Development of Capacity Building support for Chia se methodology application and dissemination

Chia se can be described as a pre-reform program aiming at showing a way to implement the decentralization policies of the Government of Vietnam Nation-wide, analyze the results obtained and communicate lessons learned to the public administration nation-wide. The Chia sẻ approach to poverty alleviation can be briefly described as a way of empowering villagers to jointly manage a Local Development Fund (LDF), large enough to support investments that can improve the living conditions of the poor in a sustainable manner. Identification of poor households as well as setting development priorities were tasks decided by the village meeting convened by officials elected by the village. To maintain a democratic and transparent process for managing the LDF, investment decisions were taken by the village meeting.

The second phase:

1. Consolidated the results achieved in the local areas
2. Developed and analyzed less expensive ways of successfully applying the same approach, making it replicable nation-wide
3. Made the results and the procedures behind these results well-known and communicated, for obtaining impact on Socio Economic Development planning, policy-making and application of already existing policies within the fields of poverty reduction, rural development, decentralization and grassroots democracy

ORGUT provided technical assistance and advice to the Ministry of Planning and Investments and the Provincial Peoples Committees in Ha Giang and Quang Tri in particular in developing and promoting the decentralized, rights-based approach to local governance.

Program management identified a need to explore current donor activities and Vietnamese training institutional capacities in order to identify and link to ongoing activities and programs promoting decentralized, grass root empowering methods such as in Chia sẻ . In a first step donor plans and Vietnamese institutional capacity were mapped.

The purpose of the assignment was to identify ongoing or planned potential donor programs and Vietnamese institutional training activities and national capacity building service providers that can assist with capacity building needed to implement ‘participatory, decentralized and empowering methods for rural investments outside the direct Chia sẻ intervention areas. Institutional capacities for training and education inside Vietnam should be mapped and assessed on both National and local levels.

ORGUT provided expertise to do a complete mapping of all relevant initiatives in Vietnam, which can potentially provide future support to ‘Chia sẻ ’ like methodologies from 2011 onwards. Sustainability potential and long term perspective took precedence. The consultants discussed potential sources of funding for Chia sẻ like capacity development, provided an overview over expected costs for typical capacity building modules, identified opportunities for grant-financed capacity development. The consultants ranked opportunities according to quality as well as costs. An action plan was established for what could be done within the ongoing period of Chia sẻ to promote the identification and further development of future support to implementation of ‘Chia sẻ ’ like methodologies in other areas of Vietnam.