LPRV INTERNSHIP FINAL REPORT

Submitted by Xochitl Benjamin, Msc.Canadian Institute of Planning Intern at the

Coordinating Centre for Poverty Reduction, HanoiAugust 2001 – February 2002

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A. INTRODUCTION

From September 2001 to February 2002, I was an intern at the Coordinating Centre forPoverty Reduction (CCPR) in Hanoi. I also spent roughly three weeks at the University ofBritish Columbia Centre for Human Settlements in Vancouver, prior to my arrival inVietnam.

In the time I spent at the CCPR, there was a Netcorp (WUSC) intern, Jon McGowan, workingon the Vietnamese LPRV website and, in my last month, a WUSC development worker,Arlene Whetter came to work for two years as a librarian for the CCPR/LPRV.

I hope that this report will be used as a working document. Some sections of it areincomplete and I have tried to leave all my work in a state that will enable whoever precedesme to fill in some of the information that is missing, or to complete some of the reports thatare presently incomplete. This point will be made clearer by the ‘Outputs’ section.

B. SUMMARY OF ACTIVITIES

Responsibilities:

My main responsibility in the LPRV program was to assist with the English languagedocumentation of the commune sub-projects being designed and implemented at the Centrefor Poverty Reduction (CPR) level at the five Vietnamese university centres. For this reason,this report will concentrate primarily on documentation and my experiences andrecommendations related to it.

In addition to working on documentation in the CCPR office, I also attended meetings andconferences and travelled to some of the CPRs and commune project sites. At workshopsand meetings, I generally attended to get a better idea of the way the CPRs and the LPRVprogram as a whole, operated. Even when these were not strictly related to thedocumentation work I was doing, they were still quite interesting and helpful to my moregeneral understanding of the program and its component parts (the CPRs and the workinggroups of the CCPR).

Conferences & Workshops:

i) Vinh CPR Workshop on Information Needs Assessment: Vinh, September 2001. Iattended this workshop with Bich from the CCPR and Grant Boyle from UBC. It wasdeveloped by Grant during his work in Dalat, where he found it to be quite successfulas a means of getting the CPRs to examine and identify what their needs are, what theconstraints are and how these can be overcome. The workshop was not very successfulin Vinh as the attendees expressed more of a desire for concrete training on computersoftware and data analysis and were not interested in taking part in a participatoryworkshop. While it did not accomplish quite what it set out to do, it was anilluminating view of the limitations and challenges presented by participatory methodsof information gathering and sharing in Vietnam.

ii) Hue CPR Meeting on Curriculum Development: Hue, October 2001. I attendedthis meeting with Vince Verlaan, Bob Woollard, Jim Delaney and Georgina Houghton

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of Partners for Rural Development. The main topic of discussion was a review of HueCPR’s curriculum development material. After the meeting on curriculum, we hadanother smaller meeting with Dr. Chien and Dr. Vuong of Hue CPR and Bob, Vince,Jim and Georgina Houghton to do with the development of a biogas project in Phu DaCommune.

iii) LPRV International Conference: Hoi An, December 2001. I attended thisconference to participate in discussions, workshops and information-sharing sessionsalong with representatives from all the CPRs, the CCPR, UBC and Laval. It was avaluable opportunity to meet CPR members and also share information and getfeedback from Canadian partners.

Commune Visits:

i) Nghi Phong Commune, Vinh CPR, September 2001. I went along on this communevisit mainly to observe the first commune project implemented by CPR Vinh. CPRVinh members, as well as CCPR members also went on the visit. CCPR member werethere to evaluate the project. I went along on two interviews with households, one aparticipant in the project and one not. Both households expressed their appreciation forthe project however, the interviews were not carried out in much depth or with muchsystematic questioning. In the participant household, only the grandmother was thereand she answered most questions with “Well, I’m just and old woman so I don’t reallyknow.” In the non-participant household, the interviewee expressed empathy for thepoor and also said that these types of development projects were very necessary. Asthis was my first time visiting a commune, as well as my first time meeting Vinh CPR,this was an interesting introduction but perhaps not too useful as I did not really knowyet what kinds of questions to ask or what sort of information I would need to know,etc.

ii) Thanh Commune, Hue CPR, October 2001. I went on a visit to Thanh Communealong with most of the members of Hue CPR and Bob Woollard from UBC. Thepurpose of the visit was participatory commune profiling. I was a member of the groupwhich collected information on social issues. Notes on this visit are attached in the‘Outputs’ section of this report.

iii) Long An Commune, HCMC CPR, December 2001. I visited Long An Communealong with Ms. Hoa, Information Coordinator, Ms. Hong, Secretary and Michael Leaffrom UBC. The purpose of the visit was to follow up on project implementation, meetwith members of the Woman’s Union and People’s Committee and some of the projectrecipients. Notes on this visit are attached (‘Outputs’).

C. DOCUMENTATION

Method:

• My initial task, defined while I was in Vancouver, was to help strengthen thedocumentation of the planning process (not so much the results) of one commune sub-project from each Centre for Poverty Reduction.

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• To do this, I reviewed exiting documentation of the projects, as well as all memos, notesor reports already existing that mentioned documentation or information gathering. WhatI found was that a lot had been said, at different times, about trying to standardiseinformation gathering and to encourage the documentation of certain elements that, it wasthought, were being overlooked. However, it seemed that not much action had beentaken on these suggestions and, further more, the suggestions themselves werefragmented and divided up between several reports and emails among LPRV members.

• I compiled a list of questions on the sub-project processes. These questions were almostentirely taken from separate notes and emails that have been passed around through thecourse of the project, but never coordinated or actively enforced as a guideline fordocumentation and information gathering. I put them in a sort of chronological order, tobe used as a guideline for me as I was looking for information. This list of questions isattached (see ‘Outputs’ section). These questions generally did not amount to much morethat a wish list as it turned out to be too much information for me to try and gather for allfive CPR’s in the short time I had.

• From this outline of questions, I scaled it down to a much shorter, simpler, although lessprocess-oriented list of questions for information gathering. This was intended to be aguideline for a project summary, rather than an in-depth view of the project, it’s activitiesand results. The reason I did this was in response to the realisation that, while all thequestions from the first outline I did are extremely important, it was not possible for meto coordinate such in-depth reports for all the CPRs. As well, the larger format was a bitinflexible while the shorter summary outline was more adaptable to specific situations inthe CPR projects.

• I completed project summaries for one project from CPR Vinh and CPR HCMC, basedon the project summary outline I developed, documents available from those CPRs,personal interviews with CCPR members and commune visits. These summaries are inthe ‘Outputs’ section of this report.

Constraints:

• Getting CPRs to give me honest and critical or anecdotal information on theprojects: generally, they were quite good about providing a critical view of the results ofprojects but rarely on the planning process. Sometimes the things I read in projectdocuments turned out not to be the case when I visited a CPR or requested furtherinformation. Also, they never used anecdotal information from project participants intheir reports. As a result, there exists very few documented first-hand responses fromcommune residents or even officials involved in the commune. Another problem in thisarea was the short duration of my internship. Generally, the better I got to know people,the better the quality of information I was able to obtain however, I did not get to knowthat many people at the CPRs very well.

• Editing information available information into correct English: this is not difficultbut it carries with it the obvious risk of misinterpretation. On the other hand, someproject documents are difficult to understand in their original, unedited translations.

• Lack of contact with people that worked on the projects and lack of continuity in theprojects themselves: it is a general problem of the LPRV project that project work tendsto be done in an extremely fragmented way. People write reports with no date or nameson them, people who are involved in one aspect of the project are not involved in others,people who designed the projects in the beginning have left the university, etc. Theseconditions have really taken their toll on the documentation of projects, accountability interms of results and accuracy of information I was able to obtain.

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• Lack of feedback and direction on my work: I generally worked alone in the CCPRoffice however, this is the kind of work that needs continual contact and collaborationwith people. I tried to keep this contact up with email however the email connectionswere extremely slow and I found this to be very time-consuming. When I did submitwork for comments (usually to people at UBC), I generally did not receive any or Ireceived relatively perfunctory “that looks good” comments which, while nice, wererarely constructive.

• Lack of clarity in use of terms and development jargon: I found certain terms to beoverused (by both Canadians and Vietnamese) to the point of meaninglessness, or simplyundefined and thus also meaningless in the context of the project. The main terms Ifound particularly over or mis-used are “participatory”, “learning-by-doing”, “povertyreduction”, “sustainably”, “capacity building” and “poor”. For example, one projectcarried out by a CPR was called “Capacity Building for Participatory PovertyReduction”. In my opinion, this is virtually meaningless, says nothing about the actualcontent of the project and is more a case of throwing “acceptable” terms around in orderto satisfy perceived Canadian standards and requirements. Another area where it was amajor problem was in the definition of recipients as “poorest of the poor” or “poor”. Thiswas a problem because of the difficulty most CPRs seemed to be having at reaching the“poorest of the poor” and that fact that most project recipients were relatively better off.It is possible that stronger definitions of terms could help projects reach their intendedrecipients (whether “poorest of the poor” or not) and could certainly help in theevaluation of how projects are fulfilling their goals and mandates.

• Time: I did not have enough time to work through all the CPR projects. However, I hopethis document will be of use to another intern in following up on my work and followingwhat I was thinking and what the rationale behind what I did was.

• Lack of experience: this was my first proper development-related position in adeveloping country. Given this fact, it was both an advantage and a disadvantage to haveto work so independently. I learned a lot which was great for me but I do think mycontributions could probably have been greater and more effective if I done more work incollaboration with someone more experienced than I am. I also perceived somereluctance of more senior CPR (although not CCPR) members to work with me. Thismay have been due to my lack of experience and junior position in the project, or due tolack of understanding of my role.

Advantages:

• New outlook: I think it was a major advantage to be coming into the project with a freshviewpoint. A lot of the things I was unable to understand, I think, can be seen asvaluable reflections of some general concepts that would be unclear to other externalagencies or individuals.

• Independent travel budget: I was lucky to have part of my internship money beallocated for travel so I had quite a lot of independence to travel to the CPRs and meetwith people on short notice without worrying about it getting it paid for, having to waitfor approval or attempting to make my way through the murky underworld of LPRVbudgeting!

• Vietnamese support: although people on all sides on the LPRV program are busy andmost have obligations outside of the projects, most people were very helpful to me andvery willing to help. This goes especially for all members of the CCPR, who wereexcellent about making time for me when I needed it, and the younger members at theCPRs who always answered my emails and helped me in my visits to the CPRs. It was

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really good to be able to learn from the older, experienced members of the CCPR andalso to be able to work with the younger members of the CPRs who have a lot of energyand enthusiasm for the project’s objectives.

• Support of other Canadian interns/development workers: it was a definite advantageto have several other Canadians working on the project at the same time as I whom Icould compare experiences with. Not all were working on the aspects of the project thatwere relevant to what I was doing but it was helpful to have other people around theoffice regularly to share ideas with and get personal responses from. If these people hadnot been here, I might have ended up feeling considerably more isolated and lessmotivated about the program.

• Relatively regular personal meetings with LPRV members from UBC: personalmeetings with people from UBC was the best way for my position to be continuallyclarified. In the time I was here, I met with UBC LPRV members about four times ontheir visits here. This was really helpful to me and went a lot further than emailing as faras effective collaboration and getting feedback on my work.

Recommendations:

1. Follow up & distribution of materials: definitely the most important recommendation Ihave is that my work on documentation be followed up on! I think it would not be toodifficult to significantly improve upon the quality of the English-languagedocumentation, to the extent that all documents coming from the CPRs could potentiallybe distributed to external agencies right away. I think this skill is an important capacityto be built as part of the last year of the LPRV. The publicity that could be gained by thedistribution of high-quality documents could potentially gain more consulting work forthe CPRs and the CCPR that could help them continue beyond the LPRV.

