The PRSP Processand Environment –

the Case of Vietnam

Vietnam Country Review

‘The analysis of poverty-environment linkages is very weak…’1

The PRSP Process and Environment – the Case of Vietnam

VIETNAM COUNTRY REVIEW

Quang Nguyen & Howard Stewart

PROGRESS IN PRO-POOR ENVIRONMENTAL OUTCOMES: LEARNING LESSONS

THROUGH AN INDEPENDENT REVIEW OF STAKEHOLDER PERSPECTIVES ON THE

POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGY PAPERS

March 2005

1 View widely expressed during research discussions regarding the CPRGS analysis of poverty and environment linkages

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Suggested Reference:

Q. Nguyen & H. Stewart. January 2005. ‘The analysis of poverty-environment linkages is very weak…‘ The PRSP Process and Environment - the Case of Vietnam. Study initiated under the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), and jointly funded, and managed by CIDA, DFID and GTZ.

Other Studies in this Series

SYNTHESIS REVIEW:

Linda Waldman with contributions from A. Barrance, R.F. Benítez Ramos, A. Gadzekpo, O. Mugyenyi, Q. Nguyen, G.Tumushabe & H. Stewart. April 2005. Environment, Politics and Poverty: Lessons from a Review of PRSP Stakeholder Perspectives. Synthesis Review. Study initiated under the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), and jointly funded, and managed by CIDA, DFID and GTZ.

GHANA COUNTRY REVIEW:

A. Gadzekpo & L. Waldman. January 2005. ‘I have heard about it, but have never seen it’: Environmental Considerations in the Ghana Poverty Reduction Strategy. Study initiated under the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), and jointly funded, and managed by CIDA, DFID and GTZ.

HONDURAS COUNTRY REVIEW:

R.F. Benítez Ramos, A. Barrance & H. Stewart. January 2005. Have the Lessons of Mitch been forgotten?: The Critical Role of Sustainable Natural Resource Management for Poverty Reduction in Honduras. Study initiated under the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), and jointly funded, and managed by CIDA, DFID and GTZ.

UGANDA COUNTRY REVIEW:

O. Mugyenyi, G.Tumushabe & L. Waldman. January 2005. ‘My Voice is Also There’: The integration of environmental and natural resources into the Uganda Poverty Eradication and Action Plan. Study initiated under the Poverty and Environment Partnership (PEP), and jointly funded, and managed by CIDA, DFID and GTZ.

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Contents

Executive Summary v

Acronyms viii

Foreword x

Methodology xii

Chapter One: Introduction 1

Environment 1

Development Assistance 2

Chapter Two: Developing the CPRGS and Integrating Environment 3

The National Context 3

Vietnam’s CPRGS built on national development planning 3

Parallel process of the National Strategy for Environmental Protection 4

Partnership Groups 4

Partnerships in Poverty 4

Partnerships in Environment 5

Preparation of Vietnam’s CPRGS 5

Interim PRSP 6

CPRGS 7

CPRGS follow up activities 11

How have environmental issues been incorporated into the CPRGS? 13

The process 13

Ownership 14

Results 16

Environment and Poverty Narratives and the CPRGS 19

Environment and Poverty Narratives Included in the CPRGS 19

Environment and Poverty Narratives not included in the CPRGS 21

Chapter Three: Actors, Networks and Their Roles 23

The Communist Party of Vietnam 23

Central Government Agencies 23

Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) 24

The National Environment Agency, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment 24

Other Line Ministries 25

Local Governments 26

Participation of International Non-Governmental Organisations 26

Participation of Local Social and Professional Organisations 27

Participation of Mass Organisations 27

Public Participation 28

Donors 28

Conclusions 30

Chapter Four: Case Studies 32

Case Study - Deforestation in Dak’Lak Province 32

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Case study - The Role of Vietnam’s News Media 36

Media and Environmental Journalism 36

Voice of Vietnam Radio 36

Vietnam Television 37

Print Media and Environmental Journalism 37

Public Impacts 38

Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists 39

Chapter Five: Catalysts for Environmental Mainstreaming and

Recommendations 40

Bibliography 44

Appendix One: Background Information on Vietnam 47

Appendix Two: List of Interviews 49

Appendix Three: ‘Best practices’ for integrating poverty and environment in

Vietnam 50

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Executive Summary

Preparation of Vietnam’s PRSP: Under time pressure in negotiations with the IMF and World Bank, the Government of Vietnam (GOV) elaborated an interim PRSP (I-PRSP) that was closely linked to the GOV’s ‘Socioeconomic Development Strategy for 2001-2010’ and other key policy documents. Vietnam’s Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) was then developed following I-PRSP approval. Within the hierarchy of the government, this CPRGS remains a relatively minor document compared with the long-term development strategy and five-year plan. In a parallel national planning process, the former Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MOSTE) prepared Vietnam’s ‘National Strategy for Environment Protection’ (covering the period 2001-2010) which provides a framework for the co-ordination and implementation of programmes of environmental protection and sustainable resource use. Addressing environment and poverty linkages in the CPRGS: Environmental issues were absent from the I-PRSP but were eventually included in the final CPRGS document, though the analysis of environment and poverty linkages remained weak. The two-page section on environment mostly reflects a ‘sector’ approach. Most stakeholders agreed that no systematic attempt was made to integrate environmental sustainability principles into the other CPRGS core programmes. With the exception of the ‘large infrastructure’ section added a year later, environment issues were not mainstreamed into the sectoral policies and objectives laid out in the document. Environment and Poverty Narratives and the CPRGS: The prevailing narrative in the CPRGS sees rapid economic growth as the key to both reducing poverty and, over the longer term, environmental sustainability. In this view, rapid economic growth (and the poverty reduction that is causes) should be given top priority, even if this development has negative short term environment effects. ‘Alternative narratives’ heard from Vietnamese stakeholders, but which do not emerge in the CPRGS, talk about participatory community level initiatives and locally adapted technologies, supported by well informed public media, and their respective contributions to a more integrated achievement of economic development, poverty reduction and environmental protection. Actors, Networks and Their Roles: The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) led the drafting of the CPRGS, supported by an inter-ministerial committee drawn from sixteen different ministries that did not include the National Environment Agency. The MPI’s Department of Science, Education and Environment (DSEE) took the lead in incorporating environmental issues into the CPRGS. While the CPRGS was being prepared, the NEA was preparing the ‘National Strategy for Environmental Protection’, and was being transferred to the newly formed Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE). The NEA takes a ‘sectoral’ approach to environmental management, where normative rules and regulations take precedence over cross-sectoral policies or initiatives. The NEA was eventually involved in incorporating environmental issues into the final CPRGS, but following a sectoral approach, rather than addressing environment and poverty linkages.

A number of INGOs played significant roles in the CPRGS process but most did not raise the issue of poverty and environment linkages. Other INGOs more focused on environment and poverty issues played minor roles in the CPRGS process. Contributions of social and professional organisations (local NGOs) on environmental issues were even more limited. Mass organisations that could have played important roles in developing

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pro-poor – environmental policies, such as the Association of Journalists, were absent from the CPRGS process. The Government-Donor-NGO Poverty Working Group (PWG) and Poverty Task Force (PTF) formed the main interface between donors, NGOs and the CPRGS drafting committee. The World Bank was the leader on the donor side, while the UNDP took the lead in the environment group within the PWG/PTF. Most donors noted the lack of effective integration of environmental issues in the CPRGS process and would support a more ‘cross-cutting’ approach that jointly targets poverty reduction and environmental protection. Case Studies: A case study from Dak’Lak province reveals a situation of unsustainable rapid economic growth – in keeping with the CPRGS focus, but driving environmental degradation as well as deepening poverty and marginalisation among the poorest rural groups. As such, the results of economic growth thus contradict the prevailing narrative in the CPRGS. Another case study looks at the national news media, which played a minor role in integrating environmental issues into the CPRGS, but which is making a growing contribution to the process of integrating poverty reduction with improved environmental management.

Conclusions: The CPRGS provided the first Vietnamese opportunity for addressing environmental sustainability and poverty reduction in the same planning process. This has created real opportunities to develop pro-poor approaches at local level that can more effectively integrate environmental considerations, and translate this integrated approach into concrete actions. Many important issues that have potent effects on poor communities - marine and coastal zone degradation, soil degradation, the over-fishing and intensive aquaculture - are not addressed in the CPRGS. As demonstrated in our case studies, these issues are being confronted outside the CPRGS process. Yet weaknesses in implementation capacity remain an obstacle. Vietnam’s local governments have little or no capacity to address these issues and do not place environmental management issues high on their development and investment agendas. Another key constraint to mainstreaming environmental concerns into Vietnam’s pro-poor policies is lack of knowledge. Government agencies, local experts, even some donors lack specific information on the dynamic linkages between poverty, economic growth and the environment. This problem is exacerbated by poor horizontal co-ordination among sectoral agencies which concentrate on their own targeted sector strategies and programmes. Recommendations: There is much scope to accommodate ‘alternative narratives’ within emerging local development dialogues, to expand recognition that it is the poor who suffer most from the effects of environmental degradation and that the poor have the most to gain from many improvements in the local environment and natural resource base. There may also be scope in many places to expand acceptance of the need for payment, especially to marginal communities, for ‘environmental services’. There is a growing need to support local processes, such as in Quang Num province, that can facilitate the emergence of new models from the culture of poor communities themselves. Social and professional organisations (local NGOs) and communities can play a larger role in developing and implementing integrated poverty reduction and environmental protection

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approaches at the local level, as the central government increasingly aims to minimise its own roles at this level. Ongoing donor participation in the dialogue on mainstreaming environmental dimensions into the pro-poor development agenda – and vice versa - can be done through different agencies and institutions, both nationally and at local levels. Another opportunity for international partners is through participation in the ‘International Support Group on Environment’ (ISGE), chaired by MPI and supported by the ‘Poverty and Environment Initiative’ (itself supported by UNDP and DFID), which hopes to focus on issues related to the implementation of the CPRGS at local levels. Finally, international partners can and should also expand their engagement in the area of trade – environment – poverty interactions.

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Acronyms

AA Action Aid ADB Asian Development Bank AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area AENRP Association for Environment and Natural Resources Protection APFEJ Asia-Pacific Forum for Environmental Journalists AusAid Australian Agency for International Development CAS Country Assistance Strategy CBOs Community Based Organisations CDF Comprehensive Development Framework CEMMA Committee on Ethnic Minorities and Mountainous Areas CG Consultative Group CIDA Canadian International Development Agency CIEM Central Institute of Economic Management CPRGS Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy CRP Centre for Rural Progress CRS Catholic Relief Services DAC Development Assistance Committee DANIDA Danish International Development Agency DFID Department for International Development DSEE Department of Science, Education and Environment Department of

MPI Eco-Eco Institute of Ecological Economy EIA environmental impact assessment ENGO environmental non-government organisation ESCAP Economic and Social commission for Asia and the Pacific ESG Environment Support Group FAO Food and Agricultural Organization FDI Foreign Direct Investment GDP Gross Domestic Product GEID General Economic Issues Department of MPI GOV Government of Vietnam GSO General Statistics Office GTZ German Technical Cooperation HDI Human Development Index HEPR Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction IDA International Development Association IDS Institute of Development Studies IDTs International Development Targets IFI International Finance Institution IMF International Monetary Fund INGOs International Non-government Organisations I-PRSP Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper ISGE International Support Group on Environment IUCN World Conservation Union JBIC Japan Bank for International Cooperation JICA Japan International Cooperation Agency JSA Joint Staff Assessment KfW Kreditanstalt fur Wiederaufbau LERES Law Faculty Center for Legal Research and Services

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MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development MDG Millennium Development Goals MG Millennium Goal MOF Ministry of Finance MOLISA Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment MOSTE Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment MPI Ministry of Planning and Investment NA National Assembly NEA National Environment Agency NGO Non-Government Organisations ODA Official Development Assistance OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development OED World Bank Operations Evaluation Department PAR Public Administration Reform PIP Public Investment Plan PM Prime Minister PPA Participatory Poverty Assessment PRGF Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility PRSC Poverty Reduction Support Credit PRSP Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper PTF Poverty Task Force PWG Poverty Working Group RDSC Rural Development Support Center SCUK Save the Children UK SDC Swiss Development Cooperation SEDS Socio-Economic Development Strategy SIDA Swedish International Development Agency SME Small and Medium Enterprises SRV Socialist Republic of Vietnam UK United Kingdom UN United Nations UNDP United Nations Development Program UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund UNIDO United Nations Industrial Development Organization US United States USBTA US Bilateral Trade Agreement VACE Vietnam Association of Culture for Environment VBP Vietnam Bank for the Poor VCCI Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry VCE Vietnam Culture for the Environment VDGs Vietnam Development Goals VFEJ Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists VLSS Vietnam Living Standard Survey VOV Voice of Vietnam VND Vietnamese Dong VTV Vietnam Television WB World Bank WTO World Trade Organization WWF WorldWide Fund for Nature

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Foreword

This report results from a Vietnamese study conducted between August and October 2004. The research, part of a four country study2, reviewed Vietnam’s Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) to analyse if, why and how pro-poor environmental3 policies, activities and outcomes are being integrated. The research focused on the GPRGS process and on how this has affected environmental related policy choices, institutional changes, staffing & budgets, public debate, civil society awareness and ultimately improved environmental outcomes. Where relevant it also examined some of the activities that followed the CPRGS drafting process. This research project was initiated and conceptualised in the framework of the Poverty Environment Partnership (PEP), an informal network of around 30 donor- and non-governmental organizations that works on strengthening the nexus between poverty reduction and environmental protection in development cooperation. Within the PEP, CIDA, DFID and GTZ funded and managed the research process. The research was conducted by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Sussex, in collaboration with national and international consultants. Vietnam has pursued a policy of economic liberalisation since 1986 when it launched the Doi Moi (renovation) Policy and has shown considerable progress in poverty reduction. Unlike most other countries which develop poverty reduction strategy papers, it is not highly dependant on foreign donor investment and is not a recipient of the Highly Indebted Poor Country Relief. Research into Vietnam’s policy process and environmental planning is appropriate as the country experiences an uneasy co-existence between a state controlled and a market driven economy. The interaction between the state and private investment, coupled with high population density and high incidence of rural poverty, have significantly impacted on Vietnam’s environmental resources. Economic development since the advent of the Doi Moi has been accompanied by increasing deterioration in environmental resources. Vietnam has attempted to address this through participation in international processes such as the UN Conference on Environment and Development (in Rio de Janeiro in 1992) and through ratification of international environmental conventions (including the Millennium Development Goals). This concern with environmental issues has not, however, been explicitly linked to poverty reduction and, as this report demonstrates, the linkages between poverty and the environment remain underdeveloped. This research has focused on the poverty reduction strategy, exploring the nature of various stakeholders’ involvement in its production, to understand how environment/poverty linkages are conceptualised and what implications this may have in the implementation of poverty reduction strategies. This comparative research has the following aims across all four countries of research:

• Demonstrate if and why (or if not, why not) different stakeholders in low-income countries see environmental issues as important to poverty reduction – and the requisites for dealing with environmental issues in ways that are intelligible to (non-environmental) decision-makers.

• Provide practice-oriented policy recommendations for governments, civil society and development agencies on effective strategies (e.g. building

2 The other countries are Ghana, Honduras and Uganda. 3 The term ‘environment’ is widely defined to cover major natural resources (water, land, forests, fisheries and coastal resources etc.) and environmental hazards to water, land and air (both indoor and outdoor).

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alliances, effective communication) for how to mainstream environment into policy.

• Indicate if and how a PRS with ‘good’ environment language leads to effective implementation and follow-up, and translates into actual changes ‘on the ground’.

• Evaluate the value added of ‘environmental mainstreaming’ upstream in the policy making process and if the financial investments generated by this mainstreaming provide value for money.

• Identify key next steps to advance the process and implementation of environment integration – with some suggested recommendations and priorities for key stakeholders and for international development agencies

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Methodology

In order to consider the manner in which environmental issues have been incorporated into poverty reduction strategies, it is necessary to understand how 'environmental problems' and their links with poverty are understood in Vietnam. Although this may vary among different people and institutions according to their diverse perspectives and interests, views of environmental problems frequently take the form of narratives or brief 'stories' that identify a problem, its causes and possible solutions. This research sought to identify the range of prevailing narratives about environment and poverty-environment linkages in Vietnam, through (a) a review of CPRGS documents; (b) scanning of available documentation and websites, including government and NGO reports and publicity; (c) interviews with actual or potential stakeholders (see Appendix Two). This enabled us to examine the degree to which the CPRGS process is known amongst environmental stakeholders and to assess what views of the environment have entered the debate. It also facilitated an examination of the manner and extent to which environmental issues have been linked to poverty reduction. In order to understand the various processes associated with PRS production, we established a list of key stakeholders and interviewed as many representatives as possible. Some interviewees were selected because of their involvement in the CPRGS process. Others did not participate, but play important roles in promoting environmentally sustainable poverty reduction in Vietnam. The stakeholders’ interviews complement the analysis and synthesis of secondary data. A first round of interviews was carried out with officials from the WB and MPI to obtain general information about the CPRGS process and to identify organisations and individuals who had participated. A second round of interviews was then conducted to collect detailed information on the actual development and implementation of these pro-poor planning policies. During the subsequent drafting of the document, further primary information was gathered through in-depth interviews with Vietnamese journalists and activists. Our interviews explored different actors’ perspectives on specific environmental issues and their involvement, or failure to be involved, in integrating their concerns into the CPRGS. The interviews shed light on which stakeholders had driven which environmental agendas within the PRSP production process and the reasons why stakeholders lobbied for the incorporation of environmental issues. Certain informants were targeted to investigate key events and actor-networks, to examine the processes around developing the CPRGS and how other events and political processes external to the CPRGS may have influenced different perspectives. These interviews also provided insights into the obstacles experienced when trying to integrate references to the environment into the document and what important environmental issues have been overlooked in the CPRGS. Case studies included in this report concern deforestation and the creation of new exclusions and poverty despite economic growth, in accordance with the CPRGS focus, in the Dak’Lak Province, the role of the media in creating environmental awareness. Document review and interviews in Vietnam took place from August until early October 2004, followed by a process of data analysis, drafting and re-drafting - led by the national specialist with support from an external partner and IDS staff - that continued until mid-January 2005.

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Chapter One: Introduction

In response to growing macro-economic instability and stagnation, Vietnam officially launched its Doi Moi (Renovation) policy in 1986. The national economic system then moved rapidly from a command economy dominated by state central planning to a more decentralised and transitional economy, where market forces coexist with central state control. Reform policies included, among others, the de-collectivisation of agriculture, promulgation of a new land law promising security of land tenure, liberalisation of foreign trade and investment, implementation of a single price and market exchange rate system, equitisation of state owned enterprises, and introduction of a legal framework for encouragement of private sector led growth. The government also restructured its administrative system, decentralising major roles and responsibilities to the local governments. In the political realm, the reforms led to a more open society, with greater grass-roots democracy and local participation in decision making. The country is at an important strategic crossroads, characterised by a sometimes uneasy coexistence between a state-controlled economy and a market economy. Public sector investments remain a prime driving force behind much economic development and state interventions are not always particularly supportive of market efficiency, or of social equity. The interests of communities and private enterprises still lack an independent voice in government and are expected to be represented, as are all others, by the Party-State mechanism that dominates all political discourse. Despite significant socioeconomic achievements in the past decade, Vietnam remains a very poor country. Poverty is largely a rural phenomenon, with about 90 per cent of the country’s poor living in rural areas. The incidence of poverty is higher in rural areas (45 per cent) than in urban ones (10 – 15 per cent depending upon what estimate of unregistered migrants in poverty is used). Among the regions, poverty is clearly higher and deeper in the upland regions of the Northern Mountains and the Central Highlands where population densities are relatively low. Particularly vulnerable categories are: (i) ethnic minority groups, (ii) unregistered migrants in urban areas, and (iii) children. Further background information on Vietnam’s biophysical and socioeconomic setting is provided in Appendix 1.

