SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT - World Bank · SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS POVERTY...

SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

POVERTY REDUCTION PROJECT

Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Quang Ngai & Quang Nam

[Draft 2]

[THIS DRAFT IS FOR CONSULTATION ONLY, PLEASE DO NOT QUOTE]

August 2013

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

Pub

lic D

iscl

osur

e A

utho

rized

2

List of Tables, Figures and Boxes ...................................................................................................... 4

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT ..................................................................................................................... 5

Abbreviation ........................................................................................................................................ 6

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 10

1.1 Context of the Social Assessment .......................................................................................... 10

1.2 Assessment Objectives .......................................................................................................... 11

1.3 Assessment Methodology ....................................................................................................... 11

1.3.1 Theoretical framework...................................................................................................... 11

1.3.2 Data collection tools ......................................................................................................... 16

1.3.3 Sampling procedure and sampling size ........................................................................... 17

CHAPTER 2: KEY FINDINGS OF THE ASSESSMENT .................................................................. 19

2.1 Vulnerable groups, livelihoods capital and external factors that increase the vulnerability ... 19

2.1.1 Vulnerability of Project’s target groups ............................................................................ 20

2.1.2 Accessibility to livelihood funding of target groups in project areas ................................ 24

2.1.3 Some environmental/external factors contribute to the vulnerability of disadvantaged

groups in project areas .............................................................................................................. 39

2.2 Organizational structures and processes ............................................................................... 42

2.2.1 Organizational structures having potential effects on the success of the Project

implementation .......................................................................................................................... 43

2.2.2 Policies, processes and institutions: their levels of impacts on the participation and

benefits of vulnerable target groups .......................................................................................... 47

2.2.3 Some cultural, ritual practices affecting the Project implementation ............................... 53

2.3 Verifying the suitability of the CHPov Project’s livelihood strategies ...................................... 57

2.3.1 Remarkable feedbacks on infrastructure development supports .................................... 57

2.3.2 Remarkable feedbacks on livelihood development supports........................................... 59

2.3.3 Remarkable feedbacks on capacity building activities and project management ........... 61

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS ............................................................ 63

3.1 Conclusions ............................................................................................................................ 63

3.2 Recommendations .................................................................................................................. 65

3.2.1. Recommendations to ensure the participation and benefits for vulnerable target groups

.................................................................................................................................................. 65

3.2.2. Recommendations on other stakeholders that could have direct and indirect influences

on the Project's success ........................................................................................................... 67

3.3. Notes to the report ................................................................................................................. 69

References ....................................................................................................................................... 70

Appendix 1: Consultation guidance framework ............................................................................ 71

3

Appendix 2: List of provinces/districts/communes in CHPov Project ........................................... 75

Appendix 3: List of interviewees and participants in group discussions ....................................... 76

4

List of Tables, Figures and Boxes

Table 1.1: Glossary of key terms used in the SLA framework ......................................................... 13

Table 2.1: District poverty rates in project areas, 2010 .................................................................... 20

Table 2.2: Access to utilities (electricity, water, and sanitation) by ethnic groups (2010) ................ 22

Table 2.3: Poverty rate by genders of household heads in project areas (2010) ............................ 23

Table 2.4: Access to utilities (electricity, clean water, sanitation) of households in project areas,

clustered by genders of household heads (2010) ............................................................................ 23

Table 2.5: Land ownership and usage, by ethnic groups (2010) ..................................................... 24

Table 2.6: Land ownership and usage, by genders (2010) .............................................................. 25

Table 2.7: Number of laborers in households in project areas, by ethnic groups (2011) ................ 28

Table 2.8: Number of workers in households, by genders of household heads (2011) ................... 28

Table 2.9: Quality of workforce in project areas – the highest qualification/education of household

heads (2010) .................................................................................................................................... 30

Table 2.10: Labor quality reflecting in qualification/education of household heads, by genders

(2010) ............................................................................................................................................... 31

Table 2.11: Infrastructure serving agricultural production in project areas (2010) ........................... 32

Table 2.12: Households’ access to financial capital in (July 1, 2011) .............................................. 34

Table 2.13: Households’ access to financial capital, by genders of household heads (July 1, 2011)

.......................................................................................................................................................... 36

Table 2.14. Ownership of telecommunication devices and TVs in project areas, by ethnic groups

(2010) ............................................................................................................................................... 38

Table 2.15: Ownership of telecommunication devices in project areas, by genders of household

heads ................................................................................................................................................ 39

Figure 1.1: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA) ...................................................................... 11

Figure 2.1: Ethnic presence in Project areass ................................................................................. 20

Figure 2.2 Poverty rate by ethnic groups, 2010 ............................................................................... 21

Figure 2.3: Proportion of land used for different crops (%), by genders of household heads (2010)

.......................................................................................................................................................... 26

Figure 2.4: Percentage of children with malnutrition in project areas (2011) ................................... 29

Figure 2.5: Proportion of households owning agriculture machines and equipment in project

provinces (2010) ............................................................................................................................... 33

Box 2.1: Limited access to land and water in project areas ............................................................. 27

Box 2.2: Discussions on division of labor between men and women in project areas ..................... 29

Box 2.3: Discussions on qualification/education of EM groups in project areas .............................. 30

Box 2.4: Discussion on saving practices of disadvantaged groups in project areas ....................... 34

Box 2.5: Community spirit is an important social capital of migrant EMs in project areas ............... 37

Box 2.6: Discussion on impacts of migrant waves ........................................................................... 41

5

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The consultants conducted this survey and developed the “Social Assessment” for the Poverty

Reduction in the Central Highlands Project (CHPov) under the mandate of the Ministry of Planning

and Investment (MPI) and World Bank (WB). During our research, we have received enormous

and continuous supports from related agencies, officers at all levels and local people in the

surveyed areas.

First, we would like to express our great appreciation to the Ministry of Planning and Investment,

the Project Preparation Units at the central, provincial and district levels and World Bank for their

insightful comments and generous supports for the research team.

We would also like to thank the People Committee at all levels, representatives of

Departments/Boards/Sectors in 6 project provinces for providing and sharing practical, specific and

useful information to develop this report. At the same time, the research team is grateful to receive

supports from the local authorities to set up necessary arrangements for our work in the field and

introduce the team to local people and businesses in the surveyed areas.

Finally, we would like to extend our special thanks to the local people for their invaluable time

participating in our interviews, focused group discussion and their activeness in providing

information for the research team to complete our key findings and verifying the accuracy of such

statements related to the social issues of the CHPov.

Due to time and resource constraints, this Assessment may not cover all aspects that could

influence the implementation of the CHPov. For further improvement of research, analysis and

impact evaluation, we hope to receive constructive comments from those interested in the content

of this report.