2. Commune & CPR Visits: it was extremely helpful for me to be able to travel the toCPRs and to go see the commune sites I was documenting. This often helped me fill thegap between what was on paper and what was happening in reality. However, as helpfulas it was, I found it was only helpful if I had the Canadian LPRV member responsible forsupporting that CPR with me. My own experience was too limited and my status in theproject too low for me to be able to get very good information on my own. When I didvisits on my own, I was generally not able to get much information other than of the type“the people are very happy that Canadians care about them. They think the project hasmade their lives much easier and they want to thank Canadians for caring about poorpeople in Vietnam”. This was the case at all levels, both from the CPR members I metwith and the commune residents or officials. When I had Canadian members with me, Iwas able to get much better critical information about the projects, mainly because theyknew better than I what questions to ask, were more familiar with the projects andcommanded more respect and attention from CPR members and communeresidents/officials. Although I never visited a commune with CCPR members like VanAnh or Thuy, I imagine this would also be a good way to get more impartial and criticalinformation, due to their experience, positions in the program and my good workingrelationship with them.

3. Library, networking & network development: in terms of documentation, I do notthink that the documents are currently being effectively shared among CPRs. Hopefullythis situation will change with Arlene now working full time as the librarian. I thinksome work has to be done in order to standardise some aspects of the documents (dates,authors, some general information, title pages, page numbers, etc) so that some of thesedocuments can be circulated, not just among the CPRs but also to external agencies and

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individuals. The library at the CCPR does not even have print copies of its own projectdocuments and, while building up collections at the CPRs is one of the goals of theproject, making our own project documents part of these collections has not beenemphasised.

4. Training: I think there should be a workshop held for whichever CPR members it is (inmy understanding, it’s usually the younger ones) who write the reports, on documentingthe projects. From this workshop, I think a more standardised reporting format should beimplemented and training from an experienced professional (ie. NOT an intern who doesnot have this kind of expertise, or the authority to train others) on the subject of fieldwork and documentation. I think there has already been some training on this and alsothat some is in the works (being organised by Jim Delaney at HCMC CPR) so perhapsthis will be taken care of soon.

5. Additional materials & basic information: I think there are two short documents thatwould be really useful for the purposes of information sharing and project development.One is a summary of project activities and the other is a comparison chart of some verybasic project information. Neither are long and both are relatively easy to do.Unfortunately, I only thought of them at the end so was unable to complete them myself.However, I did make templates for both which can be found in the ‘Outputs’ section ofthis document. I also started to work on gathering some very basic information. Forexample, previously, there was no list of general information on CPR/CCPR Members. Irequested that each CPR and the CCPR please send me a complete list with names,positions and expertise of members, which all of them did and this is now available in the‘Outputs’ section of this report. I was also working on trying to get lists ofdocumentation and trying to find names and dates to put on documents that currently donot have that information. This is a work in progress though.

E. BENEFITS OF INTERNSHIP

Personal – it seemed highly appropriate for me to be working on a project where the maingoal was capacity building because my capacity to continue to do international developmentwork in the future was definitely raised. I was able to gain necessary in-country experienceand also benefited highly from the cultural experience of living in Vietnam and working withVietnamese. In fact, I liked the working environment and the country so much that I willstay on after my internship is over and try to find more work in Hanoi. Although I have notbeen offered anything yet, I have only begun to look recently and most organisations I havespoken with so far are impressed that I already have some experience working in Vietnamand can speak some Vietnamese.

In terms of the actual work I did, I don’t know that it will be what I would like to pursue inthe future as my interests are in the more physical and spatial aspects of planning and urbandesign. However, I do think that a lot of my experience working with the LPRV can begeneralised in a way that will be a relevant reference for any development work that Icontinue to do. I was exposed to the politics of development agencies and work, cross-cultural working environments, different concepts and philosophies of development and fromall this, was able to enrich my own opinions and ideas. In general, it has been an invaluableexperience that I know will serve me well for the rest of my career.

Partner Benefits – I think my work on documentation has more benefits for the Canadianpartners than it does for the Vietnamese partners in the project. This is mainly due to the

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language barrier and my lack of previous experience. Given the language barrier, I was notable to do much to help out with the Vietnamese documentation, other than edit Englishreports when asked to. I was not in any position to advise CPR members on what should bedocumented or on the quality of project design or project documentation, thus my utlility tothe Vietnamese partners was confined to a relatively narrow scope.

At the CCPR, where I worked daily, I was able to give some support, mainly editing orcommenting on reports. Towards the end of my internship, CCPR members were starting torealise they could ask me questions, share information with me or ask me to do things (suchas editing, sharing ideas, etc.) for them. Even though most of this work was not related to mydefined task of working on the documentation, I enjoyed my time much more when I felt Iwas also able to contribute something to the CCPR, and that my role as an intern who wasthere to learn from the experience of others, was understood.

F. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR NEW INTERNS

I do think that the project could benefit from another intern to see it through in its last year.There is definitely more work to be done on documentation and I hope I have left it so thatwhat I started is easy to follow up on. My personal recommendations for any intern whofollows me are mainly to do with getting settled in Hanoi, rather than working at the CCPR.My internship (with Canadian Institute of Planners) did not include any in-country supportand there were all things I would like to have known right away:

1. Business cards – Make sure to ask for business cards to be made for you right away!These are invaluable in Vietnam. Everyone has them and everyone expects you to havethem too.

2. Vietnamese lessons – I was given Vietnamese lessons by Ms Huong who is the sisterof Thuy and Phuong from the CCPR. She came into the office twice a week and taughtme which made a huge difference to life here and was a really great advantage.

3. Help & support – If you need help doing anything (from house hunting to groceryshopping), just ask. CCPR members are busy so they may not think to help youwithout you asking directly but, in my experience, once I got over being a bit shy toask, they were always really helpful and if they couldn’t help themselves, they wouldfind someone who could.

4. Housing – If possible, it is better to ask around and find a place yourself, rather than gothrough an agent who will take a cut and thus make your rent a bit higher. I lived in asmall, furnished, one-bedroom house at 12 Cao Ba Quat (a little confusing as there arethree 12s but it is the last one, through the gates). I paid US $160 a month (no depositor advance required), which included water and a once-weekly cleaning but notelectricity or phone. There are quite a few places in this little complex, some wholehouses like mine and others just little rooms or apartments. I really liked living there,had no problems with the landlady (who speaks English and French) and found itreasonably quiet and very safe and secure. There were always people moving in andout and so it is a good place to look for a house.

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G. OUTPUTS

The following reports, notes and documents came from my work on documentation duringthe course of my internship. I have included the title, date and a short summary, note orexplanation for each entry.

Contents:

1. Notes from Visit to Thanh Commune (Hue CPR), October 2001 ------------ Page 11I visited this commune with Bob Woollard from UBC and several members of CPRHue and made these notes which may be helpful for the documentation of the ThanhCommune project, which was at a relatively early stage during my internship.

2. Notes from Visit to Tan Thanh Commune (HCMC CPR), December 2001--Page 14I visited Long An Commune with Michael Leaf from UBC and Hong and Hoa fromCPR HCMC and made these notes which I used for some anecdotal information for thedocumentation I compiled on the Long An project, also included in this section.

3. Process Documentation Outline, November 2001 -------------------------------- Page 16This is the product of a compilation of pre-existing memos and suggestions forimproving documentation, format of documents and the project planning process. Ionly used it to complete one project (Vinh CPR’s Thanh Thinh Commune project).This convinced me that it was too major an undertaking for me to complete and at thispoint I scaled down the outline. I was hoping to have project documents of 15 or lesspages and this one ended up being over twice that. Due to the length of it, I have notincluded it here but will submit it separately to Vince Verlaan and Peter Boothroyd atthe LPRV and Arlene Whetter and Tran Thi Van Anh at the CCPR with a memo ofexplanation preceding it. I will submit it via email to Vince, Peter and Van Anh. It isin two files, one called ‘Vinh Documentation’ and the other called ‘Vinh Charts’.

4. Documentation Outline – Summary Version, December 2001 ---------------- Page 21This is a shorter and (I think) more flexible version of the ‘Process DocumentationOutline’ that I did earlier. With this version, I was able to complete reports for Vinhand Ho Chi Minh City. Although it is less of a guideline and also less process orientedthan the first one, it is also a lot more approachable in terms of something that canactually be accomplished by a short-term intern who has not had anything to do withthe projects or how they have been designed or implemented. As well, I think that, aspart of a larger document giving general information on the LPRV program, its guidingprinciples and working structure, these ‘summary’ project documents could be quiteeffective in publicising the LPRV and the types of project experience each CPR has.

5. Vinh CPR: Thanh Thinh Commune, December 2001 --------------------------- Page 24This is version of the documentation outline, filled in with information from VinhCPR’s Thanh Thinh Commune project. In my opinion, it is a somewhat sanitised viewof the project. I got a lot of help from Tung at Vinh CPR, who was able to answersome questions and fill in some information blanks however, I really cannot say howaccurate a picture of the project this is. I know there have been some problems thathave been glossed over (for example, the fact that the market for pepper has been weakand this project is based on pepper growing, and the fact that involving 110 householdsseems like a huge number to mobilise, provide and administer loans to and give

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adequate technical support) and these have not been adequately resolved or illuminatedin my report. CPR Vinh was helpful at providing information but not very forthcomingwith criticism. Also, there was no specific Canadian giving them support so I was notable to get the more critical Canadian view from someone who had experience workingon this project.

6. HCMC CPR: Tan Thanh Commune, January 2002 ---------------------------- Page 35I was able to get a lot of critical information for this report and so I think it presents arelatively well-rounded view of the project. Generally, I have presented the morecritical or anecdotal comments in grey text boxes while I have left the more standard,basic information in the body of the report in a similar format to that of CPR Vinh’sproject report.

7. Lists of CPR/CCPR/Canadian Partners, February 2002 ----------------------- Page 49For HCMC and Vinh, these are included in the project document, however, where I didnot complete project documents for all the CPRs, I did request lists from all the CPRsand the CCPRs with this information (names, positions and expertise of all members)where they did not provide me with this yet, I have left room for these lists to be filledout eventually. There is also a list for the LPRV’s Canadian partners.

8. Glossary of Acronyms & Terms, February 2002 --------------------------------- Page 54As the project has so many acronyms and terms that are sometimes used in inconsistentways, this list is only the beginning of a compilation of them. Most of them I wasunable to define myself but I do think they should be defined as part of completeproject documentation.

9. Comparative Summary of Main Project Activities ------------------------------ Page 56A chart comparison of the main project activities for all the projects in the CPRs in tobe used as a quick comparative reference. It is not complete at this time but is ready forcompletion as part of the final project documents. I also suggest that a Vietnamesetranslation of this could be beneficial for the CPRs. I have spoken with Ms. Thuy aboutthis and suggested that it be included in the LPRV newsletter which is currently in theworks.

10. Comparative Project Information --------------------------------------------------- Page 57Similar to the summary of project activities but with more detailed project, communeand management information.

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Notes from Visit to Thanh Commune (Hue CPR)October 2001Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

For this field visit to Thanh Commune, Hue CPR divided into groups. I worked in agroup with Dr. Chien & Dr. Dao. We studied social issues in the Commune. We usedgroup discussion & in-depth interview as our tools for obtaining information. Our maintopics of discussion were 1) Education; 2) Health, and; 3) Social Norms & Customs.

***keep in mind that all of the information here had to be translated for me. Sometimes itwas translated from Vietnamese directly into English but not all of the locals in the groupspoke Vietnamese so in that case, it had to be translated first from the local dialect then toVietnamese & finally into English for my benefit. When conversation was flowing relativelywell, they often forgot to translate for me so I missed parts – especially at the end when Dr.Dao got really into asking about social customs.

***if I were to make any conclusions from this experience, I would say that 1) there needs tobe a woman’s only group; 2) there needs to be a wider range of ages of participants; 3) theinterviewers could really benefit from training on how to conduct these interviews (I meanthings as simple and technical as eye-contact, seating arrangements & opening introductions).The reason I suggest this is that, in my group, the seating arrangement was somewhathierarchical & exclusive, we didn’t go around & get introductions or anything & as aconsequence, I don’t think we build the necessary rapport with our participants.