Environment

Economic development since the advent of Doi Moi has been accompanied by increasing deterioration of environmental quality and natural resources. Vietnam is a developing country, with 76.5 per cent of its population living in rural areas and with the livelihoods of 70 per cent of its population depending on the exploitation of natural resources. In 2000, almost half of the country’s export by value came from crude oil, rice, coal, coffee, rubber and marine products.4 Participatory poverty assessments (PPAs) carried out in 1999 suggested that the lack of access to natural resources such as land, water and forest resources is one of the main causes of rural poverty. Vietnam’s rural poor are dependent on the direct use of natural resources, and are therefore most severely affected when their environment is degraded or when their access to natural resources is limited or denied. In Vietnam, many ethnic minorities live on steeply sloped areas in the northern highland regions where their

4 Vietnam: Selected Issues and Statistical Appendix, 2001, January 2002, IMF, pp 79 (quoted by Leisher, 2003: 1)

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livelihoods are especially vulnerable to soil degradation and deforestation. Bio-diversity is also under threat. Total forest cover has improved marginally in recent years, but the quality of forests is a concern, with species-rich natural forests being replaced with plantation monocultures. The poor are also the most exposed to environmental hazards, such as water and air pollution and toxic wastes, and they are also the least capable of coping with these when they occur. Vietnam is prone to natural disasters, particularly floods, typhoons, and drought. On average, more than one million people need emergency relief each year due to natural calamities (PTF, 2002a and b). Again, the poor figure disproportionately among those most exposed to these natural disasters. Environmental degradation, particularly deforestation of upper watersheds, increases the negative impacts of these events on poor and vulnerable riparian populations downstream.

Development Assistance

From 1975 to the latter part of the 1980s, only the UN system, Sweden and Finland were active as donors in Vietnam. In the late 1980s and early 1990s there was a rapid increase both in aid flows and in the number of donors (and international NGOs) operating in Vietnam. The World Bank and the IMF provided technical advice to the Government of Vietnam (GOV) for a number of years before actual lending recommenced in 1994, with the lifting of the US embargo on the country. The first Consultative Group Meeting for Vietnam was convened in 1994 (Price-Thomas, 2003: 4). ODA has played an important role in generating opportunities for the nation to attain desired economic growth rates, alleviate poverty and improve living standards. ODA resources have been allocated in direct support of Government's priority sectors, namely power (24 per cent), transportation (27.5 per cent), agriculture and rural development including fisheries, forestry, irrigation (12.74 per cent), water supply and drainage (7.8 per cent), social development, health, education and training, science, technology and the environment (11.87 per cent).5 By 2002, ODA had mushroomed to the point that 45 official donors and about 500 international NGOs were working in Vietnam. Japan, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Bank are the country’s largest bilateral and multilateral donors. Aid disbursement is dominated by conventional capital projects and technical assistance. In 2001, capital investment projects accounted for more than half of aid flows, alongside roughly equal amounts of technical assistance and balance of payments/ programme support. Today, Vietnam is one of the largest aid recipients in the world, with an annual donor pledge of about US $ 2.5 billion in recent years. The overall share of aid in total government spending remains less than 5 per cent (Swinkels, 2004: 1) and aid is still less than 2 per cent of the country’s GDP. Yet since the early 1990s, ODA as a share of the Government’s capital budget has risen from less than 25 to over 80 per cent. This level of aid dependence is mitigated by the strong growth of exports and of foreign investment and the Vietnamese government remains jealous of national sovereignty; it is no pushover for the policy prescriptions of high volume donors. While it makes extensive use of it, Vietnam is not ‘addicted to ODA’ (Lister, 2003: 9).

5 MPI figures provided on the web: http:// www.mpi.gov.vn

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Chapter Two: Developing the CPRGS and Integrating Environment

The National Context

The PRS approach was introduced in Vietnam at a point when the government was accelerating its reform agenda, in order to recuperate from the Asian economic crisis and to improve the quality of national development processes. A World Bank economic report highlighted that while the country had good economic performance during the first decade of reform, a number of macro-economic trends were still inconsistent with long term rapid growth, accompanied by appreciable reduction in poverty and greater equity: ‘Substantial inefficiencies persist and growth is inward-looking, increasingly capital-intensive and biased in favour of urban dwellers’ (World Bank, 1997: p. iv). In response to this situation, Vietnam’s ruling Party-State adopted a number of reform policies and measures starting in the second half of the 1990s. These aimed to achieve a greater level of market orientation and decentralisation. Some key events in this process: • In 1996 a new Civil Code was enacted, providing an important legal foundation for the

functioning of the market economy. • In 1997 the Government promulgated the Budget Law of Vietnam, decentralising major

financial responsibilities to local governments. • The legal framework for investment and trade was improved with the amendment of

the Foreign Investment Law and the approval of a Commercial Law in 1997. • In 1998 the government issued the Decree for Grassroots Democracy allowing a

certain involvement of community people in managing the local development. In the five years following this, a major decentralisation policy has emerged, supported by the revision of the Budget Laws, the Land Laws, and the Law for Organization of People’s Councils and People’s Committee, and the promulgation of the Construction Laws.

• In 1999 the Law on Enterprises was introduced to create a more level playing field for private sector enterprises. Reform measures were also introduced in the banking sector, with the adoption of numerous regulations and actions on collateral, on foreign exchange operations, on capital adequacy requirements, on bank inspections and on structuring joint stock banks.

• A Vietnam-US Bilateral Trade Agreement was signed in 2001, opening a new era of trade and economic cooperation between two countries. Moreover, Vietnam accelerated its effort to become a member of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Vietnam’s CPRGS built on national development planning

The process of preparing Vietnam’s interim poverty reduction strategy (I-PRSP) was able to build upon other important national planning events. In 1998 the country started to prepare its long-term (ten year) and medium-term (five year) development plans. The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), designated by the Central Government as coordinating agency for these planning exercises, worked together with other line ministries and provincial governments to formulate the Ten-year National Socioeconomic Development Strategy for 2000 – 2010 and Five-year National Socioeconomic Plan for 2000-2005. At the same time, line ministries and agencies prepared their own ten-year and five-year sector plans based on the strategic goals set out in the national strategy. The Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) also drafted a ‘Comprehensive

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Poverty Reduction Strategy to 2010’ as part of this Ten Year planning process. MOLISA’s strategy set the framework for the five years ‘Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction (HEPR) Plan’; MOLISA was also to coordinate implementation of this HEPR plan. These strategies and plans described long-term visions, strategies and investment proposals for national development over the coming decade. The national long-term development strategy and medium term plan were reviewed and endorsed at the Ninth Party Congress in 2000, before being finally approved by the National Assembly. These long-term national development strategies and plans all provided an important base for the drafting of the I-PRSP. Yet these strategies and plans were formulated without significant analysis of the links between growth and poverty. For example, the five-year HEPR plan did not look into the structural causes of poverty. Further, the development goals that are laid out in these strategies and plans were not prioritised and no costs were associated with proposed actions. In Vietnam in general, such strategy plans have a tradition of being very comprehensive, but lacking in analysis of underlying causes and strategic frameworks for implementation. Such plans tend to emphasise inputs and outputs rather than outcomes (Turk and Swinkels, 2002). Parallel process of the National Strategy for Environmental Protection

Starting in 1998, as part of the broader national planning process outlined above, the former Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment (MOSTE) was instructed to prepare a ten-year national environmental strategy (for the period 2001-2010) and a five year national environmental plan. Vietnam’s ‘National Strategy for Environment Protection’ was drafted initially in 2000, then updated and approved in 2003. This strategy provides a framework for the co-ordination and implementation of programmes of environmental protection and sustainable resource use. The strategy is based on an analysis of issues derived from the National Environmental Agency’s annual ‘State of the Environment’ reporting and a joint government-donor study on the lessons of a decade of aid in the environment. Partnership Groups

In 1998, in response to a request from the Prime Minister and to the need for improved coordination and ownership of internationally funded programmes in Vietnam, more than twenty government – donor partnership groups were established in various sectors and areas included poverty, gender, education, environment and others. Some partnership groups also included a number of social and professional organisations (local NGOs) and international NGOs among their members. Partnerships in Poverty

In line with this new approach, a Poverty Working Group (PWG) was formed in February 1999 and has since played a key role in defining the way forward in Vietnam’s efforts to reduce poverty. Initially, this PWG focused on co-ordinating a detailed poverty analysis (through Participatory Poverty Assessments – PPAs). In 2000, a Poverty Task Force (PTF) was also created, involving major government agencies. The original PWG then became open to all development stakeholders not involved in the more government oriented PTF. Together, the PWG and PTF represent the main mechanisms for Government-donor-NGO interaction on strategic planning for poverty reduction. PTF/PWG members jointly funded and contributed to analytical work in support of pro-poor planning. Through PTF/PWG facilitation, a forum was created for poverty related dialogue among

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government and other stakeholders. Consultations and workshops were funded where new topics were raised and new voices heard. They also contributed analytical work and the formulation of the Vietnam Development Goals (VDGs), which were inspired by the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), but adapted and expanded to meet local needs. Partnerships in Environment

In the environment, an international environmental support group (ISGE) was established in 2001 following the recommendation of an international conference on Aid Coordination in Environment Sector in 2000.6 Its objective is to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of development aid in the environment sector, in line with government policy and priorities. However, it was not until May 2002 that different ministries, donors and NGOs were able to sign a memorandum of understanding regarding the ISGE’s operation. Then, in November 2002, in an effort to improve institutional effectiveness, the Government established a new ministry for Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE). The National Environment Agency was moved to this new ministry from its earlier location within the Ministry of Science Technology and the Environment (MOSTE). This reorganisation process rendered the ISGE inactive for a long period (World Bank, 2003b: 21). The ISGE’s inactivity during much of Vietnam’s PRS process meant there were very few working links between the activities of the ISGE and the PWG/PTF. These events, have contributed to environmental issues not being integrated as well as they might have been in the I-PRSP and the CPRGS documents. Preparation of Vietnam’s CPRGS

The government of Vietnam announced its intention to produce a PRSP in July 2000. Recognising that this exercise would take time and require extensive analytical work, and in the face of time pressures imposed by negotiations with the IMF and the World Bank on their PRGF and PRSC loan arrangements, the GOV decided first to elaborate an interim PRSP or I-PRSP (Shanks and Turk, 2002: 7). The GOV’s motivation to undertake a PRSP can be seen from different angles. First, conducting a PRSP was a requirement for approval of lending programmes under the PRGF and PRSC. Though Vietnam is not as highly dependent on development aid as many recipient countries, the country still wanted to ensure continued access to IFI concessional loans (Conway, 2004: 22). Second, the country was committed to a programme of sweeping reforms designed to greatly increase Vietnam’s openness to the world economy. The government recognised that issues of macroeconomic management as well as social equity needed to be tackled to enhance the quality of development.7 The government resolved to bring in

6 Government and donors also share a common objective to set up an environment support group to optimise the effectiveness of donor investment in the environment. Procedure arrangements for the environment support group (ESG) includes: identification of potential environment partnership; finalisation of the ESG submission to the Government, convening of the ESG; forming and funding of the ESG secretariat; and launching the pilot environment partnerships (WB, 2000: 27). 7 By signing up to AFTA and USBTA (and negotiating to joint WTO), Vietnam has better access to global market and technology flows. However, the country is also committed to move to an environment of uniform and low tariff rates. This new trade regime would encourage greater competition and consequently, efficiency in export and import production sectors.

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comprehensive international support and experience to help promote economic growth and attack poverty.8 Instead of MOLISA, which had played a leading role in the preparation of the national HEPR plans, the Government assigned MPI to coordinate the contributions of central government agencies and local governments into the preparation of the Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (I-PRSP). This decision permitted a better inter-ministerial coordination of the PRSP process, because MPI was a focal national agency responsible for planning all types of investment, including those from ODA and FDI sources. With assistance from the World Bank and the IMF, and also from the UNDP and the FAO, the MPI’s team of national experts completed the I-PRSP by March 2001. Relevant ministries, agencies, mass organisations and representatives of the donor community provided a wide range of consultations and comments during its formulation.9

Interim PRSP

TheI-PRSP was necessarily closely linked to the GOV’s draft ‘Socioeconomic Development Strategy for 2001-2010’, to the framework of ‘Development Plan for the 2001-2005’ and to the ‘Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction Strategy for the 2001-2010’. It was also based on an analysis of poverty facilitated by the PTF/PWG using data from roughly six thousand households, gathered by the General Statistical Office in their 1992-1993 and 1997-1998 “Vietnam Living Standard Surveys”, as well as four PPAs, conducted during 1999, involving more than a thousand poor households in different parts of Vietnam. Before its approval, a draft of the I-PRSP was circulated to the participants and discussed at the Consultative Group meeting in December 2000. Many poverty-related issues were raised that required more comprehensive analysis.10 There was also a widely recognised need to conduct more broad-based participatory consultations with poor communities and households to discuss strategic poverty reduction approaches. The Vietnamese authorities recognised it was necessary to conduct more consultative/participatory activities and analyses to translate and refine the I-PRSP into a comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper (full PRSP). The GOV estimated this work could be completed within roughly a year. In the I-PRSP, environmental issues, specifically the linkages between environment and poverty, were overlooked (cf. Bojö and Reddy, 2002; 2003). A similar situation occurred with the ‘Comprehensive Poverty Reduction Strategy for 2001-2010’ and reports related to four PPAs. The environment was referred to only once in very superficial form: ‘…protect the environment so the poor can maintain healthy lives. Strengthen natural resource management. Combine economic development with protection of the environment linked

8 Interview with Mrs. Dinh Thi Chinh, MPI official 9 During the process of I-PRSP formulation, more than 60 comments were provided by local and international agencies through 3 international workshops and various national workshops. 10 The Joint’s Staff Assessment critique of the I-PRSP was as follows: indicators and monitoring mechanisms were not identified; there were gaps in the poverty analysis which made it hard to link proposed policy measures to poverty outcomes; sector strategies needed elaboration; programmes needed to be prioritised and calculated; participation in the process needed to be strengthened; governance and accountability issues needed to be addressed; and there was a need to pay specific attention to the needs of vulnerable groups who would not necessarily benefit from structural reform (quoted by Conway, 2004: 23).

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to the objective of hunger eradication, poverty reduction and improving the people’s living environment’ (GOV, 2001: 18).

It is not clear why environment - poverty interrelations were neglected in this first stage of the PRSP process. Although the Vietnam government interpreted the environment in a general manner and did not seek to link environmental issues to the main economic focus of the CPRGS (discussed in more detail below), in fact, as investment planners, MPI’s experts were not particularly interested in, nor well prepared to carry out an analysis of the cause and effect linkages between poverty and the environment. The current planning practices at MPI are still influenced by the previous command planning model, where resource distribution is a top-down process aimed at supporting achievement of a set of prioritised targets, mostly related to rapid industrialisation and defined by Communist Party resolutions and policies. The role of planning in this process is to ensure that production targets are met and certain socio-economic goals achieved. Within this context, planning is not seen as a means of addressing social or environmental issues but rather a process of allocation of state resources to meet strictly economic targets, usually directly related to GDP growth. In this system, central planners such as those at MPI are very focused on the achievement of economic targets and lacking the expertise needed for strategic analysis of complex issues such as poverty – environment linkages. Their appraisal of potential investment projects considers potential direct economic returns on proposed investments of government resources, but does not consider other indirect socio-economic or environmental implications of these investments. But what about the input of the many international and local experts also involved in the consultation process? It is important to remember that, concurrent with the CPRGS process, the donor community was also providing technical and financial support for the drafting of the Environment Protection Strategy, 2001-2010. It is unclear why the main advisor, the World Bank, did not push to include environmental issues in the consultation process. The fact that environmental issues were not integrated within the I-PRSP process can perhaps best be explained by a lack of coordination among different government and donor agencies active in Vietnam, in a context where the government was under pressure to negotiate new credits from the World Bank and IMF. CPRGS

Soon after the I-PRSP was approved, the GOV began the necessary steps to develop a full PRSP. To reflect the local ownership, this was called the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). Once again, MPI was assigned to lead the drafting process. An inter-ministerial committee comprising of 52 members from 16 different ministries and agencies was established to prepare the document. Representatives from MOSTE (which housed the National Environment Agency at the time) were absent because of the middle of a reorganisation process.11 A deputy head of the MPI’s department on Science, Education and Environment took the lead for environmental issues within the drafting team.12

11 The multi-agency drafting committee included representatives from Ministries Foreign Affairs, Planning and Investment, Agriculture and Rural Development, Health, Construction, Labour Invalids and Social Affairs, Industry, Finance, Transport and Communications, Education and Training, General Statistical Office, Committee for Ethnic Groups and Mountainous Areas, Committee for Innovation and Guidance and State Owned Enterprises Development, State Bank of Vietnam, Government Commission on Organization and Personnel, Electricity of Vietnam (Shanks and Turk, 2002: 5). 12 Interviews with Mrs Dinh Thi Chinh (MPI) and Mr. Duong Thanh An (MONRE)

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Some sectoral members of the drafting committee subsequently set up their own internal working groups or organised consultation workshops to generate their specific inputs for the CPRGS elaboration. These sectoral groups very often included the same representatives that worked with the analysis on the Vietnam Development Goal (VDG) papers.13 The PTF, which had initially been established to coordinate detailed analyses of poverty issues, then continued as a mechanism for coordinating support for the development of the CPRGS. It was asked by the Government to support the preparation of background papers in eight thematic areas,14 which represented a basis for the overall strategy to fight poverty. Several of the themes had a direct link with the Millennium Development Goals. Others were chosen on the basis of their strategic importance in terms of promoting economic growth, poverty reduction and social equity. First drafts of thematic papers, including a paper on the environment, were discussed at a three day workshop held in September 2001 in Haiphong and attended by nearly a hundred policymakers and practitioners from government agencies, donors and NGOs. The workshop resulted in a tentative list of draft Vietnam Development Goals (VDGs) to serve as a basis for further consultation across Government. This work in progress was discussed at the consultative Group meeting in December 2001 and there was strong support for the government proposal that these localised goals should form the backbone of the CPRGS. The PTF also supported MPI in conducting two sets of consultative exercises in 2002 related to identifying goals and targets. In the first, key messages from the I-PRSP were synthesised and brought into six different local level consultations during December 2001 and January 2002.15 In the second, findings from these consultations became one of the inputs to a second round of workshops, four regional consultations organised during January -May 2002 and a final consultative workshop held in Hanoi in May 2002. Consultations also took place with sectoral ministries and agencies during the months while the CPRGS was being drafted. The final CPRGS incorporating the VDGs was approved by the PM in May 2002. The GOV considered this document as an ‘action plan that translates the Government Ten Year Socioeconomic Development Strategy, Five Year Socioeconomic Development Plan as well as other sectoral development plans into concrete measures with well defined roadmaps for implementation’ (GOV, 2003a: 2). According to an international expert, the CPRGS is ‘something of a hybrid document, mixing in content and style the features of both GOV strategic planning and international donor policy document’ (Conway, 2004: 24).

