Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam - Oxfam Blogs

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Participatory poverty monitoring in rural communities in Viet Nam 118 8. PARTICIPATORY PLANNING AND DECENTRALIZED FINANCING AT COMMUNE LEVEL Enhancing the participation and empowerment of communities and local residents in local government requires specific tools and procedures. Participatory planning and decentralized financing (e.g. in the form of Community Development Fund - CDF) at commune level are two initiatives effectively applied in many communes. 8.1. Reformed planning at commune level Supported by donor projects such as Chia Se (Sharing), (SIDA), Plan International, Poris (Belgium), Luxdev (Luxemburg) and Oxfam since 2010, Nghe An and Quang Tri provinces have applied participatory socio-economic development planning at the commune level 32 . Commune planning reform requires investment programmes and public services that are closer to the community. The commune participatory planning process comprises the following steps (Figure 8.1): • Step 1: Preparatory work. Establish or finalize a district, commune and village working group; organize orientation workshop on commune planning; provide training to the planning working group. • Step 2: Collect and process data and information. Collect information from villages and branches and organizations at commune level. District provides development orientations to commune. • Step 3: Synthesize and draft commune plan. Review funding sources and feasibility of proposed activities. • Step 4: Organize commune planning workshop with the participation of representatives of commune leaders, branches, mass organization and villages to get feedbacks on the draft commune plan and prioritize activities. • Step 5: Update plan, report to higher authorities and conduct community consultation. Step 6: Finalize the commune plan, issue it officially. Organize implementation, monitoring and evaluation of the commune plan. FIGURE 8.1. Commune participatory planning process 32 During the reform of planning, Nghe An and Quang Tri provinces organized study tours of Hoa Binh province. Hoa Binh was the first province issuing a decision institutionalizing a new planning approach at commune level (Decision no. 10/2010/QĐ-UBND of Hoa Binh Provincial People’s Committee dated 15 June 2010), and decentralized financing. Thereby 210 communes and wards in the province will receive an additional allocation of budget for the planning work as from 2011 with an average amount of 7 million VND/commune/year. Commune cadres continue to receive capacity building training on planning using the provincial budget (500 million VND in 2011). Communes not covered by PS-ARD Project communes funded by SDC and Northern Mountainous Poverty Reduction Project , Phase 2 funded by the World Bank, will receive funding from the province to establish Community Development Fund - CDF, 100 million VND/commune/ year, for construction of small infrastructure facilities and production support as from 2011. The decentralized provincial financing for CDF will increase by years (Official Letter No. 1307/UBND-TCTN of Hoa Binh Provincial People’s Committee dated 30 August 2010).
Five-year Synthesis Report Part 2: Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam Quang Tri Province has institutionalised socio-economic development planning at the commune level. From the lessons learned from the pilot process in Chia Se, Plan International and Oxfam, the Provincial People’s Committee officially issued a new planning process (Decision 12/QD-People’s Committee dated 1 June 2011 of Quang Tri Provincial People’s Committee). 119 Participation in the implementation of the new planning process is appreciated by local residents and authorities in Nghe An and Quang Tri (Table 8.1). TABLE 8.1. Planning before and after the introduction of the new planning process Format Method of implementation Content Resources Before application A 5-7 page document: actually a report, not a real plan Communes followed non-unified forms, no specific guidance process No direct consultation with villages, branches and organizations Manual, difficult to connect sections General content, little data from branches, mass organizations and villages Not accompanied by budget estimates, no integration of sources After application Developed into a complete plan with data and solutions Follow unified forms, with guidelines and training Collect data and information directly from villages, branches and organizations in the commune With support from software (Excel), connects well with other sections in the plan Based on local conditions, more relevant (clear links between problems, causes and solutions), proposed specific activities, which are prioritized Accompanied with budget estimates, integrated resources (within known financial sources) Two-way relations - top down and bottom up - are improved. The province issues a guideline applying to Training of Trainers (TOT) at all levels from province to district, commune and village. Through data collection at the village level, people’s expectations are taken into consideration and incorporated into the commune plan and submitted to the district. District functional agencies (agricultural extension, animal health, education, health, water) use the plan to develop their plans of action and allocate budget to meet people’s needs. However, implementing new commune plans in Nghe An and Quang Tri in 2010 and 2011 has faced many challenges (Box 8.1): • Local residents and grassroots cadres do not have the skills, processes and planning skills to use the new approach. • Recommendations from villages tend to include infrastructure facilities, cultural - social - environmental aspects and community-based solutions that do not receive sufficient attention. • The quality of information and data collected from branches and mass organizations is not high. In many communes, the proposals include regular activities of branches and organizations, not solutions contributing to commune socio-economic development orientations or poverty reduction. • Unknown financial resources at the time of planning. • Synthesis and feedback from the district level to the commune plan (through the new district planning process) are not implemented, therefore, the commune plans are not of significance in terms of inputs to the district socio-economic development plan and plans for public service provision of district agencies and branches . • Commune plans do not incorporate gender, access to markets or the management of risks associated with natural disasters and climate change. • The Provincial People’s Committee did not allocate additional budget to commune-level planning. • People’s Council has not participated in monitoring of the new planning process.
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PARTICIPATORY POVERTY MONITORING IN
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PREFACE 1 7 In early 2007, Viet Nam
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ABBREVIATIONS AND TERMS 10 ActionAi
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12 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The last five
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14 and improve monitoring and evalu
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16 TABLE 1. The monitoring points C
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18 transparency, and accountability
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20 TABLE 2. Characteristics of the
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Part 1 Poverty Trends and Key Theme
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Participatory poverty monitoring in
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Part 2 Challenges to Rural Poverty
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Challenges to Rural Poverty Reduction in Viet Nam - Oxfam Blogs

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