Local Participants:

Male 1 – Age 60 – 1 child (boy)Male 2 – Age 49 – 5 children (3 boys, 2 girls)Male 3 – Age 62 – no childrenMale 4 – Age 32 – 3 children (1 boy, 2 girls)Male 5 – Age 58 – 9 children (6 boys, 3 girls) – Head of village health care unit

Female 1 – Age not known (between mid 50s-early 60s) – 4 children (3 boys, 1 girl)Female 2 – Age 61 – 5 children (2 boys, 3 girls)Female 3 – Age 48 – 5 children (4 boys, 1 girl)

We did not have any kind of introduction or time to go around & let everyone say theirnames & something about what they do, etc. We only went around & got the ages, # ofchildren after I specifically asked for that information from every person.

We began with an exclusive interview with the village health care worker. Theinterview took place in front of the rest of the group but they did not contribute. Later,they became more involved & responded to direct questions but it never really became afree-flowing discussion:

GENERAL HEALTH -• Malaria: The most common ailment in the village is malaria. 194 cases were reported

but only 64 turned out to actually be malaria. There were no deaths & all patients were

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treated at the health clinic. There were more cases of malaria (both reported & actual)this year than last year.

• Cholera: No cases, they are 100% vaccinated.• Other Illness: There were 25 reported cases of colds & sore throat.• Prevention: In October, when malaria season is mainly over, health care attention begins

to focus more on prevention. The village has a monthly meeting where they are givenpropaganda to encourage them 1) to use mosquito netting, & to take it with them whenthey go to sleep in the fields or visit friends in other villages; 2) to use clean water fordrinking & not to contaminate the water by disposing of waste water away from cleanwater & by keeping animal waste away from clean water.

WOMEN’S HEALTH –• This discussion was mainly dominated by Female 3 but Female 2 also participated a bit

(sorry to put it in such a horrible-sounding detached anthropologist kind of way but Idon’t know how else to say it!). Female 1 remained silent for the whole discussion. Shewas the only one who did not speak Vietnamese & she was also in traditional dress whilethe others were in more western clothes. Female 3 (I think her name is Mrs. Nguyen) wasthe subject of a household interview done by Bob Woollard. She also was pretty muchthe only woman who said anything when all the groups came back together for thecommunity meeting that took place in the afternoon – she stood up & expressed concernthat not enough women were using birth control.

• Gynecological infections are most common problem (STDs like gonorrhea & chlamydiaor yeast infections). Generally, they are prescribed anti-fungal treatment.

• Birth Control (general): according to health unit head, about 50% of women in theCommune use family planning practices & tend to have about 3 kids while about 50%don’t & have 5 or more kids. The methods used are condoms, the pill & IUDs. They arenot obligated to use birth control, only encouraged.

• Birth Control (cultural): lack of use is related more to a lack of understanding & socialstigma rather than cultural beliefs.

• STDs: So far in the village, there are no known cases of AIDS. The common STDs aregonorrhea, syphilis, etc.

• Sexual Behaviour: Male contribution - men don’t want to use condoms because 1) theythink birth control is the woman’s responsibility; 2) they think they are inconvenient;3) because they think that it will make their woman will go with another man. It isrelatively easy for both men & young, unmarried people to be promiscuous. Not so easyfor married women as they will be punished harshly for this.

• Babies: Women deliver babies at home with no nurse & only the help of relatives. Ifthere are no complications from the birth, they return to work about 3 days after. Thisinformation came from the head of the village health unit (a man). It wasn’t mentionedby the locals but after the interviews, we went on a short walk around the village andwere shown a birthing hut. I’m not sure about this but I gathered that they are builtindividually for each household (rather than one for the community) when the womanthere is pregnant. The one we saw was far and away nicer, newer and better built than thehousehold it belonged to.

• Social Attitudes to Women: I think they also may have some beliefs surroundingmenstruation & menstruating women but was only able to get the vaguest of informationabout this. Families prefer to have boys rather than girls (it is interesting to note that ofour group, the participants had a total of 32 children among them and 20 of these wereboys).

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EDUCATION –• Schools (general) : There is one school in the commune but it has 6 satellite centers with

about 202 students in total. Highest class in 14-15 year olds. After that, to continue theymust go to the next commune for the higher level. About 30-35 kids do this. Only 2students from this commune are going all the way through school. As they are ethnicminorities, schooling is free but they still must pay for materials, books, etc. About 60-70% of kids go to primary school at least. They do not keep children home to help out forseasonal work.

• Gender & Education: They send both genders to school equally but boys are morelikely to go on to higher levels because 1) they want to go on further, and; 2) girls oftenmust stay home to help out.

• Attitudes Towards Education: They think it’s important for kids to go to schoolbecause they think it’s helpful for them to know how to speak Vietnamese and also tobecause at school they can make connections to help them get batter jobs. Theyexpressed no preference as to whether their children grown up & move away from thecommunity, or stay & live there.

• Reasons kids drop out: 1) long distance from school; 2) they don’t want to go; 3) somehouseholds are too poor to buy books, supplies, etc.

COMMUNITY NORMS –• The Village Chief: The village has a “chief”. His role is to provide leadership in the on

everything from land use to dispensing justice. He is also somewhat responsible forspiritual matters in the village. Once a year, he hosts a ceremony during which villagerspray for protection & success in the coming year. He also prays for the sick people &administers traditional medicine.

• Appointment of Chief: When one chief dies, the village holds a council to discusspossibilities for who will replace him. From this council, a new chief is selected.

• Resolution of Conflict: The chief mediates conflict between households & sometimesworks with local authorities to help implement new policies or programs. If the chiefcan’t solve a problem between households (which are usually over land disputes), theythen go to the commune or sub-commune head for resolution.

SOME RANDOM FACTS –• Language: Village language only has words for numbers of up to 100, after that, they

have to use Vietnamese.• Division of Goods: if people go hunting together, & kill a deer (for example), the amount

the get depends on their contribution (ex. the man who brought the knife gets more thatthe man who just helps to carry the kill back to the village).

• If a villager sets a trap that catches an animal, he gets half & the whole village gets theother half. This is because it is assumed that if there was any danger to the trap-setter, orif he needed help in any way, the whole village would help.

• The Spirit Forest: The villagers believe that a forest near their village is a sacred spiritforest. No one is allowed to go in there, hunt any animals from there or clear that land foruse for farming. If anyone does, they will be punished by having to pay a fine of goods(like a goat) to the rest of the village.

• Marriage: Women get married at about 18, men at about 20.

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Visit to Tan Thanh Commune (HCMC CPR)December 2001Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

In December 2001, I went to Ho Chi Minh City to work with HCMC CPR to gatherinformation. While there I was able to go on a commune visit to Tan Thanh Commune, siteof HCMC’s first commune project. I went with Ms. Hoa and Ms. Hong from HCMC CPRand Michael Leaf from UBC.

The purpose of me going on the commune visit was to gather information on this communesub-project. We met with representatives from the Women’s Union and the People’sCommittee and then also were taken, with the head of the Women’s Union, to visit 3households who are participating in the project.

Meeting with the Women’s Union & People’s Committee:

Question: how did they choose the households?- Must be a member of the Women’s Union.- Must be poor (defined as having a monthly income of less than 120,000 VND,1

information which is gathered through survey of household assets, income, land).- Must have a commitment to repay the loan.- Must have some potential to use the loan for income-generating opportunities.

The Women’s Union:

- To become a member is quite simple, you just have to 1) be a woman; 2) fill out anapplication form; 3) pay a fee of 500 VND a month.2 4) attend monthly meetings.

- In the commune, out of 1400 woman eligible for membership, WU has 500 members- Reasons women join: 1) to gain knowledge of policies; 2) to have a support network in

case of problems; 3) to share and receive knowledge.- Reasons women don’t join: 1) because they don’t want to go to meetings; 2) because they

don’t want to pay the fee.

Question: is all the loan money going towards production activities?

- Most raise pigs but some also combine this with/use money for small businesses oremergency expenses.

- They are not required to raise pigs but most do because there isn’t much else to do interms of animal husbandry. Chickens & ducks don’t do well in the floods and cows aretoo large to transport to markets which are relatively far away.

- Even pigs often get sick in the wet season, need to be protected from mosquitoes, andsome have died.

- What they want help with now is healthcare.

Training:

- As part of the project, training courses are held.- This training is very useful to the women as it helps them prepare for their involvement in

the project. 1 About CDN $12.002 About CDN $0.05

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- Training courses are not limited to project recipients, they are open to everyone. Almostthe whole village attended the training course.

- Training is on-going so it is also available for the next wave of loan recipients.

Question: have there been any other projects here before LPRV?

- There has been some involvement by the Bank for the Poor and HEPR but the CPR is thefirst foreign-funded project.

Lessons Learned (according to members of the People’s Committee):

- Project provides a good model for HEPR activities to use as well.- Since people must pay interest and repay the loan, they are required to use money in a

way that generates income.- Households now have less spare time but more spare money so they have been able to

reduce social evils.- They can pass knowledge on to their children.- People can afford to send their kids to school.- Has created close networks through the structure of lending groups, and there is some

competition between groups which provides motivation to be successful.- People are motivated by seeing Canadians who come from a long way away and care

about the conditions they live in.

Households we visited:

Household One: Middle-aged, married with 12 children, one of whom is permanentlydisabled and needs to be taken care of. The youngest child is 10, the eldest in his 30s. Theydon’t own any land and mainly earn money by hiring out their labour. The woman in thehousehold has been ill and unable to work so she has a lot of time to care for the pigs that shehas bought with the project money. When she is too sick, she can get her youngest childrento gather food to feed the pigs.This household has a relatively large house, nice furniture and a TV.

Household Two: Married, no children, middle-aged. This recipient household consists ofone woman who is completely blind, and her husband who is not blind. They have two pigswhich the woman is able to take care of mainly by herself. The household is also therecipient of some kind of government program which provides them for money to build ahouse. They are building their house right beside the one in which they had been sharingwith several other extended family members.While they are at work on building this house, they are living beside it in a makeshift lean-toconsisting of a raised sleeping platform covered with a tarp. By contrast, the pigsty is a verywell made, spotlessly clean raised shed with a waterfront view! Not only that but the pigseven have mosquito netting while the lean-to does not.

Household Three: Married, early twenties, once child. This recipient household has had themost difficulty of all the recipients of project money. This is because all the pigs bought withthis loan money fell sick and died. In order to cope with this, the recipient was able to “rent”a pig from a neighbour – that is, she borrowed one of her neighbours pigs, took theresponsibility for raising and selling it, repaid her neighbour and made some profit forherself. She also was able to make some money by opening a small street stall where shesold tea and other small items.

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This woman lives in a traditional one-room stilt house with no electricity.Process Documentation OutlineNovember 2001Compiled by Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

BACKGROUND

• Lessons Learned from previous experiences, topic of curriculum development, someinformation about the university and the CPR, introduction to the new project.

PHASE ONE: PRE-PLANNING

• Planning to Plan: Goals, Process, Methods, Participation, Conclusions

1. Goals:What goals were identified in the pre-planning process?

2. Process:What steps were used in planning to plan?What information was initially available?Who will be responsible for what?What Commune was chosen and why?

3. Method:What are the methodological options available?Pros & cons of these?

4. Participation:Who was involved in the pre-planning process?

5. ConclusionsWhat will happen next?How will the process move forward?Who will be responsible for what?

PHASE TWO: INFORMATION GATHERING

• History, Method, Participation, Commune Profile, Lessons Learned

1. History:Relevant history of commune.History of CPR involvement with commune.Any other development projects that may have taken place there.

2. Method:Who will participate in this project as recipients?How was this decided?

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What methods were used (gender segregated interviews & meetings, age-specific meetings,economically segregated meetings, etc.)?What tools were used (household questionnaires, reports from the commune, PRA, meetingsof the people, etc.)?