13 For example, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the World Health Organization (WHO) led the work on the health in close collaboration with the broader health sector-working group. 14 Eight thematic areas selected for analysis are: (i) Poverty (World Bank) (ii) Health (Asian Development Bank); (iii) Education (DFID UK); (iv) Environment (UNDP); (v) Infrastructure (Japan); (vi) Ethnic Minorities (UNDP); (vii) Governance (ADB); (viii) Social Protection (World Bank) (Turk and Swinkels, 2002: 7) 15 Four consultations were carried out in the same locations where four PPAs had been conducted (Ho Chi Minh City, Ha Tinh, Tra Vinh and Lao Cai provinces). Two additional consultations were in Quang Tri and Vinh Long provinces (Shanks and Turk, 2002: 9).

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Box 2.1: Strengths and Weaknesses of the CPRGS assessed by IMF and IDA staff

The June 2002 Joint Staff Assessment (JSA) on the CPRGS acknowledged strengths of the documents such as: (i) the active participation by a wide range of stakeholders in the drafting process; (ii) a robust and comprehensive analysis of poverty which makes balanced use of quantitative and qualitative evidence; (iii) the articulation of a growth-based strategy for poverty reduction with policies covering macroeconomic, structural, and sectoral areas; (iv) the attention given to improving governance; (v) the identification of outcome targets addressing the national challenges and the government’s international commitments to the Millennium Development Goals (MDG); and (vi) an attempt to prioritise public actions and to assess their resource implications.

Criticisms raised in the Assessment included: (i) national targeted programmes such as HERP have not been systematically evaluated, questioning Government’s continued reliance on these as cornerstones of its poverty reduction strategy; (ii) there is a lack of contingency plans in the macroeconomic component of the CPRGS; (iii) the document fails to address the difficulties of reconciling the objective of liberalisation, trade development and job creation, and has not adequately modelled the poverty and social impact of the reform strategy and the capacity of safety nets to respond to these outcomes.

The CPRGS has been a donor-led approach that, to certain extent, has been modified in response to local conditions. The Vietnamese government could be said to ‘own the document’ in the sense that government agencies and officials have participated actively in the process and it was promulgated as an official planning document. Nevertheless, within the hierarchy of the government, it remains a relatively minor document compared with the long-term development strategy and five-year plan. In reality, the indigenous planning system sees the CPRGS as something akin to a ‘sector strategy on poverty and social equity’.

Box 2.2: What did the CPRGS process bring to Vietnam and its planners?

With the CPRGS process, the donors introduced a strategic and participatory planning approach to Vietnam at the national level. This approach is highly welcomed by the Government as a tool for delivering Official Development Assistance (ODA) more effectively:

‘The PRS process has introduced a number of innovations, including participatory poverty assessments and

local consultations, explicit targets and formal monitoring and evaluation systems, government-donor-NGO forums to exchange information and intensify the policy dialogue and collaborative planning mechanism at the

central level’ (Pincus, and Thang. 2004: 9)

Many writers and stakeholders interviewed saw the CPRGS as a ‘good participatory and strategic planning

exercise’ and some would like to apply this methodology to their sector or development plans, for example:

‘The process of drafting the CPRGS was more transparent – particularly to the donor community and people outside the Government – than the production of the SEDS and the five year plan. This in itself marks a major

change in the style of Vietnamese planning’ (Pincus and Thang, 2004: 25).

‘The methodology used to prepare the CPRGS was very good. There was a lot of participation and

consultation. However, there will be no new CPRGS. We will apply the planning approach of the CPRGS to

develop our next five year plan 2005-2010’ (representative of a government agency).

‘The CPRGS plays an important role in knitting together the components of these sectoral strategies by giving

them a poverty focus, addressing cross-sectoral issues, and identifying priorities’ (IMF-IDA, 2002:3).

‘The CPRGS also brings in a number of so-called ‘cross-cutting issues’ such as gender equality and

environmental sustainability that are largely absent from the national planning documents…’ (Pincus and Thang. 2004: 6).

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It could prove difficult for the CPRGS to bring about lasting changes to national and local planning processes however:

‘… the CPRGS has had little apparent impact on the PIP, despite the fact that it was produced by the same department in MPI that led the CPRGS drafting team’ (Pincus and Thang. 2004: 6)

‘All respondents agree that capacity constraints are a major obstacle to change at the province level.

Provinces lack the skills required to program, implement and monitor service delivery, let alone participatory planning and policy analysis’ (Pincus and Thang. 2004: 41).

‘Provincial DPIs have to wait for MPI’s new guidelines, … no guidelines sent yet… these will specify who is to be involved, consulted in planning process, … this is still not clarified…There are not just provinces to consider

but lower administrative levels and the line / sectoral ministries… there is expected to be a lot of participation from sectors, even international partners in developing these provincial plans…’ (representative of a international funding agency).

The CPRGS was prepared first to meet the conditions attached to donor loans that would address poverty reduction. MPI’s officials also recognised that the CPRGS represented a useful planning approach, likely to help them meet their economic growth and poverty reduction goals. Nevertheless, the country’s medium term (5 years) and long term (10 year) socio-economic development strategies and plans were elaborated in the standard fashion, in accordance with Party policies and resolutions. These plans and strategies are produced centrally, but formulated on the basis of extensive formal and state-controlled consultations within the Party and through the party’s ’mass organisations’. In this context, the CPRGS could only be designated by the government as a special ‘sector plan’, benefiting from the technical contributions of a wide range of officials and experts. Inevitably, the medium and long term development strategies and plans, approved by the Communist Party and the National Assembly and subject to a formal process of consultation, have greater legitimacy and official status than the CPRGS and represent the political and legal framework within which the CPRGS has been formulated and will be implemented. The CPRGS document appears to be seen more as a basis for defining national vision and future strategies, rather than a practical plan for implementation. The document emphasises policies rather than concrete tasks or actions and does not assign priorities to the different issues raised. There is practically no linkage established between the CPRGS and the government’s Public Investment Plan (PIP), for example, though this PIP is also prepared by the MPI, nor is there any linkage with the government’s budget lines (IMF-IDA, 2004: 3). This makes it more difficult for central and local governments and their donor partners to discuss and to define concrete programmes emerging from this document. The CPRGS is nonetheless a significant planning document in that it has been promulgated by the Central Government (though not the National Assembly), which considers it an ‘action plan’ of the broader Socio-Economic Development Strategy (SEDS). The CPRGS was produced outside the normal government planning framework. So, while it is publicly praised as an action plan, it cannot replace the officially approved five-year plan. Some interviewees commented that the CPRGS does not represent the main national development strategy since it is practically unknown at the provincial and communal levels and is not linked to the finance allocation process. Another weakness of the CPRGS is its lack of coherent strategic orientation. The document tries to comprehensively reflect the priorities of many different government, donor, NGO and community-level stakeholders. As a result, overall priorities do not clearly

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emerge, and each sector is left to implement policies and strategies defined in the CPRGS according to its own interpretation. Given this situation, the lack of linkage between the CPRGS and the government’s budget allocation process is perhaps understandable. Nevertheless, the CPRGS has had a significant impact. Its pro-poor planning process has created a policy space for many national actors to dialogue with donors in this very specific policy area. It also provides an efficient and effective framework for donors and government to coordinate with each other. The process has promoted better coordination and cooperation between sectoral agencies. Perhaps the most important impact has been the learning process. By working together with international agencies, local officials and researchers have learned much about participatory and strategic planning techniques and gained valuable new knowledge and experience related to poverty reduction. Recognising these strengths of the CPRGS process, the government decided to integrate these approaches into its process of preparing the five-year plan for 2006-2010 (WB, 2004a: ii). CPRGS follow up activities

In September 2002, the GOV established a Steering Committee to oversee implementation of the CPRGS. MPI also set up an inter-ministerial working group to coordinate CPRGS implementation activities (IWG, 2003: 1). This group has been collaborating with concerned ministries, agencies, provinces and the PTF/ PWG to ‘roll out’ the CPRGS to sub-national levels. A core group of donors, comprising ADB, DfID, GTZ, JICA, UNDP and the World Bank, was created to support follow up activities including (i) regional workshops to discuss the CPRGS approach and its implication for sector and local planning processes; (ii) regional poverty assessments focused on specific dimensions of poverty in each region; and (iii) support for pilot programmes to integrate the CPRGS process into local planning in selected provinces. Provincial pilots aim to help these provinces develop their pro-poor socioeconomic development plan, with targets and policies based on strong situation analysis, and in which budget allocation and management will be geared towards achieving prioritised targets and policies. During 2003 the PTF supported the conduct of the PPAs in twelve provinces and related ‘Regional Poverty Assessments, with eight donors contributing financial and human resources’ (World Bank, 2003b: 13). Unlike earlier deliberations, these PPAs appear to have included consideration of issues of poverty - environmental linkages although the results are far from what was expected. The reasons for this shift in focus and a certain new awareness of environmental issues are discussed in more detail in the following section. The main objective of “rolling out” the CPRGS at sub-national levels is to support provinces in the development of local socio-economic development plans that address poverty. This “rolling out” involves a comprehensive approach, starting with in-depth analysis of the provincial situation, then the setting of a vision, the identification of corresponding targets, policy formulation, resource alignment, and results monitoring. There is systematic use of popular consultation throughout the process. It is hoped that this process, which the Government expects to complete by 2008, will contribute to poverty reduction in the less-developed provinces (World Bank, 2003a). So far, roughly twenty provinces supported by donors have started experimenting with the preparation of the strategic and participatory plans. Without imposing specific guidelines,

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MPI has indicated that the “rolling out” of the CPRGS process should include the following principles: (i) preparing plans based on sound data and evidence; (ii) shifting focus away from production targets to development outcomes; (iii) encouraging a broad range of stakeholder participation and community consultation; (iv) linking the socioeconomic plan to budget and investment plans; and (v) developing a monitoring and assessing framework. During a PTF meeting organised in October 2004, representatives from four provinces (Dak Nong, Ninh Binh, Quang Tri and HCMC) presented their work to date on pro-poor five-year plans. They face common challenges including confusion about what indicators to use for their diagnostic and monitoring processes, constraints on the participation of a broad range of stakeholders, time and resource limitations on their planning processes and regulations that restrict the flexibility of local authorities when it comes to resource allocation. Provincial officials acknowledge that local planning process have been improved by the broad participation of development actors. This has enhanced awareness among local staff about the CPRGS approach in general and innovative thinking on the linkages between growth, poverty reduction and environment sustainability in particular. Some mentioned that the plan becomes more effective with the incorporation of the objectives of poverty reduction and social development. There have also been several efforts to integrate the CPRGS policies and strategies into sector plans at the national level. Almost twenty development partnership groups (comprising of local agencies and donors) have accelerated their activities to support different ministries in implementing the CPRGS policies. For example, the International Support Group (ISG) has contributed to MARD’s thematic report on Implementation of CPRGS in rural areas. In the environment sector, three Thematic Ad-hoc Groups (TAGs) including (1) Water Resources and Environment; (2) CPRGS implementation and Natural Resources and Environment (NRE); and (3) Capacity Building and Institutional Strengthening for NRE, have been established. Together with the National Strategy on Environment Protection to 2010 and Vision toward 2020, the CPRGS will be used as the framework to develop a work plan for TAG 2. So far the International Support Group on Natural Resources and Environment (ISGE) has not contributed directly to NRE strategies and programs(TAG 2) (WB, 2004b: 21). Since the beginning of 2004, the National Environmental Fund started its operation on three main scopes of activities: (i) formulation of an organisational structure; (ii) financial management and mobilisation; and (iii) support to concrete projects for the environmental protection. So far, the Fund has received about 200 billion VND of registered capital from the Ministry of Finance. It also started to provide loans for two economic entities to improve their facilities for the treatment of the polluted environment. In response to environmental concerns reflected in the National Agenda 21, other environmental plans and strategies, and the CPRGS, the Party Politburo promulgated Resolution 41 (November 2004) orienting environment protection in the context of promoting industrialisation and modernisation. The resolution highlights the need to harmonise the objectives of socioeconomic development and environmental protection and calls for specific mandates to control adverse environmental impacts. Following this Party Resolution, the Prime Minister decided to increase the budget allocation for environmental protection to one per cent of the national budget in the 2006 plan. The head of the government also encouraged broader participation in environmental protection activities, including the participation of the private sector.

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With respect to financial support, a number of donors including World Bank, ADB, UNDP, CIDA and DfID have agreed to make resources available to implement the CPRGS. Most notably, the World Bank’s CAS for Vietnam has now fully aligned the Bank’s programme with the CPRGS. In June 2001, the World Bank approved its ‘PRSC 1’, amounting to US$250 million, following Vietnam’s completion of the I-PRSP. The focus of this loan was mainly on the structural reform agenda. ‘PRSC 2’, amounting to US$100 million, was approved in June 2003, based on the full CPRGS document. This second credit, in addition to the structural reform activities covered by PRSC 1, included various policy actions aimed at keeping development inclusive and building modern government, including a certain number of measures related to the environment. Co-financing for the first PRSC of almost US $ 50 million was provided by Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. Co-financing of the second PRSC has so far amounted to US $ 34 million. For several co-financiers, their support to PRSC 2 has apparently become an important pillar of their overall assistance strategy for Vietnam. This level of support has enabled the PRSC to become a broad-base vehicle for donor engagement in policy discussions within the CPRGS process.

How have environmental issues been incorporated into the CPRGS?

The process

A former programme officer of an international funding agency commented: ‘When we were invited to the consultation (of the I-PRSP) there was nothing on the environment’. In fact, even the most prominent environment and poverty issues were totally absent from the first versions of the CPRGS that became the approved I-PRSP.16 The first step in incorporating environmental issues into the CPRGS was the process of preparing eight thematic background papers on the IDTs, one of which dealt with localising the environmental IDTs. UNDP was assigned to take the lead in this preparation. A research team headed by Mr. Craig Leisher of WWF-Indochina17 was commissioned to conduct the survey and draft the document. The team carried out consultations with different government agencies, donors and NGOs, including: MPI, MOSTE, CEMA, Eco-Eco, CRP, JICA, World Bank, UNICEF, UNIDO, UNDP and WWF- Indochina Program. An early draft of their work was also presented to a ‘Vietnam Development Targets’ workshop organised in Hai Phong during September 2001. Their report focused on environment – poverty links in Vietnam in a very general manner, targeting more specifically the formulation of three IDTs indicators on environment.18 Their work recognised that IDTs are long-term and general targets and that more Vietnam-specific intermediate indicators, relevant to the Vietnamese context, were needed to measure progress towards the longer-term targets.

16 A similar observation was in the work of Leisher (2002). 17 Mr. Craig Leisher had been an experienced expert on environment at UNDP. He moved to WWF Indochina Program when doing the report. 18 IDT’s indicators discussed in the report are as follows: (i) per centage of the population that has long–term access to safe water; (ii) forest cover as a per centage of total country area (iii) per centage of water and air quality monitoring station showing improvements over the baseline (PTF, 2002a).

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Their report made a positive contribution to the CPRGS by facilitating the design and incorporation of certain indicators to measure environmental conditions. However, being conducted under time pressure and with a strong focus on indicators, it did not include an in-depth, practical analysis of the environment and poverty linkages in the local context. No issues were prioritised, no strategy presented. The methodological approach was strictly top-down, with its starting point in the international IDTs rather than the real situation in Vietnam. There was an absence of discussion on specific cross-cutting issues emerging from the CPRGS document, such as: how to integrate effective environmental safeguards into the macroeconomic mechanisms being proposed. A representative of an international funding agency commented: ‘environmental issues have been touched here and there, but not systematically… the draft indicators for environment are the least rigorous ones…’ Aware of the lack of an environmental dimension in the CPRGS draft, and after consulting with interested donors, the Government agreed to establish a high-level task force to make recommendations on how environmental issues should be integrated into the final CPRGS document. The Policy and Legislation Department of the National Environment Agency (NEA), under the former MOSTE was appointed to lead these activities. Again, WWF was asked to join the team with the financial support of UNDP (Leisher, 2002: 3). The task force prepared a first draft of recommendations after a workshop and written consultations with local experts and donor agencies working in the environment sector of Vietnam (CIDA, DANIDA, Netherlands Embassy, SDC, SIDA, UNDP and World Bank). However, according to the WWF expert, the twenty-seven page first draft was very disappointing since the recommendations provided by international donors were not included. The consultation ‘…had been little more than a pro forma exercise to meet the government’s requirement of donor consultation… The participants were given a chance to speak, but no one from the government agency took note of their recommendations’ (Leisher, 2002: 3). Some international partners then requested that the NEA review the document, and clarify how poverty reduction and the environment should be linked in the final CPRGS. After a few weeks of lobbying, this proposal was accepted. The NEA’s eventual report to the drafting committee included the recommendations of the international community. According to Leisher (2002), the concept of sustainable development with its three pillars of economic, social and environmental sustainability was added to the CPRGS. This does not seem to be entirely the case, however. MPI did not aim to integrate the concept of sustainable development in the final CPRGS. According to government representatives: ‘They accepted only some of our recommendations (for example) …with the support of UNDP, we suggested to include the term of ‘sustainable’ into the name of the CPRGS to become the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Sustainable Growth Strategy (CPRSGS), however it was refused’. MPI concentrated on ways to reduce poverty by stimulating economic growth by achieving goals of industrialisation and modernisation, reflecting their view that: ‘…there is no room for the complex idea of sustainable development in the CPRGS’.19 Ownership

The process of incorporating environmental issues into this medium-term pro-poor

19 Comment made by the lead author of the Vietnam’s CPRGS, quoted by Leisher, 2002: 5.

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development plan has been mostly top-down and donor-oriented planning activity. Ensuring environmental sustainability, from the government perspective, seems to have little connection with the task of attacking poverty. This was reflected in the fact that the National Environment Agency (NEA) was excluded from the team of experts preparing the I-PRSP and later, in the inter-ministerial drafting committee. In reality, the international donors, who saw the need for incorporating the MDGs approach (including the targets on environment) into the process of CPRGS, have also been the ones responsible for raising the concept of poverty and environmental linkages and pushing local agencies to incorporate this concept in the CPRGS. In this process, MOSTE, and later, MONRE has played a relatively minor role. This resulted is a hybrid CPRGS document, in which environment policies addressing poverty appear to be, rather than integrated, a ‘cut and paste’ section written by the government’s environment agency. This raises the question of whether the process of mainstreaming environment into Vietnam’s pro-poor development strategy (CPRGS) reflected country ownership or not. Our response to this question is first a qualified ‘No’, given there was very limited participatory debate on environmental policies for poverty reduction. But it could also be a qualified ‘Yes’ with respect to the MPI’s ownership in particular, because MPI’s environment department led the process of incorporating environmental issues into the CPRGS. As the comments below indicate, this process has not been very efficient in terms of mainstreaming environmental issues and creating ownership of the issues.