6

Abbreviation

ADB : Asia Development Bank

Agribank : Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development

AusAID : The Australian Agency for International Development

CPO : Central Project Office

CDB : Community Development Board

CEMA : Committee on Ethnic Minority Affairs

CH : The Central Highlands

CHPov : Central Highlands Poverty Reduction Project/ the Project

EM : Ethnic Minority

FLITCH : Forests for Livelihood Improvement in The Central Highlands

FS : Feasibility Study

GoV : Government of Vietnam

GSO : General Statistics Office

IFAD : The International Fund for Agricultural Development

ISP : Supporting program for Program 135-II in Quang Ngai

M&E : Monitoring and Evaluation

MARD/DARD : Ministry/Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

MIS : Management Information System

MOC : Ministry of Construction

MOF/DOF : Ministry/Department of Finance

MOLISA/DOLISA : Ministry of /Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs

MOST : Ministry of Science and Technology

MOT : Ministry of Transport

MPI/DPI : Ministry/Department of Planning and Investment

NGOs : Non-governmental organizations

NTM : National targeted program on building a new countryside

ODA : Official Development Assistance

OP : Operation Policy

P135 : The Program 135

P30a : The Program 30a

PDO : Project Development Objective

PIM : Project Implementation Manual

PMU : Project Management Unit

PPC : Province People’s Committee

7

PPU : Project Preparation Unit

ToRs : Term of references

RPF : Resettlement Policy Framework

UN : United Nations

UNDP : United Nations Development Program

USD : United States Dollar

VBSP : Vietnam’s Bank for Social Policy

VHLSS 2010 : Viet Nam Household Living Standards Survey 2010

VND : Vietnam Dong

WB : World Bank

WB3 : Forest Sector Development Project

8

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The Project Development Objective (PDO) of the Poverty Reduction in the Central Highlands

Project (CHPov Project) is to “increase the livelihood opportunity for poor households and

communities in 26 districts of 06 provinces in Project area”, comprising of four components:(1)

infrastructure development, (2) livelihood development, (3) connective infrastructure development,

capacity building and communication, and (4) project management. The Project is deployed in 26

districts, located in 6 provinces: Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Quang Nam and Quang

Ngai. Implementing agency of the Project is Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the

Donor is World Bank (WB). Estimated project duration is 5 years (2014 to 2018) with total project

budget amounting USD165 million; of which USD 150 million (90%) is from the ODA fund, and

USD 15 million (10%) is counterpart fund of the Vietnamese Government.

Project beneficiaries are poor households, of which the poor ethnic minorities (EM) people and

women are the vulnerable target groups that are most concerned in this project. Among these

target groups, there are several differences in terms of poverty characteristics, level of vulnerability

and stakeholders’ opinions on potential impacts of the Project on them. Thus, a Social Assessment

is of necessity and has been conducted in order to collect data to form the foundation for the

formulation of policy framework with the engagement of all stakeholders, ensuring that they all

contribute sufficiently to the designing and formulating of project implementation mechanism. The

objective of assessment study is to produce an overall analysis on various

strategies/measures/methods to ensure that project objective is suitable to the social context with

specific objectives as follows: (i) identify and describe the target groups bearing the risk of being

eliminated and not be able to benefit from the Project; (ii) identify major stakeholders in the Project

and their potential influence to the project implementation; (iii) identify procedures, institutional and

cultural features affecting the participation of the beneficiaries; (iv) testify the suitability level of the

livelihood enhancement strategies; and basing on that, (v) propose recommendations on

intervention strategy, project designing rules to ensure that all the vulnerable target groups will be

able to participate sufficiently in and benefit from the Project’s interventions as expected.

In order to realize the above-mentioned objectives, this Assessment is designed basing on the

theoretical framework of Sustainable Livelihood Approach (by DFID and AusAID), the findings are

resulted from secondary statistics and primary data collected from survey sites within the project

areas (using qualitative tools such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions). Main findings

of this Assessment include:

Regarding vulnerable target groups, study shows that inhabitants in project areas are poorer than

average levels of the locality and the country. VHLSS 2010 reveal s that the poverty rate in project

areas (rural area) is 2.5 times higher than the average rate in rural area nationwide and average

income in project areas is only as 70-80% high as that figure nationwide. From ethnological

perspective, EM groups are poorer ones (compared to Kinh people). From gender perspective, the

group of female-headed households is poorer than male-headed ones.

At the same time, the study shows that the access of disadvantaged groups ( EMs, female-headed

households) to the livelihood resources (natural resource, human resource, capital resource,

financial resource and social resouce) is more limited than others. Additionally, natural disasters,

epidemics, uncontrolled migration to project areas (particularly in recent years) also impact largely

and negatively to the life and livelihoods of benefited groups in the Project area.

Regarding organizational structure, it can be classified into five categories: (1) Entities leading the

implementation process of the Project (People’s Committee at multiple levels with the direct

participation of Chairman or Vice Chairman of People’s Committee, who play the decisive role to

the success of the Project); (2) Entities implementing the Project (special attention have been

drawn regarding capacity and human resource at MPUs at all levels); (3) Entities supporting the

project implentation (departments, sectoral agencies and mass organizations (Women’s Union,

Farmer’s Union); they can only participate effectively in project implementation if there is consistent

direction from People’s Committees as well as sufficient consideration regarding their current roles,

9

capcacity, and workload); (4) Communal entities (currently, their roles has not been given

adequate importance. The project activities will enhance their role gradually); (5) Other entities

(e.g.: private manufacturing sector, service providers play a significant role in project activities.

However, they are confronting certain difficulties in linking players, seeking local labors qualified to

the job requirement of the Project, etc.)

Regarding mechanism, procedures and policies, the implementation of the Project is subject to the

concurrent existent of several poverty reduction policies/ programs in the project area. Though

these activities are fairly diversified, they remain limited in terms of resources, approaching

methods (lacking the participation of stakeholders), etc. Additionally, targeted communities still

remain their communal gathering characteristics with the village autonomy and the important

influence of village heads, the heavy rituals, customs and festival, the outdated ways of living and

manufacturing from the old time when there was not much pressure on their living, as well as

stereotype about the Project targeted groups (particularly local EM groups). These factors will have

certain disturbance to livelihooddevelopment actitivies of the Project.

Regarding the suitability of the Project, feedbacks are collected on three areas: (1) the project

support to infrastructure development, (2) the project support to livelihood

enhancement/development, and (3) the activities to enhance capacity. Generally, the feedbacks

have high opinion on the proposed project design, intervention methods and projection on major

activities of the Project. It is agreed upon that the construction of infrastructure will be implemented

in the direction to support livelihood development. However, it needs a clearer and more detailed

instruction on some issues such as the linkage among constructions, biding methods with the

engagement of community, regulations on the employing of local labors, etc. In terms of livelihood

development activities, there arise quite a few concerns and questions regarding the collective

production models. The most concerned issue is how to avoid the formality and ineffectiveness of

the former collective production (namely cooperatives) model. Content and scope of the support

need designing to be suitable to EM people with special attention is drawn to technical assistance,

repeated training, new production model introduction, providing breeds and agricultural materials.

The question about sustainability also needs special concern of stakeholders. Regarding the

capacity enhancement and project management, the most prominent concerns are on the

importance of capacity enhancement, delegating specialized officers beside part-time positions

and the participation of commune level as investment owner.

Based on major findings presented in this Assessment, the most important recommendations are

to continue completing the designing of the Project following the current content and approaching

methods. The construction of infrastructure must reflect vulnerable target groups’ expectations.

Meanwhile, the activities to disseminate information to and mobilize the vulnerable groups to

actively engage in the Project; and to encourage the support from highly-influential individuals in

the communities will also help improve the participation of these groups significantly.

In addition, this Assessment also points out some notices on the approaching methods to and the

use of Assessment’s results and recommendations such as the scope of survey, the timing

relativity of information and recommendations, the opacity of this Project, etc.