3. Participation:How did these methods attract the involvement of the people (including commune officials,females, males, elder, youth groups, ethnic groups)?How did the people participate in determining the causes of poverty and their priority order?How were opinions of different groups taken into consideration in the process of collectingresources at the commune level?What did the researchers do in order to determine the difference in the conditions, capacity,demands and wishes of the female, male, elder, youth and ethnic groups?Who participated at each step?

4. Summary of Commune Profile:

Natural Features:

Location:Climate:Land:Terrain:

Socio-economic Conditions:

Population:Economy:Income:

What lessons were learned about the community?What facts have been provided for identifying a project?How was accuracy of information insured?What general lessons were learned about the method used for information-gathering; whatworked and did not work?How does this compare with information gathering methods used previously?How will this information be used?

5. Lessons Learned:What lessons can the Vinh CPR teach others about participatory information gathering?How will it help in supporting, shaping curriculum development?

PHASE THREE: PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & PLANNING

• Brainstorming, Project Objectives, Participation, Challenges, Risk Assessment,Financial Plan, Expected Results

1. Brainstorming

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What projects were considered?How were these ideas assessed?Why was one chosen & the others rejected?Describe the brainstorming process.How did the proposal take shape?Who was invited to comment?Have any efforts been made to develop or experiment with models for poverty reduction (ex.new cooperatives, production associations, micro-credit systems, co-management, etc.).If so, what has been learned about their applicability for local or national context in Vietnam?

2. Project ObjectivesWhat are the main objectives of the project?How were the objectives of the project determined?Why were these objectives chosen?How do these objectives reflect the demands of the group?

3. ParticipationWho was involved at this stage of the process?

4. ChallengesWhat have been presented as the main challenges so far in the process?How can these challenges be incorporated into the fabric of the project?Do what extent can they be addressed and how?

5. Risk AssessmentWhat are the risks involved?How can they be minimized?What facts were considered?

6. Financial PlanHow was the financial plan determined?Who was engaged in this decision-making process?Who will manage the financial aspects of the project?Who are they accountable to?

7. Expected EffectsHow were the all the likely outcomes (financial, distributive, environmental, long-term,short-term) of the project assessed?What were the results?Income after three years:Income over long-term:

PHASE FOUR: PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

• Management, Organisation, Partners, Local Participation, CPR Participation

1. Project ManagementHow is the project managed?Who are the members of the project management board?How was this decided?

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Describe the roles & interactions between the 1) the CPR, 2) the local community 3) local,district, or provincial government in planning & implementing the LBD community project.Have these roles or interactions changed over the course of the project?

2. Project OrganizationHow will the project be implemented?What are the steps that will be followed and who will be responsible for what?

3. Project PartnersWere there any other intermediaries or partners who collaborated in project planning orimplementation. Describe their roles & interactions with other partners.What has been learned about the successes or challenges/difficulties of effectivecollaboration among all these partners?What changes could be suggested?

4. Local ParticipationHow does the project mobilize, encourage the involvement of local people in terms of time,workforce, materials, etc?

5. CPR ParticipationWhat role did the researchers play in implementation?

PHASE FIVE: MONITORING & EVALUATION

• Assessment, Documentation & Reporting, Timeframe, Lessons Learned, ProjectOutcome, Conclusions

1. Project AssessmentWhat are mechanisms & monitoring indicators?How were these created?How do they reflect the content of the project?Do they allow for on-going contributions from local people, other involved interests &adjustments for improvement of the project?

2. Documentation & ReportingHow were opinions, participation of different groups (poor, women, men, ethnic minorities,etc.) reflected?

3. Time FrameWhat is the expected time frame of the project?What will happen to the project after CPR involvement has finished?

4. Lessons LearnedWhat has been learned about methods & approaches for promoting participation &collaboration of women, ethnic minorities, & other marginalized groups?

5. Project OutcomeUnintended consequences (positive & negative)?

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6. ConclusionsTo what extent can successes & failures be traced back to the planning process, & thereforewhat final recommendations can be offered future planning processes?

PHASE SIX: CPR CAPACITY BUILDING

• Lessons Learned, Coursebook, Curriculum Development, Overall Impressions &Impact of Project

1. CPR Capacity Building:

What are the lessons learned about successes and difficulties/challenges of effectivecollaboration & networking among LPRV partners? Suggested changes?How will this project be referred to in the coursebook?How has the CPR applied the lessons learned from LBD community project towards policyassessment or curriculum development activities?

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Documentation Outline – Summary VersionDecember 2001Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

BACKGROUND

University & CPR:

Coursebook Topic:

Commune Sub-Projects:

1. Commune One Project: (title, short summary)2. Commune Two Project:3. Commune Three Project:

‘SHOWCASE’ COMMUNE SUB-PROJECT

Introduction:

PRELIMINARY PROJECT PLANNING

Participating Groups:

INFORMATION GATHERING

Method:

SUMMARY OF COMMUNE PROFILE

Natural Features:

Location:Climate:Land:Terrain:

Socio-economic Conditions:

Population:Economy:Income:

What lessons were learned about the community?What facts were provided for identifying a project?

PROJECT DEVELOPMENT & PLANNING

The Project Proposal:

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Project ActivitiesIn the first phase…Specific Activities of the project will be:In the second phase of the project…

Project Risks and Risk Assessment:

Project Objectives:Short-term:Long-term:

Financial Information:

Total Estimated Budget:Local Contribution:CPR Contribution:

Expected/Intended Results

Actual Results:

PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION

Project Management & Implementation:

MONITORING & EVALUATION

CPR CAPACITY BUILDING

Lessons Learned:

Capacities Built:Challenges Remaining:Recommendations:

APPENDIX A – CPR Members & Their Expertise:

Name: Position: Position in CPR: Specialty:1.

APPENDIX B – CPR DOCUMENTS

CPR Reports (General)Title: Author: Date: Length:

Commune One Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

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Commune Two Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

Commune Three Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

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Summary Documentation: Vinh CPR, Thanh Thinh CommuneDecember 2001Written by Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

BACKGROUND

Vinh University & Vinh CPR

Vinh University is a regional-serving university located in Vinh City, Nhge An Province, anarea that was heavily effected by the American War but which has not received as muchassistance as either south Vietnam or the more northern areas. As a result, Nghe An provinceis a designated poor province by the Government of Vietnam.

Vinh University has a mandate to build its academic capacity through a dual focus oneducation and applied research. It is currently in the process of establishing a Department ofAgriculture, Fishing & Forestry in response to a regional need for expertise in these areas.

All the project work carried out by Vinh CPR has the ultimate goal of raising capacity in thisarea of poverty reduction and sharing information on this topic among the network of LPRVinstitutions.

Vinh CPR is an interdisciplinary group made up of faculty staff from Vinh University. Itsmembers include experts in fields as diverse as mathematics and the social sciences. TheCentre has an office, a library and one permanent full-time staff member and exists as aworking group, associated with three other groups that also work at the University: theUpland Working Group, the Centre for Environment and Resources and the Centre forConsulting in Rural Development.

Vinh CPR is working towards curriculum and coursebook development on the subject of:

“Research Methodology for Participation in Poverty Reduction and Rural Development”

All the project work carried out by Vinh CPR has the ultimate goal of raising capacity in thisarea of poverty reduction and sharing information on this topic among the network of LPRVinstitutions.

Commune Sub-Projects:

Using the methods of community participation to collect information and assess communityneeds, Vinh CPR was responsible for three commune sub-projects:

4. Nghi Phong Commune: “Building the Model for Economic Households in theOrientation of Animal Husbandry to Reduce Poverty in Nghi Phong Commune, Nghi LocDistrict, Nghe An Province”

The project involved assisting with the development of the household economy ofparticipants by focusing on animal husbandry. Credit was provided to participants for thepurchase of animals and to assist with raising and breeding them. This covered aspects ofanimal care from barn and sty building to food, medicine and veterinary care.

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From this initial experience of information gathering and project planning andimplementation, Vinh CPR was able to able to draw some general lessons from theprocess to serve as an important foundation for future projects. From Nghi PhongCommune, these lessons included:• an increased understanding of the key role women play in economic development &

the household economy;• an understanding of how to build projects based on skills, assets & technical abilities

that already exist & are at work in the community;• experience at working within commune structures & institutions & promoting local

level management through a more transparent & publicly-accessible process;• improved ability & understanding of how to involve and mobilize the very poor, as

opposed to the relatively better-off households in communes;• more experience at working together as a group which led to the realization that more

young faculty members and support staff should be more involved because they havevaluable energy, time and insight to put into these projects.

5. Thanh Thinh Commune: “Growing Communities – Building a Model Based onParticipatory Technical Development (PTD) of Garden Production to Reduce Poverty inThanh Thinh Commune, Thanh Chuong District, Nghe An Province.”

The main activity of this project was to develop an industry generated by householdgarden farming by developing technical networks and supportive systems forcollaboration to teach locals about new crops and techniques. In order to develop themodel, Vinh CPR members and the local community used pepper tree growing as anexample crop by which to develop the model for wider application to other types ofgarden agricultural products.

This project is presented in more detail below.

6. A this time, Vinh CPR has not begun its third project.

THANH THINH COMMUNE SUB-PROJECT

In early 2001, Vinh CPR began working on community profiling, project planning andimplementation of a commune project in Thanh Thinh Commune, Thanh ChuongDistrict, Nhge An Province.

PRELIMINARY PROJECT PLANNING

Thanh Thinh Commune was selected as a site because it is one of the designated poorcommunes in Vietnam and, is located within the regional jurisdiction of Vinh and has manyconstraints to be overcome, such as poor irrigation, difficult terrain, poor transportationroutes.

The major groups participating in this project throughout all its phases were:

• Vinh CPR Members

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• CCPR Members• Other LPRV Members• Officials from DOLISA & OOLISA• Officials from Nghe An District• Local people & local mass groups

information gathering

Vinh CPR members began to work with the residents and mass groups in Thanh Thanh inorder to prepare a commune profile, gather information to for the basis of a project here andestablish good relationships with the community.

Method:

In order to do this, CPR Members recorded separately the responses of different groupswithin the commune. These groups were:

1) Community Leaders2) Advanced farmers3) Poor farmers4) Women5) Retired 6) Elderly7) Youth

These seven groups then took part in discussions, workshops and questionnaires. The aim ofthese were to discuss:

• How a project should be selected.• Which households should qualify as poor/hungry.• Which households should be selected to take part in the first phase of the project.• How to create mechanisms for on-going review and adjustment of project activities.

The groups were also asked separately to:

• Rank the causes of poverty and the reasons for wealth in order of priority.• List potential development projects in the commune and give their preference.• List and analyse the constraints to proposed development projects in the commune.

summary of Commune profile

Natural Features:

Location: Thanh Thinh Commune is Located in a mountainous region, in western ThanhChuong District, Nghe An Province, about 55 Kilometers from Vinh City.

Climate: The climate in the area is typically tropical with the monsoon season generallyoccurring during the winter months (November to March) and a dry westerly windin summer (April to August). The average temperature is about 230C, with peak

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temperatures rising up to 400 C (in June). The lowest temperature is about 50C (inJanuary). Average humidity is 80 to 85%. The rainy season starts in May andfinishes in October or November and accounts for about 75% of total yearlyrainfall which averages approximately 2,000 millimeters.

Land: Total land area is 5,577.86 hectares, of which 5,373.2 hectares are controlled bythe commune, with the remainder under the management of the State ForestryUnit (for what purpose, I don’t know?).Total area of the commune under agricultural production is 583 hectares.

Terrain: The Commune is located in a mountainous region. The terrain in some areas issuch that it poses some obstacles for transportation, development, and production.

Socio-economic Conditions:

Population: - 6,087 residents, of which 6,085 are ethnic Vietnamese (Kinh)

Economy: - Agriculture.- Almost all residents of Thanh Thinh Commune are engaged in agricultural

production of some kind.

