Rural Development Policy inputs to the Chia se Poverty Alleviation Program Phase II

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.

The objective of the study was to contribute with analysis towards second year consultations, which should produce guidelines for making Chia Se’s approach to poverty reduction compatible with the Vietnamese “mainstream” for targeted poverty reduction, both in terms of management procedures and overhead costs.

1. The consultants hired by ORGUT produced a Report on findings from the SEDP activities, particularly findings that were useful for revising the SEDP Manual.
2. Reported on possible cooperation and integration with other poverty reduction programmes, which could be used for meetings or workshops with respresentatives of those programmes.
3. Recommended steps for integration and cooperation with Tam Nong resolution for rural development (National Targeted Program for New Rural Development) .
4. Reported on possible improvements in coordination between aid donors in the field of Commune development funding.