10

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This Chapter presents background context of the Social Assessment (section 1.1), Assessment

Objectives (section 1.2) and Assessment Methodology (section 1.3), which clearly defines the

theoretical framework (section 1.3.1) and discribes assessment procedures and data collection

tools (section 1.3.2), sampling procedure and the sample (section 1.3.3). Thus, all stakeholders are

provided with overall backgound to have better understanding of the report structure and findings

presented in Chapter 2 and recommendations in Chapter 3.

1.1 Context of the Social Assessment

The Project Development Objective of the Central Highland Poverty Reduction Project (CHPov)

(hereinaffter called the Project) is “To increase livelihood opportunities for poor households and

communities in 26 districts of 06 provinces in the project area”. The project areas covers 26

districts in 6 provinces, namely Dak Nong, Dak Lak, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Quang Nam and Quang

Ngai1. Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) is the Implementing agency and the World Bank

(WB) is the Donor. The estimated project duration is 5 years (2014 -2018) with total investment of

USD 165 million; of which, ODA from the WB comprises of USD 150 million (accounting for 90%),

counterpart fundings from the Government of Vietnam is USD 15 million (accounting for 10%).

The Project comprises of 04 components with specific objectives as follows (1) Component 1:

Commune and Village Infrastructure Development to support production, improve living conditions,

create jobs in infrastructure construction and maintain infrastructure works; (2) Component 2:

Sustainable Livelihoods Development to strengthen food security and nutrition, to diversify market

based livelihoods, and to develop livelihoods linked to markets by cooperating with businesses to

improve incomes sustainably; (3) Component 3: District connective infrastructure development;

capacity building and communication to improve the condition of connective infrastructure at district

level (including both economic and social infrastructure), to promote production, strengthen access

to public services, in parallel, to enhance the capacity of officers; to promote communication and

awareness raising; and (4) Component 4: Project Management to ensure that management,

monitoring and evaluation of the effectiveness of Project activities are in line with the Project

design.

Methods to select target areas and beneficiaries are designed basing on the guidelines by the

Ministry of Planning and Investment (Dispatch No. 10284/BKH&DT-KTDP&LT dated 11/12/2012

and Dispatch No. 10462/BKH&DT-KTDP&LT dated 17/12/2012). Accordingly, the selection criteria

of target areas and beneficiaries are based on local poverty rate with priorities given to the

vulnerable groups. The selection process follows 3 steps, (i) selection of project districts (ii)

selection of project communes within the districts and (iii) selection of beneficiaries. Annex 2 of this

Report provides more details of the 130 communes in 26 districts under the project areas.

It is reported that the beneficiaries of the CHPov are heterogenous between ethnic groups in terms

of composition of sex, ethnictity, culture, economic status and level of participation, etc. Thus, the

Project’s challenge is to determine different requirements of diverse groups, with focus on

vulnerable ones (the poor in general, the ethnic minorties and the poor women in particular).

Moreover, the numerous stakholders within and outside of this Project also have different views on

the level of impacts exerted from the CHPov activities and on the specific objectives of this Project.

1 26 districts under the project areas include: Dak Glong, Dak Song, Krong No, Tuy Duc (Dak Nong); Buon

Don, Ea Sup, Krong Bong, Lak, M’Dak (Dak Lak); K Bang, Kong Chro, Krong Pa, Mang Yang, Ia Pa (Gia Lai);

Ngoc Hoi, Dak Glei, Sa Thay, Kon Ray, Kon Plong, Tu Mo Rong (Kon Tum); Son Ha, Son Tay, Ba To (Quang

Ngai) and Nam Giang, Phuoc Son, Nam Tra My (Quang Nam).

11

Hence, the Social Assessment is of neccessity in order to develop an policy framework which

allows stakeholders’ participation and their comments to contribute to the design and

implementation mechanism of the Project in the upcoming stages.

In this context, the Social Assessment (hereinafter called the Assessment) under the Central

Highlands Poverty Reduction Project is conducted independently and after the launch of the

Feasibility Study. The Feasibility Study of this Project is an important reference source for the

Social Assessment (more details are provided in Chapter 2 and Chapter 3 of this Report). Findings

and recommendations from this Assessment provide complementary and critic views [regarding to

social impacts] on Feasibility Study’s results.

1.2 Assessment Objectives

As stated in the ToR, the following overall and specific objectives need to be achieved at the

completion of the Project:

Overall objectives: The Social Assessment (SA) is a systematic investigation of the social

processes and factors that affect the outcomes of a development project. It is an analysis that

combines different methods to ensure that a project’s objectives are well defined and the proposed

means to achieve them are appropriate to the social context. The SA provides the baseline

information for designing the social strategy of the project. It is also a process and means to

incorporate social information and stakeholders’ participation/views in the project design

Specific objectives: (i) to identify and characterize vulnerable groups with potential risks of being

marginalized from participation in and benefitsof the Project; (ii) to identify key stakeholders in

terms of their importance to and influence over the project objectives; (iii) to define the procedures,

institutional and cultural factors affecting beneficiaries’ participation in the Project’s consultation,

planning, and implementation; (iv) to testify the relevance of livelihood improvement strategies; and

basing on that, (v) to propose recommendations on intervention strategies, project designing rules

to ensure that all the vulnerable groups can participate and benefit from Project’s interventions as

expected.

In order to realize the above-mentioned objectives, this Assessment is designed basing on the

theoretical foundation “Sustainable Livelihood Approach” (by DFID and AusAID). The findings are

resulted from secondary statistic resources and primary data collected from survey sites within the

project areas (using qualitative tools such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions). More

details are provided below.

1.3 Assessment Methodology

1.3.1 Theoretical framework

Theoretical framework applied in this Assessment is the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA)

(see Figure 1.1 below)

Figure 1.1: Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SLA)

12

Source: Aggregrated from relevant documents of DFID and AusAID

This approach provides a comprehensive direction for the development of community livelihood

initiatives for all programmes/projects, including the CHPov. According to Serrat (2008)2, the

sustainable livelihoods approach is a way of thinking to identify the objectives, scope and priorities

for development activities/initiatives. It is based on the evolving thinking about the way the poor

and vulnerable live their lives and the importance of policies and institutions. Livelihood

development activities/initiatives must statisfy the following criteria: (i) people/vulnerable and poor-

centered; (ii) responsive to and participatory for the poor and vulnerable; (iii) multilevel; (iv)

conducted in partership with the public and private sectors; (v) dynamic; and (vi) sustainable. This

approach makes the connection between people and the overall enabling environment that

influences the outcomes of livelihood strategies. It brings attention to bear on the inherent potential

of people in terms of their skills, social networks, access to physical and financial resources, and

ability to influence core institutions.

As seen from right to left of the SLA above, the starting point for livelihood development plan is

towards a positve livelihood outcomes for the poor community and the vulnerable. These livelihood

outcomes are also the development objectives, which include income-increase for the community,

increasing stability of the livelihood activities (thus increasing the stability of living conditions in

general); limiting the vulnerability of the community; strengthening food security and using

resources sustainably (these results may sometimes be in conflicts, for instance high income

generation in such a short period can be harmful to the environment). It is neccessary to implement

livelihood strategies in order to achieve the livelihood objectives. The livelihood strategies is a

combination of activities and approaches to implement these activities towards the livelihood

objectives. The livelihood strategies are carried out by a social structure including a lot of

2Sustainable livelihoods approach identifies priorities for practical actions/interventions basing on stakeholders’ views and

interests but it is not the panacea for all. This approach cannot replace other tools such as participatory development, sector-wide approaches, or integrated rural development.