Box 2.4: Perspectives on government ownership of the process of integrating environment in the PRS

Responsibility for environmental issues within GOV was in the process of moving from MOSTE to MONRE at time of CPRGS preparation. This contributed to what is widely perceived as a failure to effectively integrate environmental issues into the CPRGS process:

‘MPI owned the CPRGS process but didn’t have much support from the rest of government… for many

Vietnamese this was very donor driven…’ – representative of a donor agency

‘MPI took the lead for environment, not MOSTE, MOSTE was only consulted… (we) got comments back from government officials …’ – Representative of a government agency

‘MONRE… should be coordinating this with others so that they are at the center of analysis of poverty reduction-environmental management-growth…’ – Representative of a donor agency

‘Environment department’s input was very general didn’t have many comments…’- Representative of a government agency

‘Neither MOSTE nor MONRE seemed to take the CPRGS process very seriously’ – Representative of an environmental NGO

‘Their attention was more focused elsewhere’ – Representative of a government agency

‘MOSTE was not well equipped to play a lead role in integrating environment into PRGS…’ – Representative of an environmental NGO

‘…should be discussions of how farmers need to address environmental concerns, how industries should

address their environmental issues, how the transport sector should address theirs… should be section on poverty reduction-growth-environmental sustainability linkages…’ - Representative of a donor agency

‘MONRE is not for mainstreaming environmental issues… want their own bits, their own institutional development…’ – Representative of a donor agency

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‘The government doesn’t always want to listen, pay close attention to environmental issues…they (the DEA) have made progress just to be consulted, but they have no role in decision making…’ – A Representative of an environmental NGO

A very limited number of local agencies and social and professional organisations (or NGOs) were invited to participate in discussions and consultations related to the preparation of ‘pro-poor environmental policies’. The report on ‘Ensuring Environmental Sustainability’ prepared by WWF following the Haiphong workshop involved representatives of MPI, MARD, MOSTE, Hydro-meteorological Services, CEMMA, Haiphong Departments of Agriculture and Environment, the Vietnam Cleaner Production Center, Eco-Eco and CRP. The majority of other ministries’ departments and the social and professional organisations that attended this workshop were not involved in the consultations on environmental issues. The need for pro-poor environmental policies in the CPRGS seems to have been a more serious concern for the international community than it was for the national policy community. The NEA task force made its recommendations based on in its own environment sector plans and strategy, rather than any crosscutting analysis of environmental issues and their relation with poverty. Donors and INGOs proposed revisions to better integrate the concept of pro-poor environment policies, but the local agencies did not react positively. Communities and grass-roots organisations played no role at all in this process of ‘mainstreaming environment’ into the CPRGS - there were no links between environmental sustainability and poverty reduction in the local consultations and regional workshops.20 The lack of participatory discussions of environmental policies and programmes proposed within the CPRGS raises questions about what types of partnerships are likely to emerge during the implementation of these policies and programmes. Yet, it is also important to recognise that the CPRGS, for the first time in Vietnam, addressed environmental sustainability and poverty reduction in the same planning document and process. This undoubtedly creates opportunities to develop pro-poor policies and strategies at the local level which can more effectively integrate environmental considerations, and translate this integrated approach into actions. There may be more obstacles to forging government environmental policies and programmes which are as explicitly pro-poor in their design. For example, since the CPRGS was formulated, the GOV has moved to delegate to provincial government the authority to conduct their own environmental impact assessments (EIA) for public investment projects, particularly in the regions that are currently leading the nation’s economic growth, such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Da Nang, and Binh Duong. The government has also moved to implement a ‘polluter pays’ system of fees to be charged on all industrial and municipal waste water discharges. These moves do not seem to have been co-ordinated with the CPRGS process, yet both could have significant impacts on local poor. Results

The UNDP’s Vietnam office reported that ‘It was our great success to include a section about environment protection for the poor in the CPRGC. You don’t know how hard to get

20 The community consultations based mainly on the content of I-PRSP while the regional workshop debated the results of the community consultation.

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such a section included’.21 It was a notable success compared with the situation in the approved I-PRSP, where no environmental concerns were reflected. Bojö and Reddy also document this substantial improvement between the I-PRSP and the CPRGS (2002, 2003). Environmental issues now figure in the country’s poverty reduction agenda, after a fashion. The final CPRGS has incorporated a new section on ‘Protecting the Environment and Maintaining Healthy Life for the Poor’. This section focuses on environment related policies (as visionary objectives rather than concrete strategies) including: the use of natural resources (including biodiversity); environmental deterioration in industrial zones; improving access to clean water and sanitation; and developing the system of state administration on environment protection. The CPRGS also refers to the need to integrate environmental considerations into other plans, programmes and project identification and evaluation. There is also a set of twelve indicators proposed to monitor the implementation of the pro-poor environment policies. These indicators, despite not being driven from an evidence-based analysis, reflect a collective government – donor - NGO commitment to fight poverty, in part through achievement of environmental IDTs. Yet the analysis of environment and poverty interrelations in the CPRGS is weak. Key environmental concerns raised in the two-page section entitled ‘Protect the Environment and Maintain a Healthy Life for the Poor’ mostly reflect a ‘sector’ approach and the many issues raised look like a ‘shopping list’ from the NEA. As detailed in the above, this has resulted from a combination of factors, including MPI’s focus on economic development, heavy reliance on donor consultation, the marginalisation of Vietnamese environmental sector stakeholders, communities and grassroots organisations and the tendency of government ministries to adopt a sectoral approach.

Box 2.5: Stakeholders’ perspectives on the integration of environment in the CPRGS Poverty and environment linkages:

• ‘…The treatment of environmental issues in the CPRGS is very general … (there is) no clear poverty

focus and it is not converted into very clear actions to address poverty … Overall the CPRGS … lacks logic, clear linkages among components’ Vietnam organisation representative

• ‘At least the document provided a focus, a forum, a legitimate place where environment and poverty are discussed together… this has provided a direction, … it has allowed people to see that poverty reduction

MUST be included in any sustainable development / environmental initiatives… has raised the profile on the imperative to link poverty and environment and the need for this to be a central focus…’ donor agency representative

• ‘…(it) doesn’t look at the linkages between vulnerability to disasters and environmental degradation…’ donor agency representative

• ‘Forest coverage is included in the CPRGS but with no mention of how it relates to the poor… also, while they mention biodiversity, there is no discussion of the importance of non-timber forest products for the

poor…’ donor agency representative Environmental dimensions of the CPRGS

• ‘This version of CPRGS is still far from what they need… But led by World Bank and MPI… the priority of environment is not addressed enough…’ donor agency representative

21 Comment made by Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Ly (UNDP)

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• ‘Environmental issues…are treated very lightly… the natural resource part of the environment is NOT correctly reflected in the CPRGS… was not in the process and not in the resulting document… the

consultation process was very inadequate and this is reflected in the poor treatment of natural resource management issues…’ civil society organisation representative

• ‘…environment sector stakeholders have NOT contributed adequately to the CPRGS process…’ donor agency representative

CPRGS & EIA: • ‘The CPRGS talks about the need for environmental assessment but with no precision, nor does it talk

about how to integrate environmental concerns into the overall investment assessment / analysis process…’ International funding agency representative

• ‘The CPRGS says: ‘We will proceed with industrialisation, urbanisation, and it will be sustainable’, but it

doesn’t discuss specific conflicts or how to solve them … EIA is theoretically very effective, but in reality is done only by MONRE, with their data, that supports the policy of the government, but no participation by

affected populations…’ civil society organisation representative

Vagaries of the CPRGS:

• ‘The CPRGS is so comprehensive that it can be used to justify anything… virtually anything can go under the CPRGS umbrella… yet donors are supposed to be oriented by the CPRGS…’ donor agency representative

• ‘The strategy is like a bread fruit… with many, many points, very many priorities…’ local environmental NGO representative

NEA’s perspective:

• ‘Government should allocate resources to our ministry so we can implement the required programmes / projects… So far, no project/ programme in the national environmental strategy has been started’

(government agency representative)

In fact, the CPRGS does not promote environmental sustainability as a major objective of the pro-poor development strategy. Despite being mentioned as a priority, environment protection is lost within a comprehensive but complex objective of ‘human development and equality’, which includes other priorities with higher ranking like health, education, HIV/AIDS prevention, gender equality and life of ethnic peoples. The possibility that environmental degradation can be an important contributor to poverty – or vice-versa - is not seriously considered; there is no analysis of cause and effect linkages between environment and poverty. Though MPI opted to avoid the term ‘sustainable’ in the name of the CPRGS, the terms sustainable development and environmental sustainability are used in the CPRGS document. There are also superficial references in some parts of the paper, to the need to incorporate environmental concerns into poverty reduction. For example: • ‘Economic growth must go in hand with social progress and equity and environmental

protection in order to create more jobs…’ p.6 • ‘Provide adequate incentives to people who plant forests and promote the role of the

community in the protection and natural regeneration of forests’ p. 88 • ‘Ensure that people living in mountainous areas, especially poor households, can

directly manage and protect their forests and are provided with appropriate incentives that link their benefits and responsibilities with the forest’ p. 89

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Unfortunately this last issue – increasingly contentious in Vietnam - has not been further developed into a prioritised strategy within the pro-poor planning agenda. A case study on forest management below (also see Appendix Three) looks at how decentralising responsibility for forest management from the state (and its cooperative organisations) to local communities can contribute to both greater poverty reduction and enhanced environmental sustainability. A chapter on ‘Large-scale Infrastructure Development for Growth and Poverty Reduction’ that was elaborated by a team led by Japanese co-operation, and added to the CPRGS document at the end of 2003, does address the need to pay adequate attention to environmental and resettlement issues associated with large-infrastructure projects in particular. This new section discusses the need to evaluate environmental and social impact of large-scale infrastructure projects and the need for appropriate support for any resettled populations (Government of Vietnam, 2003a). Overall however, most stakeholders interviewed agreed there was no systematic attempt to integrate environmental sustainability principles into the other core programmes of the CPRGS document. With the exception of the infrastructure section added later, environment issues were not mainstreamed into the sectoral policies and objectives laid out in the document. Some social and professional organisations (local NGOs) and international NGO stakeholders (i.e., CPR, IUCN, WWF) also noted that the short section on Environment (and its related set of monitoring indicators) placed much emphasis on numeric indicators for issues such as forest cover, housing in slums, clean water, solid and waste water, while ignoring other issues also very closely linked to poverty reduction such as improved management of soils, watersheds and coastal zones. Many experts from donor community and international NGOs also indicated that, as with the other CPRGS thematic areas, no priority assigned to the different elements of the environmental strategies / policies for attacking poverty. This makes it more difficult to translate into a concrete set of prioritised tasks /outcomes for implementation.

Environment and Poverty Narratives and the CPRGS

Review of the CPRGS documents and interviews with different stakeholders revealed different perceptions about the links between economic growth and poverty reduction on the one hand and issues related to environmental sustainability on the other hand. Some of these ‘narratives’ are reflected in the CPRGS document. Other narratives emerged in interviews, some with actors who had played active roles and others with stakeholders who had been excluded from the pro-poor planning process. They all recognised the increasing environmental degradation that the country is facing in its transition to a market economy, but differed in their views of the underlying causes of this degradation or the best ways to deal with it. Environment and Poverty Narratives Included in the CPRGS

The CPRGS is a hybrid document where the views, development objectives as different government and donor stakeholder contributions have been ‘cut and pasted’ into the final text. So it accommodates several narratives about ‘Environment and Poverty’. One narrative however has played a dominant role throughout this pro-poor planning process. This view, supported mainly by the MPI officials who were the main drafters of the CPRGS

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document, assigns the highest priority to achieving economic growth targets, which are seen to ensure both poverty reduction and, in the longer term, environmental sustainability. An MPI environmental policy maker stated clearly that development activities necessarily lead to negative environmental effects and, in the short term, environmental sustainability must be sacrificed in order to facilitate economic growth and poverty reduction. In the final CPRGS, although environmental protection and sustainability are mentioned, the main focus is tackling issues of economic growth and poverty. Promoting rapid and sustainable growth coupled with attainment of social progress and equity and maintaining rapid development of the dynamic areas and create favourable conditions to achieve high economic growth rates are highlighted as the highest priorities. Supporters of this narrative argue that environmental protection will come in the long-term, when the country is more developed and wealthier. At that future time, the exploitation of the environment for development will be reduced, and enhanced environmental protection will be more financially feasible. A frequent element in this narrative is the concept that poverty is one of the main causes of environmental degradation, so that once poverty is reduced, so environmental degradation will be reduced. Advocates of these narratives, including high-ranking policy makers, also commented that government policies aimed at boosting economic growth and protecting the environment were failing because of inadequate infrastructure, and limited government and private sector capacities and resources combined with high levels of population growth and poverty.

Box 2.6: Prevailing narrative on poverty and environment in the CPRGS

• ‘Development has created negative impacts on the environment. In the short-term, to a certain extent, environment must be sacrificed for economic growth and poverty reduction. In the longer term, once

people have moved above the poverty line, they will do less damage to the environment…’ – government agency representative

• ‘The fight to protect the environment has been hampered by inadequate infrastructure, limited

government and business resources, high population growth and poverty. Staff ability and skills within the groups responsible for environmental protection were also lagging’ – government agency representative.

There are also other, less influential narratives about the environment reflected in the CPRGS document. These are typically associated with specific sectors. For example, the Japanese government played a major role in a section added a year after the rest of the document on large scale infrastructure development. This suggests that large scale infrastructure ‘plays an important role in the process of growth and poverty reduction’, but also recognises that in the current circumstances of Vietnam, ‘the ecological and sustainable development (dimensions of large scale infrastructure) have not received due attention’. It suggests that large scale infrastructure development projects must pay attention to environmental and resettlement concerns, through careful evaluation of environmental and social impacts, and adequate compensation and safeguards for affected or resettled populations. The MONRE’s (formerly MOSTE) environmental narrative, also a relatively late addition in the CPRGS process, highlights the need to implement an ‘environment sector strategy’, including the application of environmental planning and assessment processes, the normative control of pollution standards and of natural resource use, and improvements to state environmental management capacities. This narrative seems to imply that the weaknesses of state control and management systems have led to environmental problems and that, therefore improving the government’s environmental planning and

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control systems will effectively control environmental degradation. It does not address the question of environment and poverty linkages per se. Environment and Poverty Narratives not included in the CPRGS

Stakeholders from the national mass-media, cultural organisations, international NGOs and social and professional organisations (or local NGOs) revealed environment related narratives that are not included in the CPRGS. The main alternative narrative to the prevailing economic growth narrative summarised above, argued that environmental values should not always be sacrificed for economic development in the short term because there is nothing to ensure that the economic gains from this growth will contribute to longer term environmental sustainability. Much empirical evidence reveals, for example, that many successful firms are not stopping their exploitation and damage to the environment as their wealth grows. Supporters of this alternative narrative, come mostly from the donor and NGO community (e.g., UNDP, WB, CIDA, GTZ, CPR, VCCI, AA, Eco-Eco). This ‘alternative narrative’ criticises the CPRGS process for not properly addressing environmental issues or their linkages with economic growth and poverty reduction. It calls for more in-depth analysis and for integration of policies that can link poverty reduction and environmental reduction within local level development agendas. Efforts to build on this narrative can be seen in donor community support for twelve PPAs that have been conducted with a major focus on the environment and poverty links at the community levels. The Dak’Lak case study discussed in chapter four has been derived from one of these PPA reports. It is a striking example of how, in accordance with the mainstream environmental narrative contained in the CPRGS, intensive monocultures have led to economic growth and to environmental and natural resource degradation. The rapid expansion of coffee cultivation has contributed to short term economic growth and increased farm incomes for some people, but has also led to large scale deforestation, land degradation, and water shortages. In contrast to the CPRGS focus on economic growth as a means to alleviate poverty, these effects now compromise poverty reduction and economic development efforts in the area. Other relevant narratives about environment and poverty that are not reflected in the CPRGS talk of the need to promote public awareness and information, community-based initiatives and appropriate technologies. These approaches are viewed as necessary elements for achieving the goal of sustainable development. For example, the ‘mass-media narrative’ sees the press in Vietnam as a positive and increasingly important force in the country’s development. Public information media have become essential mechanisms for promoting public awareness of environmental sustainability issues important to the poor, actively contributing to the fight against corruption, ineffective use of natural resources and pollution. These media provide voices for citizens, allowing them to be heard, and help build public consensus needed to bring about change. Box 2.7: Narratives about environment and poverty that don’t appear in the CPRGS

‘The greatest challenge for VN’s sustainable development is that most of the leadership is still obsessed with

economic growth… but many of these programmes have negative impacts on the natural resource base… many, many examples, with high costs that have to be paid later… by poor rural communities…’ donor agency representative

‘But the reality is that as people get richer, there is more pressure on forests… they get richer and they can buy chain saws… ethnic minorities will protect their own forests, but go far from home to cut forests, to

increase their incomes in huge national forests and parks where these is lots of wood not allocated to

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communities or individuals… Reserves and parks are owned by the state which means no one owns them…’ Environmental NGO representative

‘We tried to have them add the word “sustainable” - so it would be a “sustainable growth strategy” – but they

didn’t agree. They talk about expanding the fisheries and aquaculture, but they don’t recognise the problems that are making poor coastal communities even poorer. The offshore fisheries are being exhausted and they

(the commercial boats) are moving into the coastal fisheries. So there is more and more pressure on the local

fisheries, people using dynamite and cyanide to get their catch, and killing all the small fish at the same time. In many places the worst is the shrimp farms. They see the sandy beaches as waste land, so they set up

shrimp farms, but they only last a few years. They ruin the local water supply by drilling wells and over pumping the water table, bring salt water into wells. Then they just go somewhere else. What they leave

behind looks like a war zone and the local communities are left with the mess’ Donor agency representative

Migration to the uplands continues to result in unsustainable resource losses… Migration to the urban centres

has a complex environmental impact… The remittance income associated with urban circular migration is

building resilience and opportunities for intensification of agriculture in lowland areas. But there is also evidence that migrants’ capital generation fuels capital investment in aquaculture, a major cause of mangrove

destruction in coastal areas’ In: Locke et al. 2000: 6-7.

‘For thirty years we’ve had the forest service and the provincial government and police trying to protect the

forest. And still the forests are disappearing. So we have been working with two communities, helping them to

re-establish their traditional systems for managing their forests. The forest service has its system for classifying land: residential land, production forest, protected forest, protected watershed… but the

communities’ traditional system also have classification systems: farm forest, forest for harvesting things like honey and medicines, and sacred forests that must not be disturbed. These sacred forests were always in the

upper slopes, the upper water watersheds… Giving them back their forests is also giving them back their

culture. For a thousand years the communities managed their forest and everything else, …’ civil society representative

The sorts of narratives not reflected in the CPRGS stem, for example, from the ‘eco-village’ movement, the green productivity program and community based resource management initiatives. A wide range of innovative and practical experiments have generated locally adapted, environmentally friendly technologies and management strategies that are being implemented successfully at the community level. These experiences, though ignored in the CPRGS, demonstrate the will and creative energies of poor communities dedicated to ensuring their socio-economic development strategies include sound management of their environmental resources. They offer examples and ‘best practices’ that can be adapted by other localities facing similar resource limitations, challenges and constraints (see Appendix three). The problems associated with the straightforward acceptance of the mainstream environmental narrative as contained in the CPRGS and with overlooking these alternative narratives are demonstrated in Chapter Four. Here an examination of the Dak’Lak case study shows that while mainstream environmental narratives may facilitate economic growth and help wealthy people to further establish themselves, it also leads to increased environmental degradation. Poor village residents and ethnic minorities find themselves increasingly marginalised from this economic growth and, at the same time, experience deepening poverty as they bear the costs of environmental degradation. Before examining these case studies, however, it is necessary to understand which actors participated in the production of the CPRGS, their roles in relation to poverty and environment linkages and the manner in which various actors established relationships and networks in order to enhance their participation in the CPRGS. This is discussed in the following chapter.