Income: - Average annual income is 700,000 VND per capita.- Despite this low average income, there are still pronounced disparities in

income between households.- Of the 1302 households in the commune, 129 (9.9%) are classified as hungry,

200 (15.3 %) as poor; 851 (65.3%) as average; 96 (7.4%) as better-off, and; 26(2%) as rich.

What Lessons were Learned about the Community?

• Efforts have been made in the past to improve infrastructure and provide credit supportin Thanh Thinh Commune. Through various programs such as Hunger Eradication andPoverty Reduction (HEPR) and the Bank for the Poor, local authorities and unions havemade a concentrated effort to improve infrastructure and support credit programs in thecommune. However, the poor found it difficult to access the capital and did not knowhow to make good use of it for long-term reduction of poverty.

• An irrigation program that was initiated in the commune has spent over 1 billion VNDremains inefficient and unworkable.

• So far, the commune has maintained a credit organization managed by the Women'sUnion of the commune supported by the Bank for the Poor.

• The gap in income between the richest and poorest households in the communecontinues to increase due to substantial debts incurred over the past few years in poorand hungry households. The commune currently owes the Bank for the Poor 1.7 billionVND.

• The main reason for persistent problems with development programs is that localpeople have not significantly been involved in the development of these programs.

• A lack of links between unions and nuclear groups have impeded the establishment of anetwork to develop agricultural techniques in the community.

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What Facts were Provided for Identifying a Project?

• Statistics collected by the commune and union officials have not, in the past includedincome generated from the local people's gardens. In fact, this income is significantrole in those households that know how to use their gardens effectively andappropriately. In Thanh Thinh, this includes approximately twenty households whohave invested in the development of their gardens, focusing on the development ofpepper trees.

• Results of analysis of the income structure of different groups in the communityindicates that richer or better-off households generate a considerate income from theirown gardens and in fact, the income from their gardens alone exceeds the total incomeof poor households.

• Conversely, income generated from the gardens of poor households is very limited.• This gardening and peppertree growing enterprise has proven able to generate an

additional income of 6 to 16-million VND.• Many households also have some hilly land which is not being exploited to its full

agricultural potential. It is possible for this land to be used to develop hill gardens,capable of producing agricultural products for market and increasing the income levelof participants.

project development & planning

Based on analysis made by the local community on such issues as development potential,analysis of challenges, evaluation of tree development and animal raising; the localcommunity indicated the potential of several income-generating activities with potential forpoverty reduction and development in Thanh Thinh Commune. The local community alsoproposed a list of activities and project ideas which included income generating activities andinfrastructure improvement projects.

The Project Proposal:

The project took shape as a formalized replication of a process already at work in thecommunity: that is, the use of household gardens in order to generate more income. In thiscase, specifically focusing on the needs of poor & hungry households and focusing on theirneed for 1) initial financial support, and 2) enhanced technical knowledge of cultivation andproduction. It included a significant effort to introduce new models for poverty reduction andtechnical development through the following activities:

• Development of Technical Network – Vinh CPR has focused the project in ThanhThinh Commune on building a technical development network in order to facilitatecontinuous development efforts among local residents. The purpose of this network is toprepare training materials based on a combination of locally-generated knowledge ofagricultural and social conditions in the area and broader knowledge provided by CPRmembers and other associated groups.

• Replication of the Garden-based Agricultural Model – The active purpose of thisproject is to develop a general model based on the use of a community asset that iscurrently not being used to its full economic potential. In this case, the project also takes

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an agricultural product (pepper in this case but it could be any product appropriate tolocal conditions) that is also already successfully being produced in the community, andapplying it to on a wider scale.

• Application of the a Participatory Approach to Community Development – VinhCPR members have observed the failures of projects in Thanh Thinh Commune that didnot adequately allow for the participation of the local people. To achieve greater successin Thanh Thanh Commune, Vinh CPR members worked to implement a project that iscollaborative and transparent so that effective and meaningful working relations could bebuilt with local people and groups.

Project Activities:

In the first phase, the project will include 110 poor or hungry households in Thanh ThinhCommune. These households will receive: 1) financial support – each of the 110 participanthouseholds will receive a loan with which to purchase 30 pepper plants to plant in theirgardens, as well as other necessary materials such as fertilisers and pesticides; 2) technicalsupport – through training and on-going support from the project management boardestablished to oversee the project.

Specific Activities of the Project will be:

• Development of a pepper tree industry based on use of family gardens to grow trees andthereby generate higher income among poor households.

• Support for the initial cultivation of sample plots, controlled by farmers, to develop thepepper trees for wider cultivation.

• Development of a training manual on pepper tree farming and growth, produced by CPRmembers and experienced technical officials from the commune.

• Development of two short training courses on techniques for the growth andmaintenance of pepper trees, to be conducted for those involved in the project.

• Establishment and maintenance of a technical development network including localtechnical officials and relevant community groups (for example, Farmer’s Union,Women’s Union, Elders’ Union) who have experience at developing garden-basedeconomies, and who are knowledgeable about techniques for developing pepper trees.

• Periodic reviews and summarizing of activities in order to adjust focus as appropriate tolocal conditions and to incorporate experiences learned from this project, as well as otherrelevant projects.

In the second phase of the project, the model for technical development will be expanded toinclude more households and will diversify ways of income generation with animalhusbandry and other agricultural crops.

Project Risks and Risk Assessment:

There are some risks to a project like this. The local community indicated that there areseveral constraints and risks that must be addressed in the design of this project. The majorrisks are from natural causes such as flood, frost and disease. These can be mitigated byensuring that the trees are not grown too close to the most flood-prone areas of the commune,keeping regular contact with the district extension station in order to receive early warning ofdiseases and plagues and teaching households to grow trees in more protected areas. Majoreconomic risks include price fluctuations and traders waiting to buy the product until the

market is flooded thus forcing farmers to sell at a low price. These risks can be mitigated bypaying attention to what is happening on international markets, diversifying crops andcreating inter-farmer cooperation to avoid a situation where traders have an advantage.According to LPRV economic advisors to the project, there are some significant risks togrowing pepper at this time:

P

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An Economist’s Comments on CPR Vinh’s Project Proposal:

From the economic angle, I would like to make the following comments: after analysingthe main crop plants considered for the model, pepper and tea were the two top-rankingplants [as ranked by commune residents and official]. According to comparisons, both ofthem have similar economic effectiveness and technical capacity and both are highlysupported by locals.

However, I am concerned about the capacity of consumption and stability for long termeconomic effectiveness. The proposals authors do not mention who the pepper will besold to, if the consumption capacity appears stable over the long term, if it has fluctuatedsignificantly, or what the local price has been during the past few years. In fact,fluctuation of the price of pepper has been an issue in the country as a whole. In thesouth, many households had to cut down on production of pepper trees because they didnot bring the predicted income.

I think that we should consider this matter seriously as the market economic factor has amajor impact on the poor. If the market fluctuates, the rich will be okay while the poorwill be poorer or have heavy debts. The project should avoid risks for its participants.

I support the idea of growing tea. Its economic value is not as high as pepper, but itsmarket stability is higher. In the worst case, if tea cannot be sold at a high price forexport, it can always be sold to the local market, providing a safety net for farmers.

- Dr. Tuan Anh, CCPR

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roject Objectives:

hort-term:

To create a participatory pilot project for the development of a pepper-tree growingindustry in Thanh Thinh Commune;

To provide technical support and assistance for the development of pepper tree growinginitiative;

To involve local people from 110 poor/hungry households in order to raise their standardof living, improve their income level and enable them a means to escape from poverty.

ong-term:

To establish and maintain a technical development network, with the participation of thelocal people, in order to support them with the pepper tree growing initiative and help

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them develop growth techniques, advertise their product and improve their access tomarkets;

• to enhance the capacity of local people, unions, and local officials to build, implementand manage participatory development projects;

• to enable the community to begin to solve issues of poverty reduction in particular andcommunity development in general;

• to build the capacity and skills of CPR members and collaborators to carry out successfulpoverty reduction projects based on the principle of ‘learning-by-doing’.

Financial Information:

Total Estimated Budget: 191.000.000 VNDLocal Contribution: 68.750.000 VND (labour force and local materials).CPR Vinh Contribution: 128.000.000 VND (cash) for long-term credit (capital to be

repaid by the community over a 5 year period)

Expected Results:

Income after three years: It is expected that households will be able to generate an incomethrough the program that is equal to the total annual incomealready generated by poor households. This figure will includeincome from other garden products grown in the shade of thepepper trees although the trees themselves take a few years beforethey really begin to produce much yield.

Income over long-term: Local experience indicates that yield and productivity will increasefrom about year three to about year eight, with very little additionalinvestment. Therefore, it can be expected that incomes willcontinue to rise up until about eight years into the project, afterwhich time the trees will reach a more sustained yield, thus incomewill level off and remain at a relatively constant level.

Debt Repayment: Will occur between year four and year five of the project.

Actual Results:

Unsure as the project has currently been operating for less than one year.

project implementation

Project Management & Implementation:

• The project is managed by the nine-member Project Management Board (PMB) includinga co-manager, treasurer, and accountant from the commune and six members from CPRVinh. Local technical and administrative support is provided by the eleven-memberCoordinating Group and the Local Technical Support Group.

• The beneficiary households will be the main implementers of the project, with technicalsupport from the PMB and CPR Vinh members, as necessary. CPR Vinh will be

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especially involved with the writing of training manuals on the garden agricultural modelalthough this will very much be a collaboration between CPR Vinh and local groups withthe necessary technical expertise.

monitoring & evaluation

As this project has not yet been evaluated, the only information available for this section atthis time, comes from comments made by two members of the CCPR and one externaladvisor, on the subject of the project proposal. I do not know how Vinh CPR has respondedto these comments as I think they were made relatively early on in the project planningprocess so I do not know if they had any effect on how the project ultimately proceeded ornot. It is my understanding that they did not have much effect because, as far as I knownothing from the original proposal was modified in response to these comments.

c

L

C

•

•

C

•

•

Comments on CPR Vinh’s Project Proposal

“The idea of the participation and selection of the commune people are clearly expressedin the project documents. I think that it will be better if we collect comments/advice fromexperts of agriculture/forestry such as opinion of experts from Agriculture and Ruraldevelopment Department.”

- Dr. Tran Thi Van Anh, CCPR

“The project scope as mentioned is suitable. However, even though most of it is to bebuilt by local people, the investment level is rather low. In my opinion, this level ofinvestment is only suitable to accommodate 50 households [CPR Vinh proposes toinclude 110 households in the first round of the scheme].”

- Nguyen Van Phuong, Engineer

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pr capacity building

essons Learned:

apacities Built:

Through the LPRV project, CPR members have been involved in training courses andworkshops and are therefore gradually getting to know how to conduct participatoryresearch efficiently and effectively.

Conducting research in communities, especially through designing and carrying out sub-projects such as Thanh Thinh, has enabled CPR members to better understand localconditions, thereby enriching the understanding and experiences of its members towardsdevelopment research and poverty reduction.

hallenges Remaining:

Mechanisms for linking and coordinating the activities of the CPRs under the LPRVproject are weak.

Mechanisms for quality control are similarly quite weak.

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Recommendations:

• Creation of a more effective system of collaboration among CPRs.• Creation of a method for comparative information sharing among the CPRs and beyond.

By comparing the strong and weak points of LPRV projects with similar programs andprojects in the same locality, CPR Vinh members could make meaningful assessmentsand comparisons.