VULNERABILITY

CONTEXT

H

S

F

P

N

Laws

Policies

Culture

Institution

s

SHOCKS

TRENDS

SEASONALITY

Influence &

access

Key

H = Human Capital S = Social Capital

N = Natural Capital P = Physical Capital

F = Financial Capital

LIVELIHOOD

OUTCOMES

LIVELIHOOD ASSETS

More income

Increased well-

being

Reduced

Improved food

security

More sustainable

use of NR base

TRANSFORMING

STRUCTURES &

PROCESSES

In o

rder to

achie

ve

STRUCTURES

Levels

of

govern

ment

Private

sector

LIVELIHOOD

STRATEGIES

13

stakeholders (Government/authority and public/private sector) through a set of

processes/procedures including law, regulations, specific programs/policies, norms/traditions, etc.

The assessment then should be employed at 2 levels, including (1) vulnerbility context and (2)

accessibility /ownership of beneficiaries to available resources for livelihood development, includin

human capital, natural capital, physical capital, financial capital and social capital. More

explanations of the terminologies used in SLA are provided in Table 1.1.

However, it should be noted that all factors in SLA are mutally correlated. Particularly, the

livelihood outcomes achieved can help enhancing available resources that the beneficiaries can

access/own; processes/structures can change several factors in the vulnerbility context.

Table 1.1: Glossary of key terms used in the SLA framework

Sustainable

Livelihoods Approach

(SLA)

: The sustainable livelihoods approach helps to organize the actors that

constrain or enhance livelihood opportunities and shows how they relate to

one another. A central notion is that different households have different

access livelihood assets, which the sustainable livelihood approach aims to

expand (DFID).

Vulnerability context : The vulnerability context includes shocks, critical trends, seasonality that

could affect directly to the well-being of the households, individuals and also

could be harmful to the livelihoods of the inhabitants.

Shocks include extreme weather conditions such as storms, floods, drought,

frosts and civil conflict. These shocks can lead to homelessness and loss of

crops, thus the common response practices are to disperse or store assets

in different places, and/or early harvesting crops and livestock. The recent

macro-economic shocks such as global economic crisis also have negative

impact on the income of the poor, farmers due to the decrease in commodity

price of agricultural products and consumption in the global market. Other

shocks such as uncontrolled diseases can destroy livestock and plants.

Critical trends, even though predictable, may create both positive and

negative impacts. Critical trends include: demographic trend (for example

shift of labor from rural to urban to meet the labor demand during the

industrialization process in urban); environmental trends (for example soil

acidification, salinity in coastal areas, reduced aquifer water, loss of arable

land due to rising sea levels); economic trends at the national and

international level (for example shortages cocoa supply on a global scale),

and technological trends (for example seed production technology,

production technology of microbial fertilizers). All of these trends have

important implications to investment ratio, thus affecting selected livelihood

strategies. However, not all trends have negative impact. But the use of

vulnerability context [the negative impact from environment] is to emphasize

that the poor is facing [directly or indirectly] with a lot of difficulties caused by

these trends. Their livelihood activities are already vulnerable, making it

even harder for the poor to deal with these risks, whether foreseeable or

not. Moreover, this could also limit the possibility [of the poor] of reversed

impact on the environment to reduce these risks; as a result, the poor even

gets more vulnerable. Even if the trend is positive, the poor seems not to

benefit from it because they are lack of assets and production technique to

take advantages from this positive trend.

Seasonality is reflected in: (i) changes in agricultural commodity prices

(higher price when agricultural commodities are scarce, lower price at

harvesting period and large outputs); (ii) more job opportunities at

production peak (for example coffee harvesting period in the Central

Highlands); (iii) higher supply of food crops after harvesting period (typically

in maize and rice) and lower supply between-crop period; changes of

production costs during dry or rainy season (extra costs incurred due to

14

pumping water during dry season or drying agricultural products during rainy

season). Thus, seasonality more or less has effects on the poor and

farmers.

Vulnerability context is beyond control of the inhabitants. In short and

medium terms, a person or a small group of people can hardly do anything

to directly change any factors of this vulnerability context.

Defense capability

: Is the ability to defense and recover from shocks, then maintaining or

strengthening production capabilities, assets and other activities after

shocks.

Livelihoods

: A livelihood comprises the capabilities, assets, and activities required for a

means of living.

It is deemed sustainable when the people can cope with and recover from

stresses and shocks and maintain or enhance its capabilities, assets, and

activities both now and in the future, while not undermining the natural

resource base.

Livelihood strategies : A livelihood strategy is a combination of activities and approaches to

conduct that typical livelihood in order to achieve the expected livelhood

outcomes.

Natural-resource based activities are linked with agriculture, forestry

livelihoods. Non-natural resource based and off-farm activities include

services, handicrafts, mitigation and adaptation activities, and other short

term and long term activities.

The livelihood outcomes are exerted after the implementation of livelihood

strategies, with the assumption of no risks and unrecovered negative

impacts that can reduce or eliminate the livelihood outcomes

Human capital : Health, nutrition, education, knowledge and skills, capacity to work, capacity

to adapt

Social capital : Networks and connections (patronage, neighborhoods, kinship), relations of

trust and mutual understanding and support, formal and informal groups,

shared values and behaviors, common rules and sanctions, collective

representation, mechanisms for participation in decision-making, leadership

Physical capital : Infrastructure (transport, roads, vehicles, secure shelter and buildings, water

supply and sanitation, energy, communications), tools and technology (tools

and equipment for production, seed, fertilizer, pesticides, traditional

technology)

Financial capital : Savings, credit and debt (formal, informal), remittances, pensions, wages

Transforming

Structures and

Processes

Transforming structures include public/private sector organizations,

mass/civil organizations. The public sector organizations set and implement

policy and legislation; the private sector organizations deliver services,

purchase, trade, and perform all manner of other functions that affect

livelihoods; mass/civil organizations support, promote and connect

public/private organizations with beneficiaries.

Processes embrace the laws, regulations, policies, operational

arrangements, agreements, societal norms, and practices that, in turn,

determine the way in which structures operate. Policy-determining

structures cannot be effective in the absence of appropriate institutions and

processes through which policies can be implemented.

Processes have a strong influence on the poor and other vulnerable groups

through the operation of the organizations/entities. Processes are important

to every aspect of livelihoods. They provide incentives that stimulate people

to make better choices. They grant or deny access to assets. They enable

15

people to transform one type of asset into another through markets. Thus,

processes are amongst the key factors in the Sustainable Livelihood

Approach (SLA)

If the CHPov Project is considered as a sets of livelihood initiatives (or livelihood outcome

creations), the Social Assessment will review the development process of such initiatives by going

through the SLA above (Figure 1.1) from right to left, following the steps below:

Step2

Step 1

Step3

Review the Project livelihood strategies (include PDO and specific

objectives of 4 Components, sub-components and project activities)

Reviewbeneficiaries, poverty status (multidimensional) and other

important social factors of the poor, ethnic minorities and womenre-

assess the suitability of PDO with the needs of beneficiaries

Evaluate: (1) beneficiaries’ access to livelihood capital; (2) vulnerability

context (trends, shocks or seasonality)

Evaluate the transforming structures and processes (organizations

involve in management and operation of the Project including

government sector, civil/corporate sector, society; private sector

(enterprises, businesses) and cultural institutions that could affect the

project implementation

Step4

Ve

rify

Ve

rify

V

eri

fy

16

1.3.2 Data collection tools

Different quantitative and qualitative data collection methods and tools are applied in every steps of

the social assessment. In particular:

Step 1: Review the

Project livelihod

strategies

: Desk reviews:

Draft of Feasibility Study at central and provincial level;

Available documents, reports for the Feasibility Study;

Draft of Resettlement Policy Framework (for people who could lose

their land during the Project implementation).