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Chapter Three: Actors, Networks and Their Roles

The process of formulating the CPRGS drew on a wide range of stakeholders from central and local government agencies, INGOs, social and professional organisations (or local NGOs) and mass-organisations, multilateral and bilateral donors and local community. These participants can be classified into different interest groups according to similarities in their perspectives, responsibilities and objectives with regard to the CPRGS. The final CPRGS document, though drafted wholly by the central government, to some extent reflects the criteria and objectives of these different groups of stakeholders. The following section summarises stakeholders’ roles, criteria and activities related to this pro-poor planning process and the integration of environmental concerns into this process. The Communist Party of Vietnam

Under the current constitution, the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV), is the only political party operating in the country. It is a dominant political and social force, exercising control through its political programs, strategies, policies, resolutions and organisations and through its members’ participation in the government and mass organisations. The Party is the decisive agent in defining the state’s development policy orientations. Resolutions formulated by the Party’s Central Committee and presented at Party Congresses are the official basis for state policies, laws and regulations. Important development issues must be discussed and approved by the Party’s Politburo before becoming public policies. The Party did not participate directly in the drafting of the CPRGS since, according to a government official, it had already provided ideological guidance for poverty reduction in its earlier resolutions and had approved the ten-year strategy and five-plan which provided the basis for the CPRGS formulation. From the authors’ experience, it seems likely that the Politburo gave discrete approval allowing the CPRGS to proceed. However, the fact that the Party did not play a direct role in the CPRGS process raises concerns about the priority they assign to linking investment decisions directly to pro-poor planning. Central Government Agencies

The key public sector stakeholders to participate in the CPRGS process were a number of central government agencies, ministries and departments. The level of their participation varied depending on their perceptions of the relevance of the process and the capacity of the institutions to take part in it.

The Government of Vietnam (GOV) is an executive body led by the Prime Minister (PM), and an elected National Assembly (NA). The Politburo and Central Committee of the Communist Party exercise political leadership over the government apparatus and make all major decisions regarding the country’s development. Nearly all government ministers, including the PM, are members of the Communist Party Central Committee. The GOV played a very active role in the CPRGS process. The PM requested that the international community set up the PTF and PWG. The GOV appointed the MPI to coordinate the CPRGS process and to assess and approve the main documents emerging from this process. The GOV also set up a Steering Committee chaired by a Deputy Prime Minister to oversee CPRGS implementation. In 2003, the GOV also approved the Vietnam Agenda 21 and the National Strategy for Environmental Protection, creating a

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‘legal framework for sustainable development’ (GOV, 2003b). This active concern of the Central Government for sustainable development should contribute to future efforts to ‘mainstream the environment’ into poverty reduction efforts. Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) MPI is the national planning agency responsible for assisting the Government in socioeconomic and sector development planning, as well for the coordination of ODA and the preparation of the Public Investment Plan (PIP). The General Economic Issues Department (GEID) of MPI was assigned to chair the drafting of the CPRGS. MPI has also been active inside the PTF/PWG. Supported financially by the donors (mainly the World Bank), the GEID coordinated with other line ministries and local governments to draft the I-PRSP / CPRGS documents and organise the regional consultation workshops. Due to its dominant role, some NGOs have suggested that MPI, rather than the GOV as a whole, owned the CPRGS process (Chelsky and Jensen, 2003: 19). Yet during this pro-poor planning process, inter-ministerial coordination among ministries and agencies was significantly improved, mainly due to the MPI’s acceptance of the novel participatory planning approach.22 Major weaknesses of the MPI include its narrow focus on capital investment, a lack of coordination between planning and budgeting functions and their limited knowledge of strategic and participatory planning methodologies. Within MPI, the Department of Science, Education, and Environment (DSEE) takes care of environmental issues and is the MPI’s counterpart to the National Environment Agency in the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (NEA/MONRE). The DSEE was part of the CPRGS drafting committee and facilitated the process of incorporating environmental issues into the final document. Representatives of DSEE participated in the drafting committee, facilitated discussions on environmental issues during the Haiphong workshop, and prepared the final version of the environment section in the CPRGS.23 DSEE is currently responsible for the implementation of another project, entitled ‘Support to Formulation and Implementation of Vietnam Agenda 21’ with the financial support of UNDP, DANIDA and SIDA. MPI’s DSEE recognised the importance of incorporating environmental issues into the CPRGS. It did not demonstrate much understanding, however, of the complex, dynamic linkages between economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental protection. According to representatives from DSEE, their short-term position seemed to be that the environment would need to be sacrificed to a certain extent (as an issue of lower priority) in order to accelerate economic growth and thus create the basic resources needed to alleviate poverty. The National Environment Agency, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

The National Environment Agency (NEA) is the lead agency responsible for environmental management in the GOV. The NEA played a minor role in the I-PRSP / CPRGS process because MOSTE (its former ministry) was not invited to participate in the drafting committee. The NEA’s main contribution was to lead a task force, at a very late stage in

22 According to Mrs. Dinh Thi Chinh, MPI will apply the participatory approach to prepare the five-year plan for 2006-2010. 23 MOSTE/ MONRE was not a member of the drafting committee, but it set a task force to prepare the environment section at the request of MPI

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the CPRGS process, to prepare recommendations (through workshop and consultation activities) on how to mainstream environment into poverty reduction policies. The NEA’s other responsibility to prepare the ‘National Strategy for Environmental Protection’, which was approved by the GOV in December 2003, consumed much of its energy. This strategy was prepared with considerable technical and financial support from donors interested in environmental issues (UNDP, SIDA, DANIDA). The document looks more strategic than the CPGRS, setting out a clear set of strategic priorities. Like the CPRGS, however, it does not reflect much careful analysis of complex linkages between poverty and environment, or of how measures to improve environmental management can best contribute to poverty reduction. One potential way of overcoming this, is to prepare and present quantitative data documenting the financial contribution that environmental resources make to poverty reduction and, in turn, to use this data for informed policy making. The NEA takes a very ‘sectoral’ approach to environmental management, where normative rules and regulations seem to be more important than cross-sectoral issues and policies or related enabling initiatives. This may be partly the results of NEA/ MONRE’s relatively limited influence and financial autonomy within the government - all their major programmes and projects must be approved of both MPI and the Ministry of Finance. With respect to the CPRGS, NEA/MONRE fought to incorporate environment into the final document, but this was done following their relatively narrow interpretation of environmental protection as a discrete sector, rather than trying to address causal relationships between environment and poverty. Other Line Ministries

The Ministry of Labor, Invalid and Social Affairs (MOLISA) took the lead in preparing the GOV’s long-term ‘Poverty Reduction Strategy to 2010’ and the five-year ‘Hunger Eradication and Poverty Reduction (HEPR) Plan’, as part of the country’s long and medium term planning processes.24 MOLISA officials did not take part in the early stages of the process but became more active after September 2001 (Conway, 2003: 48).25 MOLISA’s focus during the CPRGS process was ‘mono-sectoral’, emphasising familiar programme targets. As with other line ministries, representatives reported that this agency was not aware of the significance of environment-poverty linkages. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is responsible for government interventions and policy on rural development. It was one of the most active ministries participating in the elaboration of the CPRGS, particularly in the later stages of the process. It organised several workshops in collaboration with donors (including FAO, World Bank and UNDP) to prepare the ministry's submissions to the drafting team (Pincus and Thang, 2004: 26). While MARD’s role in the CPRGS process was quite positive, its contribution with respect to environment issues was very limited. Environmental issues have not been dealt with effectively in the section of the CPRGS related to agricultural development and rural

24 These plans have been criticised for their narrow emphasis on targeted antipoverty programmes. They were strong on political commitment to a ‘vision of change’, but weaker on the links that needed to be made between policy, inputs and outputs in order to achieve this change. 25 They may feel from the outset that responsibility for drafting the national poverty strategy should rest with them rather than MPI (Conway, 2003: 48)

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economy. Some measures related to environmental conservation are mentioned, e.g., facilitating and providing incentives for poor households to directly manage the forest (GOV, 2003a: 68). However, there are no specific strategies or policies proposed to promote sustainable rural development, or to enhance rural eco-systems and the natural resource base. In general, line ministries’ contributions to the CPRGS were strongly focused on their respective sectoral strategies and plans. There was very limited evidence of understanding of crosscutting issues such as environment or how to deal with them. The contribution of each ministry was limited by the capacities of its representative(s) on the drafting committee. As a result, environmental issues were not dealt with effectively in the different sector strategies of the CPRGS. MOSTE’s (and previously MONRE’s) failure to participate in the CPRGS drafting team, and the minor role it played in the overall CPRGS process26 also contributed to a certain extent, to the neglect of environmental issues in most sector development strategies in the CPRGS.

Local Governments

The participation of local governments in the CPRGS process was limited to four regional consultations held in early 2002. These involved provincial and district officials along with representatives of mass organisations. The exercises were organised by MPI, financed by donor organisations, and conducted over two days in each location. Although these consultations provided local officials with an opportunity to express their views on early drafts of the document, their impact on later drafts was not substantial (Conway 2003: 33). As the content of these community level consultations was based mainly on the content of the earlier I-PRSP – which had no environmental dimension - there was practically no mention of linkages between environment protection and poverty reduction and environmental issues were largely neglected. The limited scope for participation by local government in the CPRGS drafting process -and the lack of attention to environmental issues - raises questions about the level of commitment of sub-national agencies to the implementation of the strategy - and particularly any commitment related to cross-cutting poverty and environment issues. Several stakeholders interviewed noted that there is little awareness of the CPRGS at the provincial level and that it is virtually unknown at the district and commune levels. Participation of International Non-Governmental Organisations

The Poverty Working Group/Poverty Task Force marked a significant change in the relationship between the GOV, donors and NGOs. A number of international NGOs (INGOs) apparently derived considerable benefit from their participation in the CPRGS process. Traditionally they occupied a precarious position in Vietnam and usually lacked access to the policymaking process, particularly at the central level. Yet INGOs organised the participatory poverty assessments for the CPRGS, took part in commune and provincial level consultations and in workshops organised by the PTF. Though they are often critical of the process, INGO’s involvement in the PWG/PTF was perhaps the most novel feature of Vietnam’s CPRGS process (Pincus and Thang, 2004: 28).

26 Major engagement of MOSTE is in the form of consultations at the end of the process

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Major INGOs like Oxfam UK, Save the Children UK (SCUK), and Action Aid formed part of the PTF and this allowed them to contribute actively to the CPRGS; especially through participation in the poverty assessment and community consultation for example. Donors thus played an important role in mainstreaming issues into the CPRGS. Comments from these INGOs greatly influenced the drafting of the document because their arguments were supported by participatory assessments. Although their focus was not environmental-poverty reduction, their participation also assisted with mainstreaming this issue. Other INGOs having more particular concern with environment and poverty issues, such as IUCN-Vietnam, played only minor roles in the CPRGS process, with their contributions limited to commenting at workshops and/or consultations. Most of the INGOs who were members of the PTF did not raise the issue of links between poverty reduction and the environment during the drafting process. An exception was WWF Indochina, an INGO established in Vietnam since 1985 and primarily concerned with biodiversity conservation. WWF, supported by UNDP, prepared a report on ‘localising the environment ITDs’. It also supported MOSTE (later MONRE) in preparing its environmental recommendations. However, perhaps due to time limitation or resources constraints, WWF Indochina’s contribution to the process did not result in careful analysis of environment – poverty linkages in the CPRGS. Participation of Social and Professional Organisations (or Local NGOs)

International NGOs pressed for greater involvement of Vietnamese social and professional organisations, although there are still very few such organisations in Vietnam, and their independence from the state is sometimes more apparent than real. Several such organisations took part in the CPRGS process including the Center for Rural Progress (CRP), the Rural Development Service Center (RDSC), the Law Faculty Center for Legal Research and Services of Vietnam National University (LERES) and the Reproductive and Family Health Association (Conway, 2004: 35). Their contribution was relatively limited because of their low profile with the government.27 At present, many social and professional organisations (or local NGOs) operate more like consultant companies than NGOs, mostly focused on ensuring their own existence. Environmental contributions from these social and professional organisations were even more limited because very few staff of local environmental organisations (e.g., Eco-Eco, AENRP) were invited to participate, and these consultations were focused on poverty reduction rather than environment- poverty linkages. Moreover, the level of awareness and understanding of environment and poverty linkages was a constraint. A senior staff member of one organisation indicated, for example, that they were not aware of the links between poverty reduction and environmental management.

Participation of Mass Organisations

Vietnam’s mass organisations are considered ‘grassroots organisations’ by the government. They are also closely affiliated with, and ultimately controlled by, the party-state structure. The most important among them are the Women’s Union, the Farmer’s

27 Domestic NGOs are a relatively new phenomenon in Vietnam, and despite a handful of independent organisations, they play a limited role in the policy process. They operate under a number of constraints. For example, donors made efforts to get them to participate in the 1999 CG meeting but Government was uncomfortable with this and invited mass-organisations to participate instead. There are, however, also examples of co-operation between government and NGOs, particularly at local levels (PRSP/PRGF Case Study Vietnam, p.p. 8)

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Union, the Labour Confederation and the Youth Union. These organisations have extensive networks extending to local levels in all parts of the country. They develop and carry out their own programmes and they also play a consultative role for the Government, discussing policies with their members. Some mass organisations were invited to review the CRPGS drafts. They were not directly involved however, in writing the document. The Women's Union was the most active in organising CPRGS consultations, including a survey of female National Assembly members. The National Committee for the Advancement of Women also contributed an action plan for mainstreaming gender issues into the CPRGS (Pincus and Thang, 2004: 28). Many other mass organisations, which could have played important roles in developing pro-poor – environmental policies and programmes, such as the Association of Journalists and its affiliated Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists (VFEJ), the Vietnam Association for Nature and Environment Protection, or the Vietnam Culture for the Environment (VCE), were absent from the CPRGS process.

Public Participation

Public participation in the CPRGS process took the form of four participatory poverty assessments prior to the drafting of the interim document and six subsequent commune level consultations, four of which were carried out in the four original locations (with two additions) in early 2002.28 Because these consultations were conducted on the basis of the I-PRSP, the causal relationship between poverty and environment was not discussed. Thus, there was no public feedback on how environmental degradation could lead to the increase of poverty or of how pro-poor measures can contribute to sounder environmental management, and vice-versa. To address this problem, twelve PPAs at commune-level were launched in 2003, as follow-up activities to the CPRGS process and these surveys have included sections on the environment. These PPAs thus became key drivers for the inclusion of environmental and poverty linkages in the CPRGS. Donors

The Government-Donor-NGO Poverty Working Group (PWG) and Poverty Task Force (PTF) formed the main interface between donors, NGOs and the CPRGS drafting committee. Through the PTF and PWG, donors provided considerable support to the drafting process. Donor contributions focused on (i) the process of localising the MDGs with the formulation of eight background papers (ii) providing financial support to government to hire local consultants; (iii) facilitating and financing a series of consultation with communities, local officials and private sector; (iv) facilitating the engagement of line ministries; and (v) providing detailed comments on early drafts (Swinkels, 2004: i).

The World Bank takes a leadership role in the partnership group and in driving the CPRGS process from the donor side. It invested considerable resources in economic and policy analysis. The World Bank group’s Country Assistance Strategy (CAS) is their ‘Business

28 Shanks and Turk (2002) identify six areas in which these local consultations influenced the content of the CPRGS, namely access of migrants to health and education services; exemptions for the poor from ad-hoc school fees; greater local participation in planning infrastructure projects; commitments to increase transparency of local government; enforcement of legal protection for workers; and commitment to participatory monitoring of CPRGS.

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Plan’ and it is entirely aligned with the Government’s CPRGS. This CAS for the period 2003-2006 was elaborated around three principles, which are also the objectives of the CPRGS, namely: (i) to support Vietnam’s transition to a market-economy, with a shift in focus from ‘design’ to supporting the Government on ‘implementation’ of the policy reform agenda (ii) to enhance equitable, inclusive and sustainable development; and (iii) to support the Government in improving public financial management, information and transparency, and to enhance legal development. In support of these three major objectives, the World Bank’s CAS sets out a planned programme of assistance including analytical and advisory activities, project support through the World Bank’s lending programme, a series of annual Poverty Reduction Support Credits (PRSCs), partnerships and ODA coordination. The CAS lays out a suggested lending programme of US$300- $760 million per year with a primary focus in four sectors: rural development; urban development; infrastructure; and human development. Although the environment is listed as one of the priorities (within the second objective), in reality, the interests of the Bank in working with environment issues in Vietnam appear limited in relation to other donors’ contribution to environmental issues.29 Nonetheless, currently, the Bank’s environment assistance includes: (i) policy and legal framework adjustment; (ii) sector portfolio (e.g., investment on forestation); and (iii) safeguard environment including socio-environment analysis and impact assessment, capacity building and iv) Economic Sector Work (including an Environment-Poverty Nexus Study that is nearing completion).30

UNDP participated actively in the CPRGS process from the beginning. It appears to have put most of its emphasis on the adaptation of the MDGs, including support for the preparation of reports and workshops on formulating ‘Vietnam Development Target’. The UNDP also took the lead in the environment group within the PWG/PTF. Together with DANIDA and SIDA, UNDP has also supported the Government and related ministries (MONRE and MPI) in the development, in parallel with the CPRGS, of the ‘National Strategy for Environmental Protection (NSEP) until 2010 and Vision toward 2020’. This has now been recognised as an integral part of the CPRGS, and of the Vietnam Agenda 21. UNDP also co-sponsors, with DfID, a project entitled ‘The Poverty and Environment Initiative’, which is a cross-cutting programme that aims to help countries develop their capacities to integrate the environment concerns of poor and vulnerable groups into national planning and policy frameworks for poverty reduction.31 It is not clear how much impact this initiative may have had to date on Vietnam’s development priorities, on its complicated planning system or on the CPRGS process.

Other donors have also participated and played important roles in the CPRGS process. The ADB took a leading role in the process of ‘localising the IDTs’ in the areas of health and governance and DfID facilitated this process in the area of education. Several 29 Within the World Bank, the environment is not a major concern and is often listed as a ‘minor priority’. In keeping with this, the Country Assessment Strategy lists environmental sustainability as a sub-objective to achieving growth. In addition, the World Bank is not recognised as one of the top ten donors providing assistance (in terms of the average annual budget) in the environmental sector (VEPA and UNDP 2003). 30 Interview to Phillip Brylski and Rob Swinkels (WB) 31 Interview to Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Ly (UNDP)

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international agencies including DfID and ADB supported and co-financed PWG/PTF activities and other partnership groups. Japan supported the preparation of a CPRGS section on ‘pro-poor large infrastructure’. Forming a group of ‘like minded’ bilateral donors, countries like Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Australia and the United Kingdom indicated that the CPRGS would form the basis of their respective country’s strategies for support to Vietnamese development. Currently, a number of donors from this group have started to provide substantial co-financing for the World Bank’s PRSCs. This co-financing complements IDA loan funds, supporting the technical assistance in different fields including environmental protection and enhancement (Swinkels, 2004: 14). Most donors noted the lack of effective integration of environmental issues in the CPRGS process and would support a more ‘cross-cutting’ approach that jointly targets poverty reduction and environmental protection. Some donors, including SIDA, CIDA, DANIDA and DFID, have provided financial support to conduct studies and workshops on the environment within the framework of pro-poor development strategies. Donor support thus appears to be a key tool for the mainstreaming of environmental issues in the CPRGS. Eight bi- and multilateral donors have also supported the regional poverty assessments that are now part of the process of ‘rolling out the CPRGS’ that includes PPAs in twelve provinces, where local-level environmental issues are among the priority areas of focus.