Appendix A – CPR Members & Their Expertise:

Name: Position: Position in CPR: Specialty:1. Prof. Nguyen

Dinh HuanRector of VinhUniversity

Director of CPR Vinh Physics

2. Dr. NguyenNgoc Ngoc

Vice-Rector of VinhUniversity

Vice-Director of CPRVinh

Biology

3. Ms. PhamThanh Hai

Officer ofInternationalRelations

Coordinator of CPRVinh

Russian, EnglishLinguistics

4. Dr. NguyenThi My Trinh

Lecturer CPR MemberResponsible for GenderIssues

Psychology

5. Prof. Vo Hanh Dean of Biology CPR Member Biology6. Prof. Bui

ThucTam

Former Dean ofPhilology

CPR Member Russian Literature

7. Dr. NguyenDang Bang

Dean of Economics CPR Member Politics

8. Prof. NguyenTrong Van

Dean of Post-Graduate Studies

CPR Member History

9. Mr. HoangMinh Dao

Vice Dean ofPhilology

CPR Member Russian & EnglishLinguistics

10. Mr. Le VanBang

Lecturer ofInformationTechnology

CPR Member Mathematics,Information Studies

11. Mr. NguyenXuan Binh

Dean of ForeignLanguages

CPR Member Russian & EnglishLinguistics

12. Ms. Tran ThiKhanh Tung

AdministrativeAssistant

Information Officer English Linguistics

13. Dr. Tran NgocHung

Collaborator Biology

14. Dr. Tran NgocLan

Collaborator Biology

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Appendix B – Vinh CPR Documents

CPR Vinh Reports (General)Title: Author: Date: Length:

Nghi Phong Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

Building a Model forEconomic Households in theOrientation of AnimalHusbandry to ReducePoverty in Nghi PhongCommune, Nghi LocDistrict, Nghe An Province

Vinh CPR June 2000 10 Pages

Commune Profile,Qualitative Analysis: NghiPhong Commune

7 Pages

Lessons Learned fromPlanning and Implementingof the Commune Sub-project

5 Pages

Thanh Thinh Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

“Growing Communities –Building a Model Based onParticipatory TechnicalDevelopment (PTD) ofGarden Production toReduce Poverty in ThanhThinh Commune, ThanhChuong District, Nghe AnProvince.”

CPR Vinh August2001

26 Pages

Commune 3 Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

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Summary Documentation – HCMC CPR, Tan Thanh CommuneJanuary 2002Written by Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

background

National University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City andthe Centre for Poverty Reduction, HCMC:

The Centre for Poverty Reduction, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) operates within the NationalUniversity of Social Sciences and Humanities, HCMC as the Centre for Research on SocialDevelopment and Poverty Reduction. This is a working group with two full-time staff and aroster of related specialists drawn from the faculty of the university. Since its inception, theCPR has also acted as a consultant for other international university projects working inVietnam. Currently, the CPR is involved in other relationships with South Bank Universityin London and with a number of NGOs and government development agencies in HCMC.

Ho Chi Minh City Centre for Poverty Reduction is the single CPR that is mainly focussed onissues related to urban poverty although in the project detailed here, which was their first,they worked in a rural area. One project following this is urban-focused and took place in HoChi Minh City and the final project will take place in Bien Hoa City, a small urban area.

CPR Ho Chi Minh City is working towards curriculum development of a coursebook entitled:

“Participatory Action Research in Urban Poverty Reduction”

This document outlines the process of project development, planning, implementation andmanagement, according to the experiences reported by CPR HCMC and the localparticipating groups and families in the first commune project in Tan Thanh Commune.

CPR Ho Chi Minh City’s Commune Projects:

The two most recent projects carried out by CPR HCMC under the LPRV project are morespecifically related to the coursebook while the first was carried out in a small rural village.

1. Tan Thanh Commune: “Capacity Building for Participatory Poverty Reduction in TanThanh Commune, Tan Thanh District, Long An Province”

This project was a micro-credit scheme run through the Women’s Union of Tan ThanhCommune and implemented in two of the poorest hamlets in the commune. The focus wason income-generating activities for the female recipients and their families and generallyrelied on the raising of pigs in order to provide the opportunity to raise household income.

This project is presented in more detail below.

2. Ward 3, District 8, Ho Chi Minh City: (“Capacity Building for Poverty Reduction inUrban Communities, Ward 3, District 8, Ho Chi Minh City”)

This project was a micro-credit scheme in a poor urban area of Ho Chi Minh City,implemented with the intention to: develop the capacity of men and particularly women

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through a joint socioeconomic program with the specific activities of income raising,health care improvement, and environmental protection.

3. Bien Hoa City:

This is the latest project currently being carried out through HCMC CPR. Although it hasnot officially begun, it was decided, prior to beginning work on it, that it would not be amicrocredit scheme as the other two have been.

Tan thanh commune project

CPR HCMC began working in Tan Thanh Commune in 1999 in order to engage with thelocal community and design and implement a commune project for poverty reduction in thisflood stricken region pf the Mekong Delta in South Vietnam.

Preliminary project planning

There were several reasons Tan Thanh was considered to be an appropriate Commune towork with:

1) It has been listed by the government of Vietnam as a poor commune in specific needof targeted poverty reduction projects.

2) It is quite remote, thus it is a higher priority (as designated by the government) forpoverty reduction than those communities that are located closer to Ho Chi Minh Cityand have better access to facilities and support.

3) The enthusiasm of the people of the commune and their willingness to be involved inthe project.

information gathering

Method:

Initially, contact was made with the following groups in order to gather general information:

• District-level statistical information on poverty (for the year 1997) was obtained andreviewed;

• Province level information on the number of poor families in Long An Province (for theyear 1998) was obtained and reviewed;

• a review of poverty reduction policies at the local and national levels of government wasundertaken;

• CPR HCMC conducted a number of interviews with government officials at all levels,from commune to provincial level: the Provincial People’s Committee, the Department ofForeign Affairs, and the provincial division of the Department of Labour, Invalids andSocial Affairs (DOLISA) were all contacted at this stage;

• Information was collected from district level officials during fieldwork conducted in1999;

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• At the local level, contact was made with employees of the Association of AgriculturalPromotion, the Youth Union, the Veteran’s Association and some poor families in theCommune.

Following this, focus group discussions were held with the following groups:

• Middle-aged men;• Young women, and;• Poor middle-aged women.

The priority given to these different age/gender groups were decided on the basis ofinvestigations of the general population to discern which groups were dominant, whichplayed the most important role in the village and which groups are agreed upon by othergroups as being the most active and influential. Interviews and focuss group discussionswere held with these different groups in order to gain a better understanding of relationshipsamong groups in the commune and how the interplay between groups might have an impacton who would benefit most from a development project here.

• CPR HCMC conducted a sociological questionnaire…

• A base map was prepared and put into GIS format, although this does not have any socio-economic data on it.

• Key informant interviews were conducted with representatives of families; (these wouldhave been chosen by the People’s Committee or other mass groups in the commune uponrequest from CPR HCMC. Who were considered representative (ie. the man, the woman,etc.) is not clear but the families themselves would have been a mix of recipient, nonrecipient, poor and not poor.)

The conclusion of the pre-planning stage was that the project would be a microcredit schemeand it would be carried out by the Women’s Union (WU) of Tan Thanh Commune andwould lend money to members of the WU.

The main deciding factor in this was the fact that the Women’s Union was the only massgroup willing to guarantee the loans, therefore, it was decided that loan recipients had to be

Sociological Questionnaire –

A sociological questionnaire was conducted by one member of CPR HCMC and herstudents. It is unclear what happened to the results of it, however, there is speculation thatit has never been used/results have not been made available due to a disagreement amongCPR members over payment for this service. Some aggregate data is available but noanalysis. In any case, this data has never been used and was not used for the purposes ofdesigning or implementing the project, or doing a community profile. This is still acontentious and unresolved issue at CPR HCMC.

SOURCE: CPR HCMC Member, 2002

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members of the WU. However, there were concessions made for non-members as they wereallowed to apply for loans as well, providing they first became members.

***Although it should also be noted that in Vietnam most semi-formal savings and loansprograms tend to be run through Women’s Unions.

• CPR HCMC approached all mass groups in the commune but the Women’s Union wasthe only one which expressed a willingness to take on both the work and the risk ofguaranteeing the loans. Although other mass groups in the Commune, other than theWomen’s Union, also took part in meetings and training, the Women’s Union took on themajority of the operational responsibility.

• Other poor households were introduced by mass groups apart from the WU but as thesegroups were not willing to guarantee the loans, these households were not eligible unlessa household member could become a member of the WU first.

What general lessons were learned about the method used for information-gathering?What worked and did not work?

• Although CPR members and staff had some previous experience from work on otherprojects, they did not include some important questions in their surveys, such as thesubject gender and age.

• Although some commune profiling and information gathering was done by CPR HCMCMembers, in fact project development took place completely separately from the profilingso, while the fact that a profile was carried out that involved participation from local,marginalised groups, the development of the project and decisions on the nature of theproject were made by CPR Members and were separate from the “participatory”information gathering aspect of the project.

summary of commune profile

Natural Features:

Location: Tan Thanh Commune is located in Long An Province on the Mekong River Deltaabout 115 kilometers southwest of Ho Chi Minh City. The commune is about 63kilometers from Tan An, the provincial centre of Long An Province and about 19kilometers from Tan Thanh district centre.

Climate: The Commune has a tropical climate with regular monsoon rains bringning regularflooding. Flooding is most severe between August and November. This factorhas had a major impact on how project development and project planningprogressed.

Land: The total area of the commune is 2752 hectares, approximately 6.8 kilometres inlength and 4.7 kilometres in width. Of which 2,036 hectares are rice crops, 411hectares are perennial crop and 186 hectares is infrastructure. The commune alsohas more densely populated village area which serves as a small central market forgoods and community interaction.

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Terrain: The commune is located in an area where frequent floods can make access to partsof it extremely difficult at certain times of the year. Access to the commune isquite limited. There is only one dirt road that leads to the commune that can beused by car. Transportation within the commune is by foot, motorbike or boat.

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Socio-economic Conditions:

Population: - There are 1342 households in this hamlet and 6552 individuals.- 3199 are male and 3351 are female.

- The population is primarily Kinh (ethnic Vietnamese), however there are alsotwo Khmer households.

- Most of the population practice ancestor worship but there are two Catholichouseholds and 15 households of the Cao Dai religion.

Economy: - The primary means of earning an income in the commune is through ricecultivation. Some households also generate income through animal husbandry(generally the raising of pigs, ducks or chickens) Some poor households alsosell their labour.

Income: - Average annual income is 750,000 VND per capita.3 - 839 (63%) households are categorized as average class, 213 (15%) as poor

and 68 (1%)

What lessons were learned about the community?

• Many families in the Commune resort to distilling rice wine to sell in order to earn extramoney. They can use the extra grain produced by this process to feed pigs;

• Severe flooding during the rainy season make it difficult to grow fruit trees and alsodifficult to raise ducks and chickens which often die in floods;

• Distance from market makes it difficult to raise large animals such as cows;• There is a fundamental lack of access to the capital required to develop or diversify

income-generating opportunities in the commune;• There has been some involvement here by the Bank for the Poor as well as HEPR but the

LPRV is the first foreign-funded project to work in the Commune;• In 1998, the village received some financial support from the government in the form of

credit. However, the financing available could not meet the needs of all local people andthe procedures for borrowing money were costly and time-consuming.

What facts were provided for identifying a project?

• Hamlets Two and Five have the highest rates of poverty in the Commune but both areserved by very active and influential members of the Women’s Union;

• In order to identify the causes of poverty in the commune, the CPR analyzed the results ofthe 1998 provincial poverty survey and the CPR survey carried out in November 1999.Based on this information, the CPR determined the primary causes of poverty in thecommune to be: 1) Lack of land for production, 2) Lack of capital for production, and 3)

3 About CDN $75.00. I don’t know about the accuracy of this number.

Accuracy of Information

Please note that many of these numbers do not add up. This is because they were taken fromdifferent sources and not substantiated. The numbers above appear as they do in Tan Thanhproject documents but there has been no work done on making them more accurate.

Remote location. Government and NGO poverty reduction programs find it difficult toreach the commune, and difficult to do on-going monitoring of projects here.

project development & planning

The Project Proposal:

Project Proposal – Timing

It should probably be noted that the project proposal was written after the project wasalready underway and not, as it may appear from this document, at the beginning stages ofthe project.

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The project proposal presents an outline of a microcredit scheme that would fund income-generating activities for the commune’s residents. Although the project participants are notspecifically required to raise pigs, that is what most of them did with the money.