Focus group discussions and in-depth interviews:

PPU officers at central and provincial level;

WB officers.

Step 2: Review the

vulnerable beneficiaries

: Desk review and data calculation based on available databases:

Vietnam Household Living Standard Survey 2010 (VHLSS 2010);

Agricensus 2011;

Statistics at central, provincial, district and commune level;

Decisions of PPC on annual poverty rate announcement;

Local poverty reduction programs, strategies

In-depth interviews:

Government officers of departments/sectors at all levels;

Officers at social/political organizations (WU, Farmers Union);

Better-off households;

Representatives of businesses, private enterprises;

Representatives of local NGOs.

Focus group discussions:

The poor (from different groups);

Indigenous ethnic minorities;

Migrant ethnic minorities;

Women (from different groups).

Step 3: Evaluate

determinants that could

affect livelihoods (access

to livelihood capital and

vulnerability context)

: Desk review and data calculation from available databases:

Agricensus 2011;

Social-economic development reports of the locality;

Announcement of agricultural commodity prices (from different

sources);

Hydrological data.


Government officers of departments/sectors at all levels;


Better-off households;

Representatives of businesses, private enterprises;

Representatives of local NGOs.




17



Step 4: Evaluate the

transforming structures

and policies (poverty

reduction); processes

(democracy,

participation, etc.) and

cultural norms that could

affect the implementation

of the Project

: Desk reviews:

Feasibility Study at central level (description of Project

management and roles of authorities);

Regulations of democracy;

Documents and reports from poverty reduction programs/projects

at the locality (Policy on stabilizing lives for migrant ethnic

minorities in Dak Nong; Program 30A, FLITCH, 3M, etc.).


Government officers at all levels (especially commune officers and

CEMA officers)


Village head, elders






Details of the quantitative data collection tools are attached with this Report. The Assessment

started from December 2012, and is divided into different stages including designing stages and

desk review, field survey (pilot and field trip), data processing and initial findings; and final report.

Among the stages, field survey is the most important implication because it provides objective and

realistic basis for all the findings in the Report. In this step, common evaluation techniques of

Participatory Rural Assessment – PRA are applied to promote participation in focus group

discussions and to encourage respondents to share information and ideas during semi-structured

interviews.

1.3.3 Sampling procedure and sampling size

Field survey was carried out in 6 provinces of the Project, one district was selected for survey in

each province (Krong No – Dak Nong, M’Drak – Dak Lak, Ia Pa – Gia Lai, Kon Ray – Kon Tum, Ba

To – Quang Ngai, Phuoc Son – Quang Nam). Selection criteria are the poverty rate and ethnic

composition. Regarding poverty rate, the selected districts are not the poorest nor the richest

districts in each project province. Regarding ethnic composition, districts were selected based on

their highest indigenous ethnic popoluation in the project areas, such as E De, Ba Na, Xo Dang,

M’nong and J’rai (in the Central Highlands) and H’re and Co Tu (in Quang Ngai and Quang Nam).

Two communes were selected in each district, based on criteria of ethnicity to ensure inclusion of

both indigenous ethnic minorities and migrant ethnic minorities (except for Ba To, Quang Ngai and

Phuoc Son, Quang Nam, the criteria of ethnicity was not applied, since the immigration of ethnic

minorities in these provinces is not as common as of the Central Highlands). List of surveyed

communes are provided in Annex 2.

The sampling size for the field survey is 488 respondents. In particular: in-depth interviews were

conducted on 100 provincial officers (including the Implementing agencies and other

organizations/agencies), 50 district officers, 40 communal officers and 14 village heads/elders. At

household level, focus group discussionss were organized with the participation of 115

representatives from indigenous ethnic minorities, 59 representatives from migrant ethnic

18

minorities, and 88 women. In addition, 09 better-off households and 11 businesses in constructrion

and agricultural field were also consulted.

In addition to data collected directly from field survey, this Assessment also references to a number

of available documents/research on ethnic minorities and gender equality in the project area;

utilizes data from VHLSS 2010, Agricensus 2011 and Enterprises Census 2010.

Therefore, with the scope and structure mentioned above, the sample size can adequately reflect

viewpoints of different stakeholders in the Project, especially those from the beneficiaries who are

the most vulnerable target groups. The consultation process with such respondents, especially

those who are not directly involving in the project management (such as businesses, better-off

households) can help acquiring more information and recommendations on the project design.

19

CHAPTER 2: KEY FINDINGS OF THE ASSESSMENT

As recommended in SLA Theory Framework and according to the current Project design, the key

findings of this assessment are presented in groups of contents as follows: Section 2.1 describes

features of Project vulnerable beneficial targets, which are poverty characteristics,

accessibility/ownership to livelihood fundings, and the contextual factor increasing the vulnarability

of the beneficial groups; Section 2.2 demonstrates the key findings concerning management

structures and processes; specifically, Section 2.2.1 includes key findings about stakeholders

having both direct and indirect impacts on the implementation and posibility of success in realizing

Project’s objectives, as well as potential risks involving these stakeholders; Section 2.2.2 is the key

findings on the structures/processes (including programs/projects, cultural/religious practices,

regulation on democracy at local levels and the participation of community in the local socio-

economic development. Section 2.3 focuses on the feedback of survey beneficial targets and

stakeholders on the Project design (projected livelihood strategy) at the time of survey. Based on

these findings, the Assessment gives some key recommendations in Chapter 3.

2.1 Vulnerable groups, livelihoods capital and external factors that

increase the vulnerability

Vulnerability is characterized as insecurity in the well-being of individuals, households, and

communities when facing changes in their external environment. People move in and out of

poverty and the concept of vulnerability captures the processes of change better than poverty line

measurements.

Vulnerability, as provided in SLA framework, has two facets: (i) external vulnerable factors or

vunerability context, and (ii) individuals’ defenselessness caused by lack of ability and means to

cope with risks/threats from external context. The vulnerability context includes shocks, trends, and

seasonality that directly affect individuals’/households’ asset status and/or their livelihood choices.

[See Table 1.1 for more details on vulnerability context concept]. On the other hand, people’s weak

defense also roots in limited possessions of assets (poor) and lack of access to livelihoods capital,

which, in turn, put them in situation of lacking ability and means to cope with risks/threats from

external context.

Section 2.1 will discuss the vulnerability characteristics of Project’s target groups, findings on their

limited access to livelihoods, and external factors causing such vulnerability.

Data will be analyzed by ethnics and genders of the household heads. This selection of analysis

dimensions reflects Project’s attention to ethnic minority groups (indigenous and migrant) as well

as female beneficiaries. Besides, these two dimensions help to construct recommendations in best

interests of target groups, mitigating risks that more disadvantaged/vulnerable groups are

marginalized both in Project’s participation and benefits.

Regarding ethnicity, there are three major groups, namely Kinh, indigenous EMs, and other EMs.