Conclusions

The CPRGS is a hybrid document prepared by a drafting committee comprised of different representatives from line ministries and agencies but facilitated and supported with financial and technical contributions from the donor community, NGOs, mass-organisations and communities. The final CPRGS document is comprehensive in that it recognises the multi-dimensional nature of poverty and the need for a multi-sectoral approach to both growth and poverty reduction. However, while emphasising the urgent need for economic growth and poverty reduction, it underestimates the need for careful analysis of the links between environment and poverty. These problems are rooted in the fact that the MPI and the WB, as agencies leading the CPRGS process, focused their attention mostly on the promotion of economic growth, structural reform, investment and poverty reduction. Major concerns of INGOs active in the CPRGS process were the need for social progress and equity (e.g., poverty reduction, gender equity, health care and education) rather than sound environmental management. They were nonetheless crucial as drivers for environmental mainstreaming as they pushed the concept of poverty and environmental linkages and were more concerned about environmental issues that the national policy community. The inter-ministerial coordination mechanism was weak and line ministries such as MARD or MOLISA, struggling to attract investment to their sector, focused on their respective sectoral strategy. Similarly, MONRE (previously MOSTE), supported by UNDP and bilateral donors interested in environmental issues (DANIDA, CIDA, SIDA) played only a limited role in the process. They incorporated an ‘environment sector strategy’ into the CPRGS document (based on the national Environmental Protection Strategy), rather than focus more broadly on environment and poverty linkages.

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The most important driver for mainstreaming environmental-poverty reduction came from the role of one international donor. WWF Indochina’s input on environment and poverty linkages included facilitating a workshop and preparing a paper on localising the environmental IDTs. Due to limited time and resources, and the lack of coordination with other environmental NGOs, WWF Indochina could not build a ‘discourse group’ to advocate for the mainstreaming of environmental issues into the pro-poor agenda. The fact that the national mass-media and communities played only minor roles in the CPRGS process may also have contributed to an understating of environmental consideration in the pro-poor planning document. As a hybrid government-donor document covering a comprehensive set of issues but lacking priorities and sequencing, the CPRGS appears to be a wish-list of sometimes conflicting ambitions and gives no clear indication of how the strategy's ambitions are to be translated into concrete plans for delivery. It presents the different development priorities and criteria of central planners, of sectoral agencies and the donor community and thereby stitches together some contradictory views. For example, while following the old central planning style of defining its goals in terms of economic growth targets and indicators, it also emphasises the need to address other development issues. As a result the CPRGS can be interpreted by different actors in quite different ways. The text of the CPRGS allows different people to agree, even though they have different agendas. This presents certain challenges for the future; when it comes to implementation of the strategy the responsibility for deciding real priorities will lie with the state, which may not care about the donors’ interpretation of the CPRGS for example, and may focus instead on the economic growth and investment imperatives highlighted within the CPRGS.

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Chapter Four: Case Studies

The prevailing narrative in the CPRGS regarding linkages between economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental sustainability is relatively narrow and simplistic. In the view of the MPI authors of the CPRGS, economic development should be the highest priority because it will make the people richer. Once people are richer, they can improve their environment. In this view, the central task for achieving poverty reduction is economic growth and concern for environmental protection, while it is raised, is of less importance. As discussed in the preceding chapters, the CPRGS contains little analysis of linkages between poverty and environment. This mindset is reflected in the name of the CPRGS, with the inclusion of poverty reduction and growth but exclusion of sustainability. There are, however, many alternative narratives to this “economic growth narrative” (discussed in chapter two) which argue that short-term economic growth will not necessarily ensure longer term environmental sustainability. This alternative narrative argues that the CPRGS has no measures to ensure that once economic growth has taken place, attention will focus on addressing the resultant environmental degradation. The importance of this alternative narrative is illustrated through the case study of Dak’Lak below (section 4.1), which shows that, in accordance with the CPRGS environmental narrative, unsustainable economic growth and environmental degradation do drive each other on. The results are not, however, as expected in the CPRGS: instead of high economic growth leading to decreased poverty, the Dak’Lak case study demonstrates how economic growth has led to negative impacts on the natural resource base and to increasingly high social costs borne by poor people in the region. The second case study discussed here concerns Vietnam’s news media, which played a minor environmental role in the CPRGS process. The national press was invited to some community and regional workshops, but for ‘making news’ rather than for participation in the consultations.32 Greater involvement of Vietnam’s public information media in the CPRGS process would have allowed them to make a substantial contribution to the process of integrating poverty reduction with improved environmental management. This is discussed in the case study below. Case Study - Deforestation in Dak’Lak Province 33

Rapid expansion of coffee culture has contributed to problems of deforestation and the marginalisation of local poor and indigenous populations in Dak’Lak province. The rapid growth in overall rural incomes as a result of this “coffee boom” corresponds to the “economic growth narrative” that prevails in the CPRGS. According to this narrative, rapid economic growth is the prime engine for poverty reduction and will eventually lead to the mainstreaming of environmental sustainability. In keeping with this narrative, Dak’Lak coffee is currently one of Vietnam’s primary agricultural exports. However, research in Dak’Lak supports the ‘alternative narrative’ excluded from the CPRGS, and demonstrates that rapid economic growth can lead to high social and economic costs borne by poor people excluded from this growth. Dak’Lak Province is located in the middle of Vietnam’s Central Highlands, bordered by Phu Yen and Khanh Hoa provinces to the east, Lam Dong to the south and Dak Nong Province to the south and West and Gia Lai province to the north. It covers 13085 square km.

32 Price-Thomas, 2003: 12 33 Compiled from the report ‘Dak’Lak: Participatory Poverty Assessment’, PTF (2003)

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About 1.67 million people live in Dak’Lak, consisting largely of rural ethnic Kinh people and over 40 other ethnic minority groups. Much of the area is mountainous with almost 40 per cent of its territory comprising of fertile basaltic soil suitable for annual food crops and perennial commercial crops such as coffee. Since the launch of Doi Moi, the Dak’Lak economy has improved. GDP per capita went up from US $ 218 in 1991 to US $ 258 in 1995 and US $ 368 in 2002. Agriculture, industry and services have sustained positive growth rates. The growth rate of agricultural production from 1991 to 1995 was 10.8 per cent per annum and from 1996-2000 it was 11.2 per cent, an impressive success. Dak’Lak’s potential for economic development has recently attracted other Vietnamese migrants and has resulted in dramatic population increases. Agriculture has made a considerable contribution to provincial export revenues, of which coffee accounts for 95 per cent. Living standards have improved remarkably, especially in rural areas and poverty levels have decreased significantly. For example, the number of households ranked as “poor and hungry” fell from 25.6 per cent to 18.9 per cent of the total population between 1999 and 2002. Under the Provincial Plan for Poverty Reduction and Hunger Eradication 2001-2005, it is planned to further reduce this rate to less than fifteen per cent by the end of 2005. In summary, people in Dak’Lak do benefit from the development process, but not everyone benefits to the same extent. Households with higher educational attainment and high availability of labour, which possess large areas of cultivated land, farming equipment, and access to credit for diversification of non-farm income have proven more likely to benefit from the coffee boom. These households, comprising mainly ethnic Kinh people, are better able to adopt modern farming techniques and have become richer than other local ethnic minorities. Degradation of the Environment in Dak’Lak: Since 1993 agricultural production, especially coffee,34 has doubled, with an annual average of 46,000 ha of new land being brought into production. This has resulted in a decrease in forest cover. Between 1994 and 1998, Dak’Lak has lost an annual average of 20 000 ha of forest as the demand for agricultural land among immigrants, combined with coffee and pepper price increases, led to a peak in deforestation rates. Other causes of Dak’Lak’s rapid deforestation include weak management by local forest enterprises, delays in land allocation and land zoning and unclear administrative boundaries for land use planning. This severe deforestation has resulted in accelerated soil erosion and water resource degradation. The poor are more negatively affected: Farmers, especially poor ethnic minorities in Dak’Lak’s mountainous areas, have relied heavily on natural resources for many generations. Traditionally they practised shifting cultivation, but with increasing population pressure on available land, fallow periods have shortened, resulting in declining soil fertility. Greater use of chemical fertilisers could increase soil fertility, but the poor cannot afford this. Local ethnic communities are thus being forced to abandon practices that traditionally protected the forest. Modern forest management and protection policies, coupled with agricultural expansion, have made forests a less attractive source of

34 A lack of diversification has also been identified as one of the critical causes driving environment degradation in Dak’Lak. Most of the arable land with basaltic soils has been given over to monocultures of coffee, though this land could produce other high value crops. Diversification and multi-cropping patterns could improve the income of local farmers, as well as reducing the economic and ecological risks associated with cash-crop monocultures. Diversifying agricultural activities should include participatory land use planning. In addition, agricultural extension services should focus on helping farmers change their cropping patterns and offering appropriate extension models. Yet in all the villages and communes surveyed, informants reported that there have not been any guidelines for diversification, either from the local administration or agricultural extension services.

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livelihood for Dak’Lak’s indigenous people. However, as the rapid increase of population has resulted in a lack of available cultivable land, poor households sell their cleared farmland to migrants and move further into the forested mountains where they face increasingly difficult living conditions. Converting these steep forested hillsides into agricultural land results in low productivity and high erosion rates. Depletion of water resources: The area for lowland rice production in Dak’Lak is only a small proportion of the total agriculture land in the province. Paddy rice production per capita in 2002 in Ea’Hleo district was, for example, only 30 – 40 kilograms, far less than the national average. As a result, most households depend on upland farming and commercial crops such as coffee to supplement family incomes. As mentioned above, cultivation of the upland results in rapid deforestation which, in turn, has been accompanied by increasing water shortages in the dry season and damaging floods in the rainy season. Several serious droughts and increasingly contaminated drinking water sources have alarmed Dak’Lak’s rural populations. Forest allocation – a good CPRGS measure but implementation is difficult: As Dak’Lak’s forests have been over-exploited, it has become increasingly difficult for poor people, who are heavily reliant on forest resources, to harvest timber and non-timber products. One government response has been an attempt to hand control of forest resources back to communities. For example, the Four public sector forest enterprises that manage 60 000 hectares of forest in Ea’Hleo District were instructed that forest lands should be protected and managed by local communes.35 To date, however, only small areas of protected forests have been allotted to the communes. Sustainable agriculture and associated problems: In the two districts examined, villagers reported that coffee yields had decreased from about two tons per hectare five years earlier to about half a ton per hectare.36 The same situation was observed in other land under different monocultures, where crop yields seriously decreased after two or three years of production. Crop productivity cannot be maintained or improved in these areas without introducing sustainable farming techniques. Villagers report that extension workers and other leaders have taken part in many discussions about sustainable agriculture, but no concrete activities have been introduced to date. Meanwhile, villagers in Dak’Lak are becoming increasingly concerned about the degradation of their natural resource base. They stressed the need for an enhanced poverty reduction support program, which authorised appropriate local agencies or organisations to decide on project activities and beneficiaries. This, they argued, should replace the current system, which lacks clarity regarding organisational responsibility and suffers from overlapping administrative procedures. The villagers also assigned high priorities to roads, markets, school construction and improving the cumbersome procedure associated with public credit. Many villagers, for example, did not have land certificates (or Red Book) required to apply for a bank loan. People also proposed to drop the initiative to subsidise transport costs for goods and physical materials to remote areas as it only largely benefited intermediary agencies, but not the poor. 35 - according to Decision 168/2001/QD-TTg 36 There is contradictory information on coffee yields, with some organisations reporting average coffee yields that exceed 1.5 to 2 tons per hectare and, in some areas, even reaching as high a four tons per hectare. These reports suggest that it in only in some, more marginal areas of Dak’Lak that yields have dropped below below one ton/hectare. There are also some suggestions that coffee farmers might not invest in maintenance and fertilizer when coffee prices are low, and that it does not automatically follow that low yields are the result of soil deterioration.

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In contrast to the villagers’ priorities, the provincial Government, under Decision 132 and 178, planned to provide indigenous communities with arable land by reclaiming forest land and buying existing land from other landholders. Dak’Lak has had official guidelines for participatory land use planning and land allocation since 2001. While more than 96 per cent of the agricultural land has been allocated to private households, only some 20000ha of forest land have been allocated (with red book). Village people commented, however, that there is little un-allocated land available, and resource-rich people are unwilling to sell at local government rates, these plans were unlikely to assist them. Future government policy with respect to the coffee industry is also a matter of concern for the local poor. Under Decision 168/2001/QD-TTg from the Prime Minister’s office, which considers long-term social and economic development in the Central Highlands, no further expansion of coffee growing areas is planned. Almost all informants agreed that this is a partial solution to the many problems experienced by small-scale and poor farmers. However, they also all pointed out that coffee has been and remains the most potentially profitable crop in Dak’Lak. Thus everyone tried to hold onto his or her coffee farm. Moreover, as current forest management policies make reforestation less financially attractive than coffee, forests continue to be decimated as people clear fields for commercial crops. Local governments – which are completely overlooked in the CPRGS and which have played no role in the mainstreaming of environment and poverty linkages – are left to resolve these issues. Their attempts to reallocate investments and to develop a forest resource management regime that can attract the active and effective participation of local people, have not been successful and, as discussed above, have simultaneously been unwilling to allow forests to be managed by local communes. As the local government can no longer effectively control producers and traders, it is anticipated that the coffee industry, under the market-driven economy, will continue to have a negative impact on Dak’Lak’s water and forest resources. In keeping with the CPRGS’s focus on economic growth as a primary means of poverty reduction, asset-rich households have land that can be used as collateral, allowing them access to credit and, facilitating the further expansion of coffee production. As shown in this case study, the market itself has not dictated an allocation of land that favours the local poor and helps them to achieve similar rates of economic growth. In addition, the growth of the coffee industry has grown at the expense of the environment – as predicted by the main environmental narrative in the CPRGS – but it has not subsequent to its boom period resulted in the sustainable development of local environmental resources. Instead it has degraded the environment and the costs of that degradation are born, not by those who have benefited from the economic boom, but by poor farmers excluded from this economic growth. As these ethnic minorities do not have access to formal sources of credit, as they are unlikely to have lands allocated to them or to be able to reclaimed appropriate cultivated land and as they have sold their original farm lands and retreated to the steep forested hillsides where they experience low productivity and erosion, they experience deepening poverty as a result of the economic boom. Reversing this trend will require government intervention, through socio-economic development policies aimed at protecting poor and indigenous inhabitants from further loss of their arable land on the one hand, and promoting sound forest, management practices on the other. As, however, the main CPRGS environmental narrative does not recognise this process and assumes that economic growth decreases poverty while also overlooking the role of local authorities and organisations, such developments are unlikely to be initiated through CPRGS processes of implementation.

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Case study - The Role of Vietnam’s News Media37

In the 1980s and early 1990s, environmental issues were very new in Vietnam. People’s first understanding of them came from external sources, translated into Vietnamese, on issues such as ozone depletion, air pollution and solid waste management. Vietnamese journalists gained an understanding of environmental issues from these articles and began to raise questions about Vietnam’s environment problems. The GOV and its international partners, together with leading environmental specialists, also began to pay more attention to these issues.

Box 4.1: A journalist’s perspective and a perspective on journalists

‘The poor are the most affected by environmental pollution. Environmental improvement will create positive

impacts on the poverty alleviation. The mass media plays a dynamic role in preventing and fighting

environmental degradation…’ civil society representative

‘Today’s situation contrasts with the recent past. Today people show respect more to the rich rather than to

the poor…poverty reduction campaigns must raise awareness and concerns over the situation of the poor…’ civil society representative

‘The press has actually become an important force participating in the country’s management’ representative of a Vietnamese civil society organisation.

The situation changed rapidly during the 1990s, starting with a national programme to assess the environment and to develop a national strategy for environmental protection. In December 1993, the National Assembly approved the Environmental Law. In 1994, the Government ratified important international treaties such as the Biodiversity Convention and CITES. Meanwhile, under the influence of Doi Moi and the new open door policy, coupled with rapid economic growth, the process of development began to reveal some negative effects, including depleted natural resources and increased environmental degradation. The environment also came under serious pressure from a rapidly growing population which had reached eighty million by the turn of the century, making Vietnam one of the world’s most densely populated nations. Journalists found environmental problems were increasingly challenging the long-term development of the country. This media coverage, despite coming from government owned media, often reflects the ‘alternative narratives’ not seen in the CPRGS. Media and Environmental Journalism

The printed press, television and radio in Vietnam, all state owned, have become steadily more aware of the environmental situation and problems. Articles and programmes on the environment started as a result of the efforts of a handful of interested journalists. Focusing more on the environment has become a new principle for a number of newspapers. Voice of Vietnam Radio

Voice of Vietnam Radio (VOV) was the first news agency to set up a specific programme on population, natural resources and the environment in the early 1990s. In the beginning, this programme was broadcast for fifteen minutes twice a day, three times per week. By 1996, due to accelerating environmental degradation and its socio-economic impacts, the programme was expanded to a daily broadcast, with five reporters specialising in

37 Compiled from Dung, 2002.

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environment and population coverage. Additionally, the programme worked with many collaborators from provincial and local radio stations. Environmental stories accounted for seventy to eighty per cent of broadcast time, with the rest devoted to population issues. Three quarters of Vietnam’s population lives in rural areas and many of these areas lack electricity. Many poor families do not have television, but can have access to information about their environment through radio broadcasts. The content of environmental programs varies, providing information on specific environment and development issues such as soil degradation, water shortages and contamination, industrial pollution, ineffective use of natural resources and forest management practices, as well as highlighting positive experiences and good practices. The majority of these programs address specific local situations and localities; they reflect a diversity of criteria and views on environmental problems and their solutions.

Vietnam Television

VTV has two programmes dealing with environmental issues. ‘For the Quality of Life’ is broadcast weekly on Monday evenings, using a magazine format. It includes reports and investigations on many international and domestic environmental issues, especially focusing on forest protection, biodiversity conservation, clean water and rural sanitation issues. The programme is maintained by a strong team of highly skilled, young environmental reporters from VTV. It actively contributes to increasing environmental awareness among people and authorities at different levels. In addition, the programme carries paid advertisements promoting environment protection, thanks to a UNDP funded project aimed at increasing public awareness on the environment. Though only a weekly programme, ‘For the Quality of Life’ has attracted strong public support and attention. Following ‘For the Quality of Life’, VTV has now also established a daily programme entitled ‘The Environment and Natural Resources’, broadcast every afternoon. This television program provides a variety of reports and stories on sustainable development challenges faced throughout the country, related to land resources, water resources, forests and biodiversity, maritime resources and coastal zones, rural and urban / industrial environmental management. This program also presents the government’s environmental policies and strategies and highlights ‘good’ and ‘bad’ practices. For example, it has reported on several companies that are polluting the environment. It also reports on innovative community level approaches to environmental protection and conservation. Print Media and Environmental Journalism

Environmental reports on VOV and VTV have helped inspire reporters working for other press agencies, prompting them to report on the environment. At the end of the 1980s and in the early 1990s, environmental stories came out infrequently. In the period from 1992 to 1994, they were dealt with in many domestic newspapers, and environment had become one of the main topics in the local press. Lao Dong (Labour), for example, is a leading national newspaper that began early on to discuss threats to the environment and continues to do so regularly. Lao Dong reports on environmental issues in order to warn people, particularly those who are most vulnerable, about forest and biodiversity loss. Lao Dong has also been in the frontline of the fight against illegal timber cutting and wildlife poaching, often implicating officials from local government agencies in these activities. One very high profile example of their investigative journalism was the case of the Tanh Linh state forest enterprise in 1999. Thirty-six defendants were eventually

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accused of ‘violating forest protection rules, irresponsibility, corruption and illegally

stockpiling military weapons’ Over fifty thousand cubic meters of timber with a value of 1.6 million U.S. dollars were cut from various wildlife sanctuaries and protected forests with the tacit co-operation of local officials. Twenty-nine district and provincial officials were eventually indicted, including a former deputy director of Binh Thuan province’s Department of Agriculture and Forestry. The Khoa Hoc va Doi Song (Science and Life), Tien Phong (Vanguard), Thanh Nien (Youth) are other good examples. Every issue of the Khoa hoc & Doi Song magazine, for example, contains reports on the environment. Some issues have three or four articles on environmental topics. In Ho Chi Minh City, Nguoi Lao Dong (The Labourer) and Tuoi Tre (Youth) are the newspapers with the largest number of readers in the country. They are also strong in environmental reporting. Saigon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) publishes frequent articles concerning the hazards of water pollution due to increasing population, urbanisation and industrial development in the city. Hundreds of other newspapers often report on a variety of environmental issues including problems of polluted rivers, marine pollution, disappearing mangrove forests and loss of biodiversity. These newspaper articles, despite being state-controlled, have contributed to promoting environmental awareness among the public and senior decision makers, building and mobilising public opinion, criticising examples of unacceptable environmental damage and encouraging growing government transparency and accountability related to environmental and resources management issues.

