discuss the execution of a recent Canada Fund for Local Initiatives project. The goal of the project was to develop and disseminate 40,000 copies of legal information pamphlets to local people and government offices in Hanoi. The project was a success, and a second phase was funded by the Asia Foundation. Faculty of the National University of Hanoi, as well as LERES associates from other institutions, are the authors of the pamphlets. The 20 topics covered by the pamphlets included: basics of

15 LPRV Project: Mission Report 15 Family Law; legal relations between landlord and tenant; labour and employment law; the civil code; citizen s rights in criminal prosecutions; and gender-related legal questions. This last was co-written by Ms. Pham Thi Thanh Van, a lawyer affiliated with the Centre for Family and Women s Studies, NCSSH. Topics included: legal protection of women s equality (generally); political rights of women; domestic and family law; women and labour law; women s rights in civil contracts; privileges and humanitarian treatment of women when accused; criminal law and procedures relevant to female offenders. LERES is willing to assist with any legal education related activities for the five universities and/or the pilot sites. Reports on the activities in the two pamphlet projects are now on file at UBC.