There are 41 ehnic groups living in 26 project districts. Among them, EMs account for 60%, the

rest is Kinh. By ascending scale, ethnic groups in project areas can be presented as follows: Co

Tu (1%), E de (3%), M’Nong (5%), Jarai (7%), Bana (7.4%), Xo Dang (9.3%), H’re (10%), other

minorities (16%), comprising of all other minorities having extremely low presentation in the

secondary survey, and Kinh (40%). Dominant indigenous EMs in project areas are Ede, M’Nong

(mainly located in Dak Lak and Dak Nong); Jarai, Xo Dang, Ba Na, Gie Trieng (mainly in Gia Lai

and Kon Tum); H’re and Ca Dong (in Quang Ngai) and Co Tu (in Quang Nam) (see Figure 2.1).

Data is analyzed by three levels: project communes (130 communes), project districts (26 districts)

and project provinces (6 provinces). Data at national level may be included in analyses to make

20

comparison between project

provinces and the whole country. In

some cases, data of non-project

communes in project districts and

non-project districts in project

provinces is also explored to

highlight the comparison between

Project and non-project areas. Some

data is only available at province

level (e.g. people’s nutrition status),

limiting the relevant discussion at

comparing between six project

provinces and the whole country.

Regarding gender issues, gender of

the household head is the second

dimension in analyses. Data clustered by household heads’ gender is only analyzed for project

areas, from commune level to province level. It is worth noting that in project areas, matriarchy and

patriarchy are twisted all at the same time. Ethnic groups living under matriarchy usually have

female household heads. In Quang Nam and Quang Ngai, the major indigenous EMs (Co Tu, Hre,

Gie Trieng) follow patriarchy. In Central Highland provinces, major indigenous EMs (Jarai, M’Nong,

Ede) follow matriarchy. Typical cultural features and/or roles of men and women within families and

in the society of such two systems will be discussed for their impacts on the Project.

2.1.1 Vulnerability of Project’s target groups

According to Project Feasibility Report [version 2, available at the time of this asessment], Project’s

special focus is placed on disadvantaged beneficiary groups, including poor households, nearly

poor households, indigenous EM households [or so-called indigenous groups), migrant EM

households (particularly migrant households in the last 3 - 5 year) and women. Analyses of

secondary data and primary data from this survey reconfirm that poor households (in all ethnic

groups), EMs and women are groups having more disadvantages in access to livelihood capital,

being affected more seriously by adverse external factors and having risks of being marginalized

(at different levels) from Project’s consultation, planning, implementation and benefits.

Firstly, people in project areas are poorer than the average level of local areas and the

whole country: project areas are poorer than the national average level. According to VHLSS

2010, poverty rate in project rural areas is nearly 2.5 times higher than that of general rural areas,

and average income in project areas is only 70 – 80% of the national average.

Table 2.1: District poverty rates in project areas, 2010

Poverty rate (%) Near poverty rate (%)

National average* 14.2 7.53

Average for six project provinces 24.9 7.4

Average for 26 project districts 45.0 8.4

Non-project districts in the project provinces 20.0 7.1

130 project communes 51.9 8.1

Average for non-project communes in 26 project districts

39.4 8.7

Source: Agricensus 2011 and * poverty rate announced by MOLISA

Figure 2.1: Ethnic presence in Project areass

Kinh ethnic, 39.6

Ede, 3.4

M'Nong, 5.3 Jarai, 7.2

Bana , 7.4

Xo Đang, 9.3

Co Tu, 1,1

Hre, 10.3

Other ethnic

minorities, 16.4

21

In 2010, while national poverty rate decreases to 14.2% (Table 2.1), poverty rate in project

provinces is nearly 25% and keeps increasing particularly in 26 project districts or 130 project

communes. At province level, there is a poor one in every 4 people, and in project communes, one

out of two people are poor. Near poverty rate in project areas is also higher than that of national

average. For the whole country, only 6.98% of the population living in near poverty range but that

of six project provinces and 130 project communes is 7.39% and 8.07%, respectively. If confining

analyses in project districts, we can easily find that poverty rate of non-project communes is

remarkably lower than that of 130 project communes (34.9% in comparison to 51.9%). The

comparison between Project and non-project districts in the six project provinces also shows a

much higher poverty rate in 26 project districts (45% in comparison to 20%). And for the whole

country, poverty rate of the six project provinces is nearly double the national average (24.9% in

comparison to 11.8%). Although one of CHPov Project’s selection criteria is to choose locations

with higher poverty rate (only districts with poverty rate of above 30% are qualified to be included in

project areas), data showing the significant difference between poverty rates of Project and non-

project areas still reflects economic drawback in project areas, implying difficulties in life of people

living in such areas.

Secondly, from ethnological perspective, data also confirms that EMs are the poorer group:

Secondary data shows that, in comparison with King group, EMs (indigenous and migrant) are

poorer (see Figure 2.2).

Figure 2.2 Poverty rate by ethnic groups, 2010

Source: Data for project areas, Agricensus 2011

It is quite obvious that poverty rate of Kinh group in project provinces is always lower than that of

EM groups. For example, in Kon Tum, Kinh group’s poverty rate is only 11% while that of

indigenous EMs is more than 70% and of other ethnic groups is nearly 50%. Poverty rate of Kinh

group in the project areas never exceeds 40%. But it is easily found poverty rates of over 70-80%

in EMs groups all over project provinces. The gap between the group having the lowest poverty

rate (always Kinh) with group having the highest poverty rate is usually 40-50 percentage points,

and the gap between this group and the middle ones only ranges around 10 percentage points.

Regarding Kon Tum, the province with highest disparity, the differences are 62 and 25 percentage

points, respectively.

With Figure 2.2, it can be stated that, in project areas, if we meet three Kinh people, at least two of

them live above the poverty line. But, if we meet 3 EM people, it is likely that two of them live under

the poverty line. And this is only monetary poverty rate. If we put the situation under multi-

dimensional poverty measures, the poverty rate in EM groups can be more severe and gaps

between Kinh and other ethnic groups in project areas can be much larger (especially when

37

30

11

24 25

17

77

57

73

61

51

59

85

71

48

68

48 51

0

20

40

60

80

100

Quang Nam Quang Ngai Kon Tum Gia Lai Dak Lak Dak Nong

Kinh Indigenous EMs Others

22

narrowing down to dimensions of education, health care and safe water usage). It can be predicted

basing on current population distribution (Kinh people mainly locate in cities and cultural-economic-

social hubs), living practices (with backwardness of EMs) of relevant ethnic groups.

Table 2.2: Access to utilities (electricity, water, and sanitation) by ethnic groups (2010)

Proportion (%)

Access to electricity from national grid

of households using clean water

for cooking

Hygienic latrines

project communes (130 communes) 91.4 66.8 17.1

Kinh 94.8 94.4 38.9

Indigenous groups 93.3 47.6 6.7

Other EMs 82.7 72.2 11.1

project districts (including non-project communes) 93.4 71.6 20.9

Kinh 96.8 95.2 40.4


Other EMs 86.4 70.9 12.6

Six project provinces)

Kinh 99.0 98.7 62.8


Other EMs 89.7 79.4 17.2

Source: Agricensus 2011

To build up a accurate database on multi-dimensional poverty among ethnic groups in project

areas, it needs a more comprehensive and complicated survey and/or calculation that are beyond

scope of this report. However, with basic data provided by Agricensus 2011 (Table 2.2) on access

to electricity, clean water, and sanitation along with field observations of this survey, it somehow

pictures the disparity among ethnic groups in project areas. Even disaggregating for project areas

alone or aggregating for all districts or provinces, at any level of data, Kinh group always have

most access to all three basic dimensions of multi-dimensional poverty (electricity, clean water,

sanitation). In all six project provinces, nearly 100% of Kinh people have access to electricity from

national grid, use clean water for cooking, and 62.78% of them have access to hygienic latrines. If

narrowing to project districts or 130 project communes alone, these figures are lower but not much.