Public Impacts

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s statistics, the Vietnamese press publishes reports on deforestation, illegal timber trade or wildlife traffic every day. On occasion, the Vietnamese press raises sensitive issues about how communities, particularly the poorest communities, suffer from environmental degradation. This kind of reporting is effective at drawing the attention of people and authorities to these issues. A recent example were reports by VTV and newspapers on tons of pesticide, buried many years earlier that are causing water pollution and cancers among poor villagers in a commune of Nghe An Province. Another article on VTV, reporting on an old house submerged in wastewater for many years, has obliged Hai Phong authorities to address an issue they had long ignored. Since the early 1990s, national press reports have warned citizens about the possible health and ecological hazards of pesticide mismanagement. They have urged the Government to improve their management of pesticide importation and use. Such reports on the gaps in environmental and natural resource management have had significant impacts, drawing public concern and obliging authorities to find solutions for environmental problems. Starting in the mid-1990s and continuing until today, the national media has reported widely on the illicit timber trade and wildlife trafficking, and especially on the unequal battles between poorly equipped forest guards and illegal loggers and poachers. A series of journalistic investigations and reports on deforestation have forced the Government to close many forests, reducing the annual quota of timber exports and improving forest management and protection.

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Media reports on pesticide mismanagement and illegal forest logging are good examples of how government and media can work in tandem, how careful media coverage can improve environmental protection. Some had feared that irresponsible reporting on health and environmental effects could lead to public overreactions and negative perceptions of government mismanagement. But instead of suppressing information, in these cases, the Government chose a widely praised ‘open door’ approach. The authorities opted to allow the mass media to report accurately on the situation, then took appropriate actions against the culprits. Government-media partnership, such as requiring companies to report their pollution levels in the media, can be an effective way of curbing pollution. Another way is to publish a ‘black list’ of polluters in newspapers to discourage environment-unfriendly behaviour. Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists

The Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists (VFEJ) was set up in October 1998 with support from the WWF-Indochina Programme, UNDP, the Vietnam Association of Environment and Nature Conservation, ESCAP and Asia- Pacific Forum for Environmental Journalists (APFEJ). With nearly fifty members from the main newspapers, radio and television stations based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, VFEJ allows environmental journalists to exchange information, skills and experiences. It also helps to increase their awareness and knowledge of environmental and natural resources issues and to help them to report correctly, and in a timely fashion, on environmental problems important for Vietnam. Their ultimate goal is to ensure public access to accurate and objective information on the environment and motivate the public to be actively involved in environmental protection activities. Activities of the VFEJ are conducted in the forms of dialogue, bulletins, and training. In 1999, VFEJ organised dialogues on sanitation and safety of vegetable products, wildlife management and conservation, clean water and environmental sanitation for rural areas. Similar dialogues on air pollution in cities, water supplies and natural disasters have been organised this year. After their first successful dialogues, VFEJ has started to receive requests and funding from different organisations and GOV agencies, to continue holding dialogues and training on knowledge and skills for promoting public awareness for environmental sustainability.

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Chapter Five: Catalysts for Environmental Mainstreaming and Recommendations

Mainstreaming environmental and poverty issues in the CPRGS

The primary driver for the incorporation of environmental issues into Vietnam’s CPRGS process has been the role of international donors. They were mostly responsible for raising the issue of poverty and environmental linkages and pushing local agencies to belatedly incorporate this concept in the CPRGS. This has meant that, for the first time in Vietnam, environmental sustainability and poverty reduction have been addressed in the same planning process and document. The main impetus for integrating poverty and environment linkages within the CPRGS process came from partners such as UNDP, CIDA and DANIDA, who had long standing programmes of support for environmental management activities in Vietnam. The World Bank and the UNDP, in particular, led this group and initiative through the PWG and PTF, which enabled donors to provide support for the CPRGS drafting process and, in so doing, to facilitate the mainstreaming of environment-poverty linkages. Recommendations one and two thus focus on the role of international donors in encouraging further activities of this sort.

Recommendation 1: Ongoing donor participation in the dialogue on

mainstreaming environmental considerations into pro-poor development is essential.

Many if not most donors in Vietnam will aim to align their development assistance strategies, including their environment agenda, with the CPRGS. Ongoing donor participation in the dialogue on mainstreaming environmental dimensions into the pro-poor development agenda – and vice versa - can be done through different agencies and institutions, both nationally and at local levels. One opportunity for international partners to get more involved is through participation in the ‘International Support Group on Environment’ (ISGE), chaired by MONRE and supported by the ‘Poverty and Environment Initiative’ (itself supported by UNDP and DfID), which hopes to focus on issues related to the implementation of the CPRGS at local levels.

Recommendation 2: Donors should expand their engagement in environment-poverty interactions

International partners can and should expand their engagement in environment – poverty interactions. Their CPRGS focus has been largely on pro-poor development, with emphasis on environmental aspects as affecting poor people’s experiences and opportunities. Another aspect of pro-poor development, which is largely overlooked by international partners, is the interaction between trade, poverty and the environment. The CPRGS emphasises ‘protecting the poor from the negative effects of trade’, but doesn’t analyse linkages among trade, environmental degradation and poverty. New initiatives in this area include a study by the WWF and World Bank that explores linkages between trade liberalisation, poverty and the environment.

Opportunities and incentives for mainstreaming environment-poverty issues are limited within Vietnam ministerial structures

From the government’s perspective, ensuring environmental sustainability would seem to have little or no direct connection with poverty reduction. Participation of pro-environment stakeholders in the I-PRSP and CPRGS processes was weak. The National Environment Agency, for example, was not invited to join the drafting committee of either the I-PRSP or

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the CPRGS. Its involvement in the CPRGS came very late in the process - not long before the deadline for CPRGS approval - due to the insistence of the donor community. Because the MIP did not promote environmental aspects of poverty reduction and environmental agencies such as MOSTE, and later MONRE, played a minor role in the CPRGS process. Horizontal coordination among sectoral agencies and vertical coordination among government authorities at different levels are ineffective and inefficient. Each sectoral agency is accustomed to concentrating on its own targeted sector strategies and programmes. For example, MOLISA does not include environmental issues in its sector poverty reduction programme. Similarly, MONRE lacks understanding of, and interest in, poverty and economic growth issues while NEA’s task force made its recommendations based on in its environment sector plans and strategy. Government agencies in general are often unwilling to share information and coordinate with each other. The lack of participatory cross-sectoral discussions of the environmental policies proposed within the CPRGS raises questions about what types of partnerships are likely to emerge during implementation of these policies and programmes. A key constraint to mainstreaming environmental concerns into Vietnam’s pro-poor policies is lack of knowledge. Government agencies lack specific information on the dynamic linkages between poverty, economic growth and the environment. Some of the first PPAs conducted in 1999 provided primary data on how the lack and/or inappropriate use of natural resources can lead to the poverty but these findings were not carefully explored. The preparation of twelve PPAs in 2003, after the approval of the CPRGS, aims to correct this shortcoming, exploring more deeply the linkages between poverty and environment and contributing to a better understanding of these linkages. The GOV continues to decentralise power and autonomy to local authorities. While the situation varies from place to place, provincial and municipal governments in many parts of Vietnam, especially ‘People’s Committees’ and ‘People’s Councils’, now play important roles in the interpretation and implementation of national policies. Provincial governments have growing control over planning and budgeting activities, but remain marginalised from the CPRGS. Weaknesses in implementation capacity are another obstacle. The majority of Vietnam’s local governments, for example, do not place environmental management issues high on their development and investment agendas and have little or no capacity to address these issues if they wanted to. On the contrary, in response to fierce competition to attract investment, between individual provinces and communities, local authorities are more likely to sacrifice environmental values and resources to secure investment deals and short-term growth.

Recommendation 3: Create further opportunities for local authorities In the current phase of the CPRGS process, where increasing emphasis is being placed on decentralised, local planning and implementation of poverty reduction measures, there is much scope to devise effective local policies and actions aimed at effective integration of poverty reduction and sound environmental management. Knowledge creation and awareness raising – particularly relating to cross-sectoral management of environmental issues – for local authorities will create new opportunities to develop pro-poor policies and strategies at the local level that can integrate environmental considerations, and translate this integrated approach into actions. There is a need to strengthen local investment planning and monitoring mechanisms, and to make them more transparent and participatory. Criteria for investment and project assessment must effectively integrate economic, social and environmental considerations and reflect the participation of stakeholders from

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diverse sectors. Representatives of the health and water sectors, for example, need to have opportunities to review proposed investments in industry.

The Incorporation of communities who stand to benefit from policy making and implementation is crucial

Vietnamese civil society and grass-roots organisations played no role at all in the process of ‘mainstreaming environment’ into the CPRGS - no links were made between environmental sustainability and poverty reduction in local and regional consultations. Poor communities, who are typically among the most highly dependent on their natural resource base, were largely excluded from any discussion of environment and poverty linkages during the CPRGS process. Indigenous knowledge, potentially of considerable benefit for both local and national development, particularly for addressing environment and poverty linkages, was likewise excluded from the process. There was no discussion, for example, of the quality of new forests - largely plantation monocultures - being regenerated in deforested regions, or their capacities to provide the services and goods previously provided to poor communities by natural forests. Nor was there discussion of the intense pressure on small holders to increase agricultural production and productivity, despite negative affects on their limited soil and water resources. Overall, a great many issues that have potent effects on poor communities, such as marine and coastal zone degradation, soil degradation, over-fishing and intensive aquaculture, are not addressed in the CPRGS document. Yet, as demonstrated in our case studies, these issues are being widely confronted outside the CPRGS process. Recommendation four thus calls for increased recognition of poor people’s stake in development and for their expanded involvement in policy making

Recommendation 4: Increased recognition of how environmental

development or degradation affects poverty stricken areas is necessary for

improved mainstreaming. There is scope within emerging local and regional dialogues to expand recognition that it is the poor who suffer most from the effects of environmental degradation, and so the poor have the most to gain from many improvements in the local environment and natural resource base. In the same vein, there is scope in many places to expand acceptance of the need for payment, especially to marginal communities, for ‘environmental services’. For example, those communities who protect upper watersheds should be paid for this service by those who benefit lower in these watersheds, including hydro dams, irrigation systems, farmers in the plains, riparian communities vulnerable to flooding, and so on. There is a growing need as well to support local processes, such as the one that has emerged in Quang Nam province (described in Appendix Three), that can facilitate the emergence of new models from the culture of poor communities themselves.

Current opportunities for NGOs and the media to contribute to mainstreaming environment-poverty linkages should be strengthened

The media has been instrumental in raising debate about the relationship between poverty and environmental resources in Vietnam. It has also managed to disseminate widespread information on the topic – often to areas not readily accessible to NGOs and policy makers. The media has also emphasised the main counter-narrative to the Government’s dominant economic growth-led narrative, which argues that environmental sustainability should not necessarily be sacrificed for economic development in the short term. This

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alternative view maintains that there is nothing to ensure that the economic gains from rapid growth will contribute to longer term environmental sustainability and produces empirical evidence that suggests that environmental degradation can contribute to impoverishment of marginal populations. IUCN-Vietnam, for example, is doing valuable work at provincial levels, where they are helping to integrate environmental concerns, natural resource management and rehabilitation issues and bio-diversity values into local development plans. They work with provincial steering committees including provincial departments of fisheries, science and technology, natural resources and environment, and so on, helping these groups in the development and implementation of their plans. They confirm there is still great scope for integration at the provincial level, where there is very little experience or knowledge of planning that is cross-sectoral in nature. There is also scope for simple, practical demonstrations of the many links between increasing environmental sustainability and increasing opportunities for the poor, and between increasing environmental sustainability and reducing the vulnerability for the poor to environmental degradation and natural disasters. Finally, there is also scope for involvement of new participants in the systematic monitoring and evaluation of the government’s own environmental programmes and projects that are most important for poor populations. A number of knowledgeable national NGOs and INGOs active in promoting poverty and environment approaches in Vietnam could make valuable contributions to this monitoring and evaluation, and ensure effective learning from and improvement of these initiatives. Recommendation five therefore suggests that social and professional organisations (or local NGOs) and the media can assist community involvement in environmental and poverty reduction programmes and initiatives.

Recommendation 5: develop ways of supporting local social and

professional organisations (or NGOs) and media programmes that create

opportunities for greater community involvement. Local social and professional organisations, working with and alongside communities, can play a larger role in developing and implementing poverty and environment approaches at local levels, since the central government’s increasingly aims to minimise its own roles at this level. National information media are also increasingly free to express their concerns on development problems and clearly have a growing interest in poverty and environment linkages. While the media has already been remarkable at publishing and disseminating viewpoints, it should be supported and encouraged. Attempts should also be made to disseminate indigenous viewpoints on environmental management and on successful local solutions (see for example Appendix Four).

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Appendix One: Background Information on Vietnam

Vietnam is located in Southeast Asia between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean. The country covers the eastern part of the Indochina peninsula. Vietnam’s land borders China to the north, Laos and Cambodia to the west and measures 4,510 km. The coastline stretches 3,260 km along the South China Sea to the east (including thousands of islands). The total length of the country from north to south is 1,650 km.

Biophysical Setting

The land area of Vietnam is 331,114 km. Three quarters of this territory consists of mountains and hills under primary or secondary forests. Vietnam has four distinct mountainous zones and two major river valleys. The Red and Mekong deltas, and the smaller coastal plains and valleys between them, are intensively cultivated. Vietnam has abundant groundwater sources and a variety of mineral resources, including tin, zinc, silver, gold, antimony, precious stones, and coal. There are large oil and gas deposits, both offshore and on the mainland. Land degradation is widespread and includes accelerated erosion, rapid leaching and loss of organic materials in exposed forest soils, desertification, inundation, landslides, salinisation and acidification. Problems are equally widespread in the aquatic environment; the downstream reaches of most rivers are highly polluted, while upstream water quality remains relatively good. Untreated industrial effluent and domestic wastewaters are discharged directly into streams and lakes, many of which are badly contaminated. Coastal waters are also increasingly polluted, with levels of organic material, heavy metals and pesticide residues higher than permissible standards in many areas. Indiscriminate extraction of ground water is leading to declining water tables in a number of regions, particularly in and around urban areas.

Population

Vietnam’s population was estimated in 2004 at 80.7 million inhabitants, making it the thirteenth most populous nation in the world and second in Southeast Asia. The average annual rate of population growth has been declining rapidly, from 2.1 per cent in the decade 1979 – 1989, to 1.7 per cent year in 1989 – 1999, to a currently estimated 1.18 per cent. The country still has a relatively youthful population, with almost forty per cent of the total population below twenty years of age.

Urban population accounts for twenty-five per cent of the total; this is projected to increase to 45 per cent by 2020. The average density of population in Vietnam is over 240 people per square km; imposing considerable pressure on bio-physical environments, particularly the densely populated agricultural heartlands of the Red and Mekong River deltas. Here highly intensive small holder agriculture competes for scarce land with the rapidly growing cities of Hanoi, Haiphong and Ho Chi Minh City. Burgeoning urban populations overwhelm municipal infrastructure and cause environmental problems such as unmanaged land fills, transport-related air pollution, untreated hospital and hazardous waste, and raw sewage flowing in open channels. In cities and towns, air, water and solid waste pollution need to be addressed, while environmental services fall short of demand (World Bank, 2002: 65). Urban air pollution is also a growing concern, particularly high concentrations of carbon monoxide and increased levels of lead particulates resulting from rapid growth in motor vehicle traffic (MONRE, 2004: 12-14).

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Political Economy

Modern Vietnam regained nominal independence in September 1945, then full independence after a nine year war against French occupation forces. From the mid 1950s to the mid 1980s, first the North, and then the whole country (after reunification in 1975), followed a Soviet socialist development model. At the core of this model was a large central bureaucracy that allocated resources directly into identified priority tasks of national development. This central planning model led to considerable waste and by the 1980s the country suffered increasing shortages, falling production and rising inflation. Since the advent of reform, the domestic private sector has achieved rapid and effective development. The total number of local private enterprises rose from 6,808 in 1993 to more than 120,000 in 2003. The number of state enterprises dropped from 12,000 to 6,000 and cooperatives declined from 37,649 to 1,199 during the period 1986 - 1999 (GSO, 2000). Foreign investment flows increased from virtually zero in the early 1980s to roughly seven per cent of GDP in 1997, then declining to little less than four per cent. Private investment has increased rapidly in response to the government’s new policies. In 1985, before economic reform, non-state domestic funds accounted only for two per cent of GDP or 15.5 per cent of the total investment whereas state investment dominated the total investment with eleven per cent of GDP or 84.5 per cent of total investment (World Bank, 1990: 16). During the period 1991-2000, the non-state sector (including both local and foreign sources) accounted for 49.2 per cent while the state-owned sector was reduced to 50.8 per cent of total investment (WORLD BANK-ADB-UNDP, 2000: 7).

Economic Growth and Poverty Reduction

The government’s economic reform policies have yielded considerable results. The annual GDP growth rate increased rapidly from 4.2 per cent in the 1980s to 6.9 per cent from 1988-1994 and 7.4 per cent from 1994 to 2000. In the 1980s, Vietnam was one of the poorest countries in the world with an estimated GDP per capita of about US $ 130. By 2003, GDP per capita had risen to US $ 485. This rapid economic growth has been accompanied by a sharp reduction in poverty and improvements in social indicators. The share of the population living in acute poverty (defined by Vietnam’s GSO based on international standard) declined from about 75 per cent in 1984 to 58 per cent in 1993 and 29 per cent in 2002.38 Living standards have improved greatly, with average life expectancy rising from sixty-four years in 1990 to sixty-eight years in 2000. The incidence of child malnutrition among children younger than five years of age declined dramatically, from 51.5 per cent to 33.1 per cent during the same period. The country’s Human Development Index (HDI) also showed remarkable progress, increasing from 0.456 (ranking 121st) in 1990 to 0.682 (ranking 101st) in 1999. In general, Vietnam’s economic and social performance in the 1990s has been better than that of any other developing country during the same period, with the possible exception of China.

38 Poverty rate is defined as the share of the population living with incomes below a defined threshold. A variety of methods to calculate the threshold are used in Vietnam. The General Statistic Office (GSO) supported by the World Bank defines the poverty line by computing the cost of a consumption basket, which includes food (21000 calories/person/day) and non-food items. MOLISA applies another methodology (national poverty line measurement) based on household incomes, which vary between urban (VND 150,000), rural mountainous and island areas (VND 80,000) and rural plain and midland areas (VND 100,000) for 2001-2005.