The CPR initially held two meetings with representatives from the Women’s Union, theAssociation of Agricultural Promotion, the Red Cross, the Veteran’s Association, the YouthUnion and the People’s Committee in order to make a list of the poorest households in theCommune.

In order to qualify for a loan, recipients must:

1. be a member of the Women’s Union, although women who were not members before thescheme was introduced were allowed to become members in order to take part.

2. be poor (defined as having an income of less than 120,000 VND per month4, informationwhich is gathered through survey of household assets, income and land conducted by thePeople’s Committee) and be on the list of poor Commune households;

3. have a commitment to repay the loan and a clear work plan for using the funds in theform of a one page summary stating what they plan to do with the money.

4. conform to some basic requirements for the loan, the main one being that the money canonly be used for production, not consumption.

5. have some potential to use the loan for income-generating activities.6. be a resident of Hamlet Two or Hamlet Five, the two poorest Hamlets in the Commune.

4 About CDN $ 12.00.

The Women’s Union

• To become a member is quite simple, you just have to: 1) be a woman; 2) fill out theapplication form; 3) pay a fee of 500 VND a month; 4) attend monthly meetings.

• In the Commune, the Woman’s Union has a membership of 500 out of 1400 eligiblemembers.

• Reasons women join: 1) to gain knowledge of policies; 2) to have a support network; 3) toshare and receive knowledge.

• Reasons women do not join: 1) because they don’t want to go to meetings; 2) becausethey don’t want to pay the fee.

SOURCE: Interview with Head of Women’s Union, Tan Thanh Commune, December 2001

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Project Activities:

In the first phase, the project will involved poor or hungry households in Tan ThanhCommune. These households received: 1) financial support – loans given for the purpose ofthe income-generating activity of the recipients choice. 2) technical support – training will begiven both to project recipients and members of mass groups in the commune who areadministering the program. 3) community support – project recipients will belong toborrowing clubs that will provide support to encourage repayment and to encourageinformation exchange.

Specific Activities of the Project will be:

• Implement a ‘poverty reduction through microcredit’ project in the poorest hamlets in thecommune

• Identify the causes of poverty and people’s needs.• Provide commune officials with a computer.• Consult with local government and mass organizations in the commune to identify poor

families who require loans.• Hold training courses in animal husbandry (pig rearing) and specialized training

programs to build community capacity in procedures to borrow funds. These trainingcourses were open to all residents of the commune, not only loan recipients.

• Develop participatory agreements on the size of loans, the rate of interest, and thestructure of repayments.

• Form borrowing clubs to encourage women recipients to exchange information andencourage one another to make repayments on time.

• Use loan repayments to finance further rounds of lending and use interest to payadministrators from the WU and the People’s Committee for their work.

Pigs, Pigs and More Pigs…

The project does not specifically require loan recipients to raise pigs, however, this iswhat every recipient has done with the money. The reason for this has been variouslygiven as:

• That is what the people wanted to do;• A UBC Phd. Student doing research in the commune suggested it;• In the words of one CPR member: “There is a difference between saying ‘here’s a

loan, you have to raise pigs and saying ‘here’s a loan. You’re going to raise pigs,right?’”. It seems that, for whatever reason, there was some pressure to choose thisover any other type of activity, whether it was implicit or explicit is difficult todetermine.

One reason it might be interesting to question this emphasis on pig-raising is the statedfact (from commune residents and CPR members) that pigs are highly susceptible to deathand disease and require quite substantial start-up capital in order to make suitable pensand feed the animals.

In this area, pig require raised pens to keep them out of the floodwaters and mosquitonetting to keep them from catching mosquito-borne diseases.

SOURCE: CPR HCMC Member, 2002. Commune Visit, December 2001.

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In the second phase of the project, loan repayments made as part of the first phase will begiven out to other poor and hungry households in a second round of lending.

Project Risks and Risk Assessment:

No risk assessment was done on this project.

Project Objectives:

Short-term:

• To assist some poor families in eliminating poverty.• To develop a participatory framework within which decisions on key issues related to

poverty reduction work in the community are made by the people themselves.• To engage the whole community, even those who will not be recipients.

Long-term:

• To develop the habit of saving among poor people.• To develop awareness and cultivate creativity in the community in order to assist people

to find the most effective long-term solutions to poverty.• To build the capacity of local people and local Woman’s Union officials as well as

researchers in the Centre for Poverty Reduction.• To build close relationships between community members, local government and mass

organizations.• To institutionalize participatory models of community development in order to serve the

goals of poverty reduction and environmental improvement.• Monitor and evaluate project in order to identify lessons learned.

Financial Information

Total Estimated Budget: 100 Million VNDLocal Contribution: None (in-kind only)CPR HCMC Contribution: None

A Case Study of Project Risks and Borrowers Coping Strategies

Madame M lives in Tan Thanh Commune. She took out a loan through the LPRV project. Sheused the loan to buy several pigs and to build a pig sty in which to raise them. For variousreasons, all of her pigs became ill and died before she was able to sell them at market.However, with some extra money, left over from the purchase of the pigs, she “rented” a pigfrom her neighbour’s stock. She took on the responsibility of keeping, feeding and selling thispig. Once she sold it, she was able to repay her neighbour but keep a profit for herself. Aswell, she was able to use some of her extra money to purchase supplies for a small roadside teaand snack stall. In this way, she was able to overcome some of the personal and financial riskthat is always part of a project like this.

SOURCE: Interview with Project Participants. December 2001.

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Expected Results:

Expected Results Evaluation Criteria Evaluation Methods

Reduce the number of poorfamilies in the commune.

IncomeQuality of life indicators

Statistical surveysQualitative interviews

Improvement in the healthof women and children.

Reduction in the rate ofwomen’s illnesses.Reduction in the number ofmalnourished children

StatisticsSurveys

Changes in the traditionaltop-down method ofpoverty reduction

Local people’s ability toupdate information andtake part in povertyreduction projects andplans.

Interviews

Training borrowers todevelop the habit of saving.

Monitoring of borrower’ssavings books

InterviewsStatistics

Actual Results:

• The women who have been involved with the program have shown increased autonomyover decision-making within the credit groups.

• While it is too early to measure long-term impact on income, there is anecdotal evidenceto show that the effect will be positive.

Household Loans

In the initial information gathering workshop, households in the commune asked forrelatively small amounts of money as household loans. They were, however, loaned sumsof considerably larger than they had asked for. In the first round of borrowing, there weretwo main reasons for this: 1) In the opinion of CPR Members and the Women’s Union, thepeople did not know how much money they would need to “get out of poverty” and theyshould be given amounts closer to the estimation of the CPR and WU. This ended up being4 million VND, rather than the 1 million the people had asked for. 2) For administrativereasons, the CPR/WU wanted to standardise the amounts of loans given out.

For the second round of borrowing, this method was adjusted. There is currently a range ofloan amounts given out and a portion of the interest from repaid loans is “on-loaned” tohouseholds selected by previous loan recipients.

SOURCE: CPR HCMC Member, 2002

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• CPR members have increased understanding for and appreciation of communitydevelopment in Vietnam.

• Long-term relationships have been established between commune members and the CPRthat can be used for future projects.

• The CPR’s involvement in the commune helped to alleviate suffering during massiveflooding in 2001.

The first round of borrowing resulted in several changes:

• More input from CPR HCMC on selection of recipients of the loans. The first round ofborrowing led to allegations within the community that loan money was only going tofriends of the Women’s Union heads.

• Similarly, questions of the possibility of financial mismanagement led to a higher degreeof control coming from CPR HCMC over cash flow and financial matters.

• The borrowing groups met too frequently and the women were unclear about what theutility of them was. In response to this, they cut back the number of meetings andallocated a small part of the budget to be spent on magazines and refreshments to makethe meetings more social and interesting for the women.

• The interest rate on the loans was reduced from 0.6% to 0.5%. This covers the cost ofadministration of the loans but it does not provide anywhere near the interest rate thatwould be required if this project were to have to be self-sufficient. According to onemember of CPR HCMC, this is not an issue at the CPR because the goal of the project iscommunity development, not sustainability. It is not yet clear whether or not final loanrepayments will go back to CPR HCMC or will stay in the community to enable thescheme to continue.

• CPR HCMC has developed, and continues to have, excellent working relations with theworking groups and loan recipients in Tan Thanh.

Project organisation & implementation

Project Management and Implementation:

Project Results (according to members of the Tan Thanh People’s Committee):

• Project provides a good model for HEPR to replicate;• Since people must pay interest and repay the loan, they must learn about using the money in

ways that generate income.• Households now have less spare time but more spare money so the program has been able

to reduce social evils.• Project participants have gained knowledge that they can pass on to their children.• People can now afford to send their kids to school.• The project has created close networks through the structure of lending groups, and there is

some competition between the two groups which provides motivation to be successful.• People are motivated by seeing Canadians who come from a long way away and care about

helping them.

SOURCE: Interview with People’s Committee of Tan Thanh Commune, December 2001

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In consultation with the local people, the CPR and the People’s Committee elected a two-member Project Management Board which is composed of two people: the female Chair ofthe Commune Women’s Union and the male Deputy Chair of the People’s Committee, whois also a specialist in poverty reduction.

In terms of on-going support and management:

CPR HCMC was responsible for:

• Overall technical support.• Giving advice where it may be required.• Interfering only if necessary.• Gathering and disseminating information in a way that is useful for the ‘capacity

building’ goal of the LPRV project.

Women’s Union of Tan Thanh Commune was responsible for general management of theproject, including the following specific duties:

• Making key decisions, such as what households should be involved in the project.• Guaranteeing the loans.• Administering the distribution of the loans.• Announcing payment deadlines.• Collecting repayments with interest every three months.• Organizing regular meetings for recipients to share information and make contact with

one another to discuss the project and encourage each other.• Writing quarterly reports of project activities and sending these to the CPR (although they

have not actually ever done this).

The People’s Committee was responsible for:

• Assisting the Women’s Union with the decisions on who should be recipients of loans,overall supervision and management of the loans.

• Playing a relatively minor role and only intervening if necessary.

Other Mass Organizations (Youth Union, Red Cross, Association for Agricultural Promotion)were responsible for:

• Assist with overall management.• Provide training courses in environmental education and protection and healthcare.

The CCPR and UBC were responsible for:

• Supporting CPR HCMC with advice, comments, training and evaluations.• Providing the capital to be distributed to the project recipients.• Helping CPR HCMC disperse information throughout.

monitoring & evaluation

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In the early stages of the project, financial regulations were such that outside agencies couldnot be paid for their consulting services on the feasibility of a project, thus the CPR wasmainly only able to depend on its own members, who had no previous experience with micro-credit projects, or LPRV members at UBC and Laval who were far away, for comments onthe project.

• As, in the early stages, consultants could not really be used as there was no budget forthem, overcoming the lack of experience at such a project was more difficult.

• It was eventually decided that LPRV finance could be used to pay consultants. CPRHCMC approached CEP (Capital Aid Fund to Create Employment for the Poor), amicrofinance program run by the Ho Chi Minh City Federation of Labour that also hasconsiderable experience with poverty reduction and community development projects.CEP shared their experience with CPR HCMC, and also prepared a short independentevaluation of the project. The CPR now wants ActionAid to evaluate the project.

• There have been limited formal exchanges between the CPR and UBC and Laval, therehave been several verbal discussions, personal meetings and site visits. Primary inputcame from Michael Leaf at UBC and Rodolphe de Koninck from Laval.

lessons learned & cpr capacity building

• The CPR recognises that their documentation of the projects needs to improve.• During the course of this project and the second commune project, also a microfinance

scheme, the CPR came to realise they knew nothing about either microfinance or ruralpoverty. In response to this gap in knowledge, they organized a microfinance workshopwhich took place in November 2001 in Ho Chi Minh City. This conference drew manypeople, government officials, NGOs, members from other CPRs, members of the CCPRand Canadian partners.