Access to national electricity grid is quite equal among ethnic groups (Kinh, indigenous EMs, and

other EM groups) but it is an exception. Access to clean water and sanitation clearly show the

disparity. In project communes, less than half of indigenous EM people use clean water for

cooking, and less than 7% of them have access to hygienic latrines. Migrant EMs group is in

slightly better situation with proportion using clean water is more than 70%, but proportion using

hygienic latrines is still extremely low at about 11%.

The overall picture, even zoom in or out, shows backwardness of EMs groups in comparison with

Kinh people in economic, sanitation, clean water terms. Among them, indigenous EM group is the

most disadvantaged, especially in access to sanitation. Only access to electricity from national grid

shows a higher access by indigenous EMs in comparison to other EMs groups because many

newly-migrated EM people are not settled and newly-established villages/communes have limited

or no access to utilities (including electricity). Among migrant EM households (Dao, Muong, Thai,

H’Mong from the North and Mekong delta), migrants in the last 3 years are in most difficult

situation.

23

Thirdly, from gender perspective, group of female-headed households is poorer than group

of male-headed households: Group of female-headed households (including both matriarchy and

patriarchy) has poverty rate considerably higher than that of male-headed households. The

difference, for 130 project communes, is 10 percentage points (60.4% in comparison with 50.4%).

Calculating on 26 project districts and the whole six project provinces, the differences are more

than 12 and 13 percentage points, respectively (see Table 2.3).

Table 2.3: Poverty rate by genders of household heads in project areas (2010)

Gender of household head Poverty rate Near poverty rate

130 project communes Male 50.4 8.3

Female 60.4 6.5 26 project districts

Male 43.1 8.7

Female 55.0 7.1 6 project provinces

Male 22.0 7.4

Female 36.3 7.2


If including nearly-poor households, the difference will be reduced a bit because the proportion of

nearly-poor households in group of female-headed households is lower than that of male-headed

households. Poverty of female-headed households is rooted in the lack of laborers and production

capacity, making it more persist and extreme. However, though male-headed households have

laborers and production capacity, their poverty can be due to ways of living and family

management (of the men in families), they are not in extreme poverty but not be able to get rich.

“Poor households are those headed by the women without husband (died), sons; or those have too many

children (10 family members), that limits their family from developing economy”

(Village elderly, Ia Broai Commune, Ia Pa District, Gia Lai Province)

More illustration is provided in Table 2.4. Being poorer than group of male-headed households (in

monetary aspect) but access to electricity and clean water of group of female-headed households

is the same [at level of project communes] or higher [at level of project districts and project

provinces]. Access to hygienic latrines is higher in male-headed households [the difference varies

from one to three percentage points at all levels, communes, districts, and project provinces]. This

can ben explained that the female household heads have more concerns on using clean water for

cooking and other family usage.

“In family, women do not only have to take over the farming work, but also take care of the housework and

children. They are in charge of preparing foods for the whole family, men are not”

(Farmers in commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“Issues of nutrition or food security should be assigned to women and Women’s Union because they are the

ones who take care of foods, nutrition, and sanitation for all other family members. It is true for all ethnic

groups, both patriarchy and matriarchy.”

(Comments by many local authorities’ staff and people on roles of women in terms of family’s nutrition issues)

Data shows that if accessing to utilities is not much affected by availability of labor [for examples,

using electricity from national grid, using clean water for cooking] the situation in group of female-

headed households is better or at least the same as that of group of male-headed households. If it

requires labor for implementation [building latrines] the female-headed households will lose its

advantages.

Table 2.4: Access to utilities (electricity, clean water, sanitation) of households in project areas, clustered by genders of household heads (2010)

Sex of the household head % of households

24

Using electricity from national grid

Using clean water for cooking

Having hygienic latrines

130 project communes Male 91.2 66.8 17.2

Female 92.6 66.5 16.6 26 project districts

Male 93.2 71.5 21.2

Female 94.1 72.2 19.3 6 project provinces

Male 97.4 89.7 49.0

Female 98.0 92.1 46.8


2.1.2 Accessibility to livelihood capital of target groups in project areas

As provided in SLA framework, the theoretical framework of this assessment, livelihoods capital

can be categorized into 5 groups of (i) natural capital, (ii) human capital; (iii) physical capital; (iv)

financial capital, and, last but not least, (v) social capital. The combination of such capital is the

prerequisite for communities to develop economically. However, it is worth noting that different

factors such as structures and processes are sufficient conditions for livelihood capital to be made

employed in socio-economic development processes. The following part will analyze, in

comparative views, the access of groups, clustered by ethnic and gender, to above-mentioned

livelihoods capital.

(a) Regarding natural capital: Natural capital includes land and its produce, water and aquatic

resources, trees and forest products, wildlife, wild foods and fibers, biodiversity, environment, and

climate. In this Social Assessment, access to the most important natural capital, land, will be

analyzed and compared among vulnerable groups. In general, opportunities to benefit from other

natural capital such as climate, environment, biodiversity, forest products, etc. are all the same

between disadvantaged groups and the others.

Table 2.5: Land ownership and usage, by ethnic groups (2010)

Households’ average land areas (m2) Households’ average cultivation areas (m2)

Land for annual crops

Land for perennial

crops

Land for forestry

production Total areas Rice Maize Coffee Pepper

Rubber tree Cashew

130 project communes

Kinh

6,697

9,328

849

16,874

1,592

1,487

5,861

303

1,903

1,127 Indigenous groups

11,915

2,422

5,078

19,416

4,934

2,156

908

50

416

632

Other EMs

10,224

5,343

1,074

16,641

4,066 2,015

2,714

93

1,768

667 26 project districts

Kinh

7,089

7,509

1,100

15,698

2,131

1,493

4,828

301

1,466

781 Indigenous groups

11,236

1,817

4,652

17,706

4,695

2,077

669

27

325

409

Other EMs

10,126

4,746

1,359

16,232

3,981

2,148

2,474

87

1,485

588 6 project provinces

Kinh

2,622

4,110

957

7,689

1,891

511

2,791

212

683

303

Indigenous groups 8,699

4,359

2,798

15,856

4,048

1,585

2,386

81

1,007

646

Other EMs

8,428

5,485

1,919

15,833

3,361

2,820

3,126

164

1,084

985


Regarding 130 project communes, there is no significant difference in land ownership among

ethnic groups. Each indigenous EM household owns about 1.94 ha while each Kinh and other EM

household owns about 1.65 ha. But data for the whole six provinces in general starts showing

disparity. Kinh group’s land area is just about half of the other two groups’. There is, however, still

no significant difference in land ownership between groups of indigenous EMs and migrant EMs.

25

This may be due to the fact that migrants usually buy land from indigenous EM households. There

is no new land for exploration, therefore, despite of their prior residency, indigenous EMs show no

advantage over groups of Kinh and other EMs in land ownership.