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Appendix Two: List of Interviews

1. Carrie Turk, Senior Officials of the World Bank (WB)

2. Dau Quoc Anh, Head of International Relations Department, ECO-ECO

3. Dean Frank, Head of Aid, Counselor ( Development), Canadian Embassy, CIDA

4. Dinh Thi Chinh, Senior Specialist, MPI

5. Do Thanh Lam, Program Officer Poverty and Social Development Cluster, UNDP

6. Doan Hong Quang, Economist, WORLD BANK

7. Duong Thanh An, Senior Specialist, NEA/ MONRE

8. Le Van Hung, WWF Indochina Program Officer.

9. Minh Duc, Deputy Director of DSEE / MPI

10. Mr. Son, Program Officer, DFID

11. Nguyen Minh Thong, Country Representative, IUCN

12. Nguyen Ngoc , Writer

13. Nguyen Ngoc Ly, Advisor/Head of Sustainable Development Cluster, UNDP

14. Nguyen Ngoc Sinh , General Secretary, AENRP (Former Director of NEA)

15. Nguyen Thi Lan Huong, Vice Director, Institute of Labor and Social Science, MOLISA

16. Nguyen Van Truong, Director of ECO-ECO

17. Pham Minh Tuan, Director of Center for Rural Progress (CRP)

18. Pham Thi Thu Hang, Director of SMEs Promotion Center, VCCI

19. Phan Van Ngoc, Policy Research and Advocacy Manager, Action Aid

20. Phillip Brylski, Coordinator of Environment and Social Development Sector, WORLD BANK

21. Rob Swinkels, Senior Poverty Economist, WORLD BANK

22. Truong Giang, Journalist, Chairman of VACE

23. Vo Nguyen Khanh Nha, Program Officer Poverty Action Program 2015, GTZ

24. Vu Thi Thu Ha, Project Manager, Rio-Plus, GTZ

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Appendix Three: ‘Best practices’ for integrating poverty and environment in

Vietnam

Case Study - National Best Practices

Environmentally friendly ‘best practices’ for poverty reduction and economic growth that have been developed in Vietnam in recent years were not mentioned in the CPRGS. Yet valuable, locally developed models exist. These have been successful in integrating economic growth, poverty reduction and environmental protection, while taking into account local constraints and taking advantage of local opportunities and indigenous culture. Examples include: 1. the eco-village of Hai Thuy, developed by Vietnam’s Institute for Ecological Economy (Eco-Eco) with support from IUCN, 2. the Green Productivity Programme of the Vietnam Productivity Centre and 3. an innovative programme that is returning forest management to local indigenous communities in Quang Nam province.

Box 4.2: Vietnamese models for linking environment and poverty

• ‘We (as the party and government) have failed to intervene and guide the people, now we should learn

from the people’s experience and their initiatives, … We need to watch and learn from the evolving processes, so we can provide appropriate support and facilitation’ – civil society representative

• ‘Too many resources (ninety per cent of the total) have been put for creating wordy policy and document but only ten per cent has been put for implementation... We need a great many concrete, practical

models, carefully adapted to each local situation, for dealing with rural poverty and environmental

degradation’ – environmental NGO representative

• ‘We use an integrated approach for natural resource management, taking into account the need for

improvement to community life and incentives... integrating environmental concerns into the local economy. IUCN supported the establishment of an eco-village in the buffer zone of Ba Vi. It is also

involved in the conservation of Protected Area of Hon Mun Island and its surrounding water to restore degraded coastal ecosystems and create new economic alternatives ‘ –donor agency representative

1. The eco-village of Hai Thuy:39 Supported by IUCN, the Institute for Ecological Economy (Eco-Eco) has developed demonstration eco-villages in Hai Thuy (Le Thuy, Quang Binh Province) a model eco-village on the moving sand. Over the past three years, the Hai Thuy eco-village has created forest shelterbelts to protect and improve the environment, developed innovative agricultural production techniques (cultivation and husbandry) to increase local people’s income, and facilitated the use of renewable energy resources such as water and wind for domestic power generation. Environmental and socioeconomic conditions: Hai Thuy sandy area is of about 1,343 ha, comprising of a hilly, sandy area with a gradual slope, while flat land and low land make up only a small portion of the area. Hai Thuy is located in the tropical monsoon region, and is subject to flooding, typhoons, and droughts associated with the hot southwest winds, creating significant difficulties for local people. There are no rivers in Hai Thuy, only short streams originating from the coastal sand dunes and flowing to the sea. In the rainy season, these streams move sand toward the sea, which is then carried back by incoming tides and spread by the wind, contributing to sand dune movement. The area is characterised by a dry period from April to September each year, when the southwest monsoon winds make the sand extremely hot. The rainy season lasts from 39 Compiled from Eco-Eco and IUCN, 2001.

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September to November, with rainfall sometimes reaching 600-700 mm/month. During this season, the rainfall accumulated within 15-20 days can constitute up to 65-75 per cent of the annual rainfall. The drought and flooding during 1998 and 1999 had a significant negative impact on the livelihood of the local community. Socio-economic conditions and natural resources: Hai Thuy commune has a population of 2,200 inhabitants or 377 households. The working-age population is 900 inhabitants 45 per cent of whom are unemployed. The national power network has not been connected with Hai Thuy. There is only one primary school. Access to mass media is limited, and consequently the educational standards and public awareness of the local people remain low. People in Hai Thuy rely on fishing, agriculture, and minor trades for their livelihood. The shallow waters along the 9 km coastline are exploited for a variety of marine products, several of export quality. Hai Thuy sea has an annual targetable stock of about 2,000 tonnes of marine products, but the current catch rate is roughly 6 per cent of this estimate. The agricultural land in Hai Thuy is 12 hectares (0.9 per cent of the total land area); most of which is suitable for staple food crops. People in Hai Thuy are required to buy food from outside the Commune for 10-11 months each year. Animal husbandry is poorly developed. Forest plantation covers 229 hectares in 1996, or 20 per cent of the total land area. This is insufficient to prevent the impact of moving sand or to reduce the sand heat in the summer. Establishment of the eco-village: Shelterbelts: to protect home gardens against the movement of sand a shelterbelt with dense rows of trees was planted during the first years. As the trees developed and the canopy closed they were thinned to more appropriate densities. Once established, the shelterbelt would also help to improve the micro-climatic and ecological conditions prevailing in the village. Establishment of farm pond system: Ponds for irrigation and aquaculture: the development of ponds may provide significant benefits for farmers such as the provision of water for irrigation of gardens, fish for sale and household consumption, and fruits and vegetables for improvement of the diet of local people. The project developed 40 ponds in lowland areas and depressions next to streams in the sandy area. The ponds are generally more than 1-1,5m deep and extend over 20-100m2. Dry ponds: the project developed up to 40 ‘dry ponds’, which are depressions of approximately 1 metre covering between 200-1000m2. These are developed on higher terrain for the cultivation of food and fruit crops. Establishment of Eco-gardens: Home ‘Eco-Gardens’: This is an improvement of the traditional home garden, which is well known in the area. 30 households on a pilot basis are located along sand dunes and border a stream, in order to create an agro-ecological system combining agriculture, forestry, and fisheries with the generation of small-scale hydro and wind-powered electricity. Communal ‘Eco-Garden’: This is a larger eco-garden for the whole community within an area of 1 hectare. Tree farms: This is undertaken using appropriate agro-forestry systems to transform an arid sand area into an ecological landscape of sustainable production. Work started on an

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area of about 80 hectares, which was divided into three plots for three farmers to organise and manage. Of this area, 80 per cent is for the plantation of protective forest and 20 per cent for agricultural production. Sources of renewable energy: water and wind power are recognised for their positive potential and benefits for all the people involved. Poor farmers living in areas with flowing streams and a prevailing wind of about 3m/sec velocity can make use of the available resources to generate enough energy for household lighting. Wind is also an important energy source, and is capable of running a windmill-like device to generate about 0.3 kW of electricity for household lighting, radio and television. Achievements: Environmental landscape: the local environment has been changed for the better, with the establishment of locally managed plantations tree farms, protective shelterbelts, eco-gardens and communal eco-gardens, as well as schools and health care stations. Economic, cultural and social conditions: Economic conditions: In the model village, agricultural land has been expanded from 12 hectares to 20 hectares, maize yields have increased from 1,5 tones/ ha to 3 tones/ha and vegetables and beans have grown more than 100 per cent. Fruit crops and short-term industrial crops have grown rapidly with the cultivation of new species. Livestock husbandry has performed well, with stocks doubling in size. Aquaculture also returns quick profits. There are now around 40 fishponds in the area and residents are pleased that they can now catch enough fish for sales and household use. Forestry: The forest cover has increased to 45 per cent of total land area, compared with 20 per cent prior to the project. Social conditions: There is now a feeling of greater social equity in the commune. All the 377 households have engaged in and benefited from the project. Life in the commune has experienced vast change. Overall evaluation: The demonstration eco-village on moving sand dunes in Hai Thuy is an agro-ecological model, which enables sustainable agricultural production. The project is a great success. However, the most important benefit is an increase in the awareness of local people of their potential and ability to improve conditions in the arid sandy area. They have set up protective shelterbelts and have developed home gardens suitable to the specific local conditions in order to grow food crops, thus helping to eradicate poverty in the community.

2. The Green Productivity Programmes40

The Green Productivity (GP) concept was established by the Asian Productivity Organization (APO) in 1994 as an outcome of the Rio Earth Summit in 1992. GP is a strategy used to address environmental sustainable development and aims to enhance productivity and socio-economic development whilst ensuring environmental protection. It applies environmental management tools, techniques and technologies to reduce the impact of an organisation’s activities, goods and services on the environment. GP is applicable to the manufacturing, agricultural and service sectors. Eighteen countries

40 Compiled from VPC, 2004.

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throughout Asia and the Pacific are members of the APO and GP methodology has been and continues to be applied to many different sized enterprises within these countries.

GP Programmes in Vietnam: Since 1998, the Vietnam Productivity Center (VPC), under the Directorate for Standards and Quality (STAMEQ), has been successfully implementing the Green Productivity Demonstration Project in Vietnam. This project was funded by the Asian Productivity Organization (APO). Given the majority of GP projects in other APO member countries have been implemented in industrial sectors and agricultural farms, Vietnam was the first country to implement the GP concept into community groups. The first community project implemented by the VPC was SPE-GPDP-98. This project applied GP methodology to three villages - Tinh Loc and Kha Ly Ha villages in the Viet Yen district of the Bac Giang province, north of Hanoi and My Khanh B village in the Cu Chi district of Ho Chi Minh City. At present, the GP approach and methodology is being used to implement environment and community development programmes in 79 villages in 21 out of 61 provinces in Vietnam. The objective of the GP programme in Vietnam is to improve the environmental and socio-economic situation of communities and to then expand GP into the industrial sector. The approach within industries is to integrate GP with an EMS such as ISO 14000. Currently GP is being implemented in two cement factories in Vietnam, Sai Son and Hoang Thach. The action plan of the VPC aims to have 40 enterprises applying GP in 2003. Examples of Kha Ly Ha and Tinh Loc Villages: Kha Ly Ha and Tinh Loc are agricultural villages within the Bac Giang province. Both villages are located in mountainous areas, about 60 km north of Hanoi city. Some characteristics of each village are as follows:

Tinh Loc village

Kha Ly Ha village

Total amount of land: 169.93ha • Cultivated land: 96.44ha • Vegetable plantation land: 75ha • Low lands used for rice cultivation: 21.44ha

Total amount of land: 72ha • Cultivated land: 61 ha • Vegetable plantation land: 30 ha • Low lands used for rice cultivation: 31 ha

Population: 1375 people within 301 households

Population: 1450 people within 330 households

Average income: $US160/capita/year

Average income: $US150/capita/year (Data 1997)

Main issues: • Wells, ponds, and lakes are often the main sources of water. However, these sources

were often polluted and their use created many health problems. • Sewage and manure disposal practices were inappropriate causing local air and water

pollution. Methods for domestic solid waste disposal contributed to air and water pollution. Waste was not collected and treated, and instead was either burned or deposited in gardens.

• Daily activities such as cooking and burning solid waste caused air pollution. • The application of chemical pesticides and fertilisers was inappropriate and resulted in

an increase in environmental degradation through water and soil pollution. • Agriculture productivity was low, mainly due to inappropriate cultivation methods and

external factors such as insect and rat infestation.

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• Agricultural production is the main activity within both Kha Ly Ha and Tinh Loc villages. However, this requires manual labour for limited time periods. During certain stages of the agricultural season, there is little work available. Farmers in other villages seek a by-trade to subsidise their income, but as both, Kha Ly Ha and Tinh Loc villages lack a by-trade, it is was important to establish a secondary income for farmers.

GP Options

(1) Install groundwater pump systems for supplying potable water. (2) Apply biogas technology for treating sewage. (3) Form solid waste collection teams for managing and treating domestic waste. (4) Construct energy efficient stoves. These stoves reduce the amount of energy used, minimise air pollution, and improve the health of villagers. (5) Apply Korean natural farming technology to rice growing to reduce the reliance on chemicals. This method using locally produced natural ingredients enables farmers themselves to prepare fertiliser mixtures. (6) Apply integrated pest management (IPM) to reduce chemical use during agriculture production. (7) Use effective microorganisms (EMs) in agriculture production to reduce reliance on chemicals, and in landfills to reduce odour problems and aid in decomposition. (8) Distribute semicircular-shaped rattraps to the villagers. This will aid in reducing damage to vegetable crops caused by rats. (9) Introduce mushroom cultivation techniques. Cultivating mushrooms will provide a secondary income as well as make use of agricultural waste like straw from rice production.

Implementation and results • Two groundwater pump systems were installed in two villages. These systems pump

groundwater to the surface and filter the water to remove iron. • 20 Biogas chambers were constructed within the two villages. Once animal wastes

dissolve they can also be used as fertiliser for vegetable cultivation. This will reduce air pollution and waste generation.

One domestic waste collection team was formed in each village. The collection teams now dispose of solid wastes into a landfill. Each household contributes money for the maintenance of the landfill and the collection teams. • 150 energy efficient stoves were constructed within the 2 villages. The energy efficient

stoves have the following advantages: reduce the time needed for cooking and reduce energy consumption by 20-30 per cent.; reduce air pollution; reduce the ambient air temperature by 5-7oC which is particularly important in the summer months; minimise the risk of fires occurring within households; reduce smoke and dust, thus improving the health of villagers, particularly for women, children and the elderly who spend more time in the home.

• 700 litres of EM (a catalyst for the decomposition of solid wastes) were supplied to the two villages. The EMs was used for rice cultivation and for treating solid wastes and reduces the odour from the landfill.

• Teams responsible for eradicating rats were formed in both villages. • 30 tons of agricultural waste straw was used for growing mushrooms. Normally straw is

disposed of by burning; whereas this method utilises the waste and generates a second income. Mushroom growing increased the income of villagers, for 1 ton of mushrooms they can receive approximately $US90.

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• The villagers are now aware of the need to protect their environment. Green productivity methodology has become the environmental preservation technique for both villages. It is now applied to any new production activities.

• Villagers established regulations for environmental protection and the maintenance of green productivity activities in their villages.

3. Returning Forest Management to Communities41

Quang Nam is a province with largest mountain area among other riparian provinces in the south of the Central, accounting for about 56 per cent of total mountain area of officially-named mountainous provinces, but 82.5 per cent if mentioning mountain area of the so-

called plains. This mountainous area is very steep and precipitous and separated by mount Ngoc Linh, the highest of those in the Truong Son Range, to the east and the south. It is also the riverhead of almost of the river systems of most importance in the south of the Central, from Thu Bon in Quang Nam to Da Rang in Phu Yen Since 1975, Quang Nam has paid great attention to the development issue of mountainous area and ethnic minority, making it a significant part not only in the provincial development strategy but also its favour and gratitude repayment for the great sacrifice and loss of life of ethnic minorities settling in the province such as Cotu, De Trieng, Ca Dong, Cor, etc during the national revolutionary cause and the U.S. resistance war. For the last 26 years, investments extended for this mission have constituted 25 per cent of the whole provincial budget. Most outstanding of the achievements made from these investments is building several infrastructures for the immediate and long-term development of the province. The highway has reached 43 out of 62 communes (this is noticeably the highest province in the Truong Son range). National power network has covered 12 communes and lots of hydraulic projects have been built. The provincial network of schools, health centres has covered nearly all the communes and hamlets. Despite being inspired by the great efforts and impressive above-mentioned figures, the local development pace is still slow, and the general situation has not improved much. The problems seemingly lie in determining and fighting the obstacles. This fact raised a question: ‘the how’ or the specific way of doing development which without effective solutions results in nothing, despite willingness and devotion. In the spirit of this, the Quang Nam authorities commissioned researchers to investigate the problems associated with establishing a direction for local development. This produced some conflicting facts: First of all, starvation and hunger satisfaction are the primary concern in this area. In spite of the massive changes in the infrastructure condition, there still remains starvation with the running reduction in the average food rate per head per year. It was 370 kg in 1976-1977, dropping to 272 kg in 1988, and just 180 kg at present. The situation becomes even worse before the harvest time when some locals have to eat cassava leaves. Unsurprisingly, forests continue to be destroyed. Illegal timber exploitation and smuggling cannot be prevented as forest violators use buffalos to pull down and drag timber in the Natural Reserve Song Thanh, a primeval forest under the supervision of the forest plantation.

41 Compiled from Ngoc, 2002.

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Gold digging has also seriously destroyed the local forests, thus contaminating the entire natural ecosystem with such problems as polluted rivers, degenerated livestock and entailing social evils including burglaries, thefts, prostitution, drug, gambling, etc. Combating measures taken to improve the situation over the last years seem useless. So why are there conflicts? In mountainous Quang Nam, the settlement projects relocated ethnic populations from upper high land to the lower, encouraging local people to change to paddy rice. The area of paddy fields is, however, limited with 2038 ha created by great efforts and costs over the first quarter of this century, and at most 2500 ha. The area of self-cleared mountain fields decreases to one tenth compared to previously, suffering impoverishment because of yearly re-cultivation whilst state land including forest and agriculture enterprise’s, forest management units can be seen everywhere. Food production, therefore, cannot be one tenth as much as before, leading to inevitable starvation, and the locals no longer feel active and comfortable to make their living on their own land. Another question put forward is that how we tackle the problem of land and forest ownership and the right of the local ethnic communities to their own living environment? the Since years of reunification up to 1993, the whole mountainous Quang Nam was under the control of 2 state cooperatives of Industry, Agriculture, and Forestry. It is the period that forest exploitation was most seriously unplanned. Revenue from full exploitation of different kinds of timber accounted for 60 to 70 per cent of the provincial budget. Reinvestment did not bring desired result while the local living conditions got worse. In 1993, the two state cooperatives were dissolved because of inefficiency. Forest ownership was hereafter allocated to different state variants including the National Natural Reserve, agriculture and forest enterprises, and forest management units, but not to local people themselves, thus resulting in their illegitimate settlement on the land of agriculture enterprise and forest enterprise. Commune-level government has to apply for permission for everything it wants to do. That the local people do not have their own forest justifies the fact that they do not protect and ignore or support forest violation and destruction. Moreover, the land and forest are no longer seen as Giang’s (God’s) bestowed on the village for protection and livelihood and ideas associated with the violation of Giang’s forest are no longer upheld. Land allocation to different state level has, as a result, erased the holy connection between forests and the local society. How can the land and forests be distributed and to whom? It was a mistake to issue Red books - the official land use certificate recognising land or forest possession - to individual local household as sooner or later they were sold to other, mostly King people, at a very low price or the price of a drinking party. As a result, the Red book holder or landowner is to be hired to work on the land that used to be under his possession. Land and forests should be handed out to the village (Community) - the only powerful social unit playing the role as the backbone of the ethnic community in mountainous provinces such as Quang Nam. The role of the village can be witnessed in the long-lasting statement that, under the 1000 year-long period of Chinese domination, the country was invaded but not the villages.