• According to one CPR Member: “in the first pilot project, we have experienced some ofthe hardships that are faced by the poor because while we were working in the area, itflooded so we saw what the people went through and we ourselves had to go through thedifficulties of reaching the commune during the floods.”

• Distance has been a major obstacle. On the one hand, the more remote areas are thepoorest and need the most support and, on the other, it is very difficult to adequatelyprovide this support because the commune is too far for effective collaboration or closemonitoring.

• The Tan Thanh project is in a rural area which, they feel, is not a strength of CPR HCMC.After this project, they will focus attention on doing urban poverty reduction projects.

• A major problem with the project was the lack of continuity in who worked on what andwho, therefore would be accountable for information and results. Currently, the project isthe responsibility of the secretary of the CPR but she was not involved in project designand also does not make any decisions on how the project will proceed.

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Appendix A – HCMC CPR Members & Their Expertise:

Name: Position: Position in CPR: Specialty:1. Prof. Ngo Van

Le (Male)Rector of VinhUniversity

Director of CPRHCMC

Ethnology

2. Dr. TruongThi KimChuyen(Female)

Dean of GeographyDepartment

CPR Member Geography

3. Dr. Tran ThiKim Xuyen(F)

Dean of SociologyDepartment

CPR MemberResponsible for GenderIssues

Sociology

4. Dr. NguyenMinh Hoa(M)

Lecturer ofSociologyDepartment

CPR Member Sociology

5. Dr. NguyenVan Tiep (M)

Lecturer of HistoryDepartment

CPR Member Anthropology

6. M.A PhamThi Hong Hoa(F)

Deputy Head ofPersonnelDepartment,Lecturer ofSociologyDepartment

CPR Coordinator Sociology,Philosophy

7. Nguyen ThiHong Xoan(F)

Lecturer ofSociologyDepartment

CPR Member Sociology

8. Bui Thi ThuyHong (F)

Teacher Assistant CPR Secretary Sociology

9. Nguyen DangNguyen (M)

Lecturer of EnglishDepartment

Information Officer English

10. Jim Delaney(M)

N/A DevelopmentFacilitator

Social Policy

50

Appendix b – Documents Produced by CPR Ho Chi Minh City:

CPR HCMC Reports (General)Title: Author: Date: Length:

Report of Third YearActivities

Tan Thanh Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

Learning Evaluation of PilotProject #1: Tan ThanhCommune, Long AnProvince

Ms. Bui Thi Thuy Hong,Secretary, CPR HCMC

8 October 2001 11 Pages

* Project Evaluation ReportTan Thanh Commune, TanThanh District, Long AnProvince.

* External Consultant Report

Mr. Bui Van Hiep,Capital Fund to CreateEmployment for the Poor(CEP)HCMC Federation ofLabour Unions

3-4 May 2001 2 Pages

Report on Experiencesfrom Pilot Project #1

Ms. Bui Thi Thuy Hong,Secretary, CPR HCMC

8 October 2001 11 Pages

Learning Evaluation of PilotProject #1 – Tan ThanhCommune, Long AnProvince

11 May 2001 6 Pages

Ward 3, District 8 Project DocumentsTitle: Author: Date: Length:

Report on the PreliminaryAssessment of Ward 3,District 8

March2001

9 Pages

Project Proposal: CapacityBuilding for PovertyReduction in UrbanCommunities

9 Pages

51

52

Members of CPR Hue & Their Expertise:

Name: Position in University: Position in CPR: Specialty:1. NguyÔn ViÔn Thä President Natl. Steering Committee Physics

2. NguyÔn Thä V-îng Director, Office of PostGraduate Studies

CPR Director Physics

3. NguyÔn V¨n Toµn Vice-President CPR Vice-Director AgriculturalEconomics

4. Huúnh §×nh ChiÕn Vice-Director, Office ofInternational Relations

CPR Coordinator Medicine

5. NguyÔn Xu©nKho¸t

Director, AdministrationOffice

CPR Member Politics

6. NguyÔn Thanh Lecturer CPR Member Geology7. TrÇn V¨n ThiÒu Vice-Director, Office of

planning and FinanceCPR's Accountant Mathematics

8. Bïi ThÞ T©n Lecturer Head of Gender team History

9. NguyÔn §øc H-ng Director, Office forAcademic Affairs

CPR Member Agriculture

10. L-¬ng ThÞ MüHuyÒn

Secretary of CPR Law

53

Members of CPR Thai Nguyen & Their Expertise:

Name: Position in University: Position in CPR: Specialty:1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

54

Members of CPR Da Lat & Their Expertise:

Name: Position in University: Position in CPR: Specialty:1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

55

Members of CCPR & Their Expertise:

Name: Position in NCSSH: Position in CCPR: Specialty:1. Dr. Nguyen Duy

Thong2. Dr. Nguyen Duy

QuyPresident

3. Mr. Le Huu Tang Vice-President

4. Dr. Tran Thi VanAnh

5. Ms. Dang BichThuy

Researcher, Centre forWomen’s Studies

Coordinator Women’sStudies

6. Ms. Nguyen Thi LeBich

Head of InformationTechnology

Network & InformationCoordinator

Math andPhysics

7. Ms. Dang AnhPhuong

LPRV ProjectCoordinator

8. Dr. Vu Tuan Anh Economics

9. Ms. Arlene Whetter N/A Librarian/WUSCDevelopment Worker

LibrarySciences

10. Dr. Pham XuanNam

11. Dr. Nguyen HuuMinh

Researcher, Institute ofSociology

12. Dr. Bui Van Dao Director, Institute ofEthnology

Ethnology

13. Dr. Nguyen VanMinh

Researcher, Institute ofEthnology

Ethnology

14. Dr. Trinh Duy Luan Director, Institute ofSociology

UrbanSociology

15. Ms. Dao Hong Le LPRV Staff Secretary InternationalRelations

56

Canadian LPRV Partners & Their Expertise:

Name: Position: Position in LPRV: Specialty:1. Dr. Peter

BoothroydUBC Centre for HumanSettlements (CHS)

UBC/CHS Director ofLPRV

2. Dr. Rodolphe DeKoninck

3. Vincent Verlaan UBC – Project Coordinator LPRV ProjectCoordinator

4. Andrew Lawrence UBC – LPRV Staff LPRV CommunicationsCoordinator

5. Dr. LeonoraAngeles

UBC Gender Team Co-Leader/Partner to TNU CPR

6. Ms. HuguetteDagenais

Laval Gender Team Co-Leader

7. Steffanie Scott University of WesternAustralia

Gender Team Member Geography

8. Dr. Michael Leaf UBC Partner to HCMC CPR UrbanPlanning

9. Dr. Bob Woollard UBC Partner to Hue CPR Medicine

10. Mr. GeoffHainsworth

UBC Partner to CCPR/NCSSH

11. Terry McGee UBC Partner to Dalat CPR

12. Mr. Marc Miller Laval GIS TrainingCoordinator

13. Mr. Rob Roy BC Institute of Technology Network DevelopmentCoordinator

Library &InformationSciences

14. Ms. Karen Zeller UBC/CHS Administrator

57

Glossary of terms used in LPRV ProjectFebruary 2002Compiled by: Xochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

LPRV Glossary

The following acronyms, terms, concepts and phrases are found throughout LRPVProject documents. Although many of them are familiar terms in development work,they should be understood as they are used in the context of this particular program.

Acronyms:

1. CHS - Centre for Human Settlements

2. CPR - Centre for Poverty ReductionCentres set up at five Vietnamese universities to be the focus of capacity building in thearea of poverty reduction. In north Vietnam, there is a CPR at Thai Nguyen University,in north-central Vietnam there is one at Vinh University, in the centre is CPR Hue, inthe central highlands is CPR Dalat and in the south is the CPR at the NationalUniversity for Social Sciences and Humanities, Ho Chi Minh City (CPR HCMC).

3. CCPR - Coordinating Centre for Poverty ReductionThis is the centre at the national centre which coordinates the network of CPRs. It islocated in Hanoi and associated with the National Centre for Social Sciences andHumanities.

4. HEPR - Hunger Eradication and Poverty ReductionA program implemented by the government of Vietnam…

5. LBD - Learning-by-doing

6. LPRV - Localised Poverty Reduction VietnamThis is the umbrella term used to refer to the entire five-year project involving anetwork of two Canadian universities (University of British Columbia and LavalUniversity), five Vietnamese universities (Thai Nguyen, Vinh, Hue, Dalat and Ho ChiMinh City) and one Vietnamese research institution, the National Centre for SocialSciences and Humanities (Hanoi).

7. MOLISA/DOLISA/OOLISA - Ministry/Department/Organisation of Labour,Invalids and Social Affairs.These are the main sources of information and statistics on poverty in Vietnam.MOLISA is the national ministry, and source of the list of poor communes in Vietnam,DOLISA is the provincial-level body and OOLISA is the local district-level body.

8. PAR - Participatory Action Research

9. PME - Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation

10. PPR - Participatory Poverty Assessment

58

11. PRA - Participatory Rural Appraisal

Terms:

1. Capacity Building

2. Commune Profile

3. Community Development

4. ‘Getting to D’

5. Micro-finance

6. Participatory Planning

7. Participatory Community Profiling

8. Poverty

9. Poverty Reduction

10. Poor

11. Sustainability

12. Very Poor (“poorest of the poor”)

****the exchange rate at the time of writing this was approximately CDN $1 to 10,000 Viet Nam Dong (VND) or US $1 to 15,000 VND.

59

COMPARITIVE SUMMARY OF MAIN PROJECT ACTIVITIES – Key: !- part of the project, N/A - not part of project, ? - don’t know

Microcredit UrbanPoverty

RuralPoverty

AnimalHusbandry

EthnicMinorities

Agricultural InfrastructureImprovement

IndustryDevelopment

GenderTargeted

CPR HCMCity1. Than Tan !!!! N/A !!!! !!!! N/A !!!! N/A N/A !!!!2. Ward 3, District 83. Bien Hoa

CityCPR Dalat1. Lat2. Loc Nam3. ?CPR Hue1. Phu Da ? N/A !!!! N/A N/A !!!! !!!! !!!! N/A2. Thanh N/A !!!! ? !!!! !!!! ? ? N/A3. ? !!!! X ? ? ? ? ? ?CPR ThaiNguyen1. Dong Lien2. ?3. ?CPR Vinh1. Nghi Phong

!!!! N/A !!!! !!!! N/A !!!! N/A N/A N/A

2. Thanh Thinh

!!!! N/A !!!! !!!! N/A !!!! N/A ? ?

3. ?

61

Comparitive Project InformationXochitl Benjamin, LPRV Intern

COMPARITIVE PROJECT INFORMATION:

**** I did not have time to compare this information and format it myself but there is some basicproject information that I think could be quite illuminating if it were looked at in a chart form. Oneexample that I can think of is that Vinh’s Thanh Thinh project involves 110 households while mostof the others involve 30 or less. Another example is that Thanh Thinh’s Project ManagementBoard had ten members while HCMC’s Tan Thanh Project Management Board had two. I am notsure whether any conclusions could be drawn from this information but I do think it raises someinteresting process questions and could be very valuable for the CPRs in terms of helping withinformation sharing and project design. Currently, they have no quick references of this kindhighlighting some salient features of other CPR projects. This might also be a useful tool to becirculated as part of the newsletter that Ms. Thuy and Ms. Le at the CCPR are currently workingon. I see this as complementary/supplementary to the ‘Comparitive Summary of Main ProjectActivities’ chart above.

Here are some categories (in no particular order) that I think could be helpful points of comparisonon the projects, in a quick visual reference (matrix-type) format:

Financial information:

- amount available to recipients.- amount available to wider community.- sum paid to members of Project Management Board.

Commune Information:

- average annual income.- population.- % ethnic minority population.- # (or %) of people designated as poor.- distance from CPR.

Project Information:

- # of households involved.- mass groups involved.- projected duration of project.- microcredit involved (Y or N)? If so: amount of loans, # of loaning rounds, duration

of loans, activities financed, interest rate.- Infrastructure improvement involved (Y or N)? If so, what.