Difference in land ownership is not significant but usage of such land is greatly different among the

three groups. Kinh group owns very little land of annual and forestry crops, especially forestry

production land. This group focuses on perennial/industrial crops which have high economic value

and are the advantage of project provinces. The aggregated statistics of all six project provinces

shows Kinh group’s land area is only half of that of the other two groups; but in the scope of 26

project districts or 130 project communes in particular, areas of Kinh group’s perennial crops are

much higher than that of indigenous EMs and other EMs. Taking 130 project communes alone,

average area of perennial crops of Kinh households is 0.93 ha while it is just 0.24 and 0.53 ha for

indigenous EMs and other minorities groups, respectively (see details in Table 2.5).

Indigenous EMs’ land is mostly used to cultivate annual crops (rice and maize) and forest trees

which require less investment and care but result in lower economic benefits and incomes than

those invested by Kinh and other EM groups. Other EM households also spare a large proportion

of their land for annual crops, similar to that of indigenous EMs (about 1.0-1.1 at commune and

Project level, reducing to about 0.85 in case of calculating for all six project provinces as a whole).

However, their area of perennial crops is much higher. It can be reasoned that migrants need

annual yields to ensure their normal life in process of accumulating land but their long-term target

is increasing investment in and getting benefits from perennial/industrial crops.

Statistics on cultivation of Kinh, indigenous EMs, and other EMs are totally consistent with above-

mentioned statistics and analyses on land ownership and usage. Indigenous EM groups which has

the highest land areas of annual and forestry crops is also the highest investors in rice and maize

cultivation. Kinh households, in general, have the highest average areas of coffee, rubber tree and

cashew. Other EMs, although have similar areas of rice and maize as indigenous EMs, have much

higher areas of rubber tree, pepper, and cashew. Especially in project communes, average land

area that households in this group spare for rubber tree is very high. Therefore, despite their much

lower area of perennial crops in comparison with Kinh households, their area of rubber tree is

almost similar (0.17 ha comparing with 0.19 ha). Statistics for all six project provinces show that

households’ average areas of coffee, rubber tree, and cashew in this group are also higher than

that of Kinh households.

Analyses on land ownership reveal significant differences between male-headed households and

female-headed households (see Table 2.6).

Table 2.6: Land ownership and usage, by genders (2010)

Households’ average land areas (m2) Households’ average cultivation areas (m2)

Total areas Rice

Total areas Rice

Total areas Rice

Total areas Rice

Total areas Rice


Male

10,413

5,385

3,106

18,904

3,911

1,999

2,927

147

1,212

822

Female

7,695

3,445

2,065

13,206

2,900

1,525

1,818

56

808

570 26 project districts

Male

9,860

4,862

2,868

17,590

3,735

1,937

2,805

162

1,023

616

Female

6,994

2,880

1,830

11,704

2,633

1,429

1,571

57

661

420 6 project provinces

Male

4,691

4,772 1,572

11,035

2,617

994

3,070

210

866

469

Female

2,762

2,240

751

5,753

1,754

545

1,387

69

433

245


As presented in Table 2.6, male-headed households are always the group of higher land

ownership. The gap will be widened if data level increases. Calculating for 130 project communes

26

alone, male-headed households own an average area of 1.9 ha in comparison with 1.32 ha of

female-headed households. If calculating for 26 project districts or the whole six project provinces,

the figures will be 1.75 ha – 1.17 ha and 1.1ha – 0.57 ha, respectively. At a larger scale (for all six

provinces as a whole) group of female-headed households obviously shows its disadvantaged

access to land capital given that land areas owned by them is only about half of that of male-

headed household group. There is also difference in their usage of land. Female-headed

households cultivate more annual crops than male-headed ones (48% comparing to 42.5%, Figure

2.3), however, the difference is not large at district and commune level. Crop distribution is quite

equal between two groups and this pattern is also repeated with other major crops (see Figure

2.3). It implies that households’ decision on land usage does not depend on gender of the

household head (see Figure 2.3).

Figure 2.3: Proportion of land used for different crops (%), by genders of household heads (2010)

a. Annual, perennial, and industrial crops

b. Major crops


People and local authorities’ staff in most of surveyed communes mention limited access to land

and water as the main obstacles to production development in project areas (Box 2.1). Even in

case of large cultivation areas, disadvantages of terrain (segmented, sloppy) and infrastructure

(poor transportation and irrigation) still create difficult conditions for agricultural production of

majority of people in project areas.

55.1

58.3

56.1

59.8

42.5

48.0

28.5

26.1

27.6

24.6

43.2

38.9

16.4

15.6

16.3

15.6

14.3

13.1

0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100%

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

130 P

roje

ct

com

munes

26

Pro

ject

dis

tric

ts6 P

roje

ct

pro

vin

ces

Land for annualcrops

Land forperennial crops

Land forforestry

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

Male

Female

Male

Female

Male

Female

130 P

roje

ct

com

munes

26 P

roje

ct

dis

tric

ts6 P

roje

ct

pro

vin

ces

Rice

Maize

Coffee

Pepper

Rubber

Cashew

27

Box 2.1: Limited access to land and water in project areas

“It is impossible to cultivate maize in the highest hill, three fourth (3/4) of the area is rocks. Irrigation is also

difficult, depending heavily on natural flows. There are only two damps serving 45ha. If natural flows run

out then crops will be lost. Cassava is cultivated in hill land, best crops yield about 5 tons/ha while the

normal yield in other localities is 25 tons/ha. It is due to poor-fertilized land here (60%)...”

(Communal official, commune Eatrang, district M’Drak, Dak Lak)

“The major obstacle is the lack of water: there is no irrigation damp here, all depends on rains and natural

spring flows. The water sources are very far (both wife and husband have to go to carry water). There is

almost no water from March/April to August”.

(FGDs with women, commune Ba Kham, district Ba To, province Quang Ngai)

“Land area is large but segmented; the field is 5-6 km away from home, take half of day to travel there. It is

not fertilized by muck because it is too far, no one can carry muck to that far.”

(FGDs with women, commune Ba Kham, district Ba To, province Quang Ngai)

“Households in most difficulties are the 9 households with little land. The parents before were too lazy for

reclaiming land therefore they do not have land to share for their descendants”.

(Village patriarch, communes Ia Broai, district Ia Pa, province Gia Lai)

“Poverty here roots in poor-fertilized land, tough terrain. Population scatter, making trade and

transportation more challenging. Trading is also difficult due to lack of water”.

(Village head, commune AeTrang, district M’Drak, province Dak Lak)

“I have not had land-use rights certificate for this piece of land yet. I still invest in but I am very worried

whether I can get the certificate. If it is foreclosed I will lose all investment”.

(FGDs with migrant EM people, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

Source: Social Assessment Survey, 2013

Agriculture generates major income for most of people in the project areas (in the six project

provinces, proportion of households has main income from agricultural activities is 95.32%, for 26

project districts, it is 98.19%, and for 130 project communes, it is 98.73 (Source: Agricensus

2011)). This argument is very important in explaining the reason that poor female-headed and EM

households tend to cultivate short-day crops which may result in low economic benefits but satisfy

their instant money demands and have short capital turnover.

(b) Regarding human capital: Human capital implies “quantity and quality of workforce”, in which,

quality is reflected in health, nutrition, education, knowledge and skills, capacity to work, capacity

to adapt of such workforce.

Regarding labor quantity, according to available secondary data, proportion of population

participating in production in the six provinces is higher than their population in working-ages

(65.5% comparing with 60.9% according to Agricensus 2011). This difference may be resulted

from difficult economic conditions, forcing people out of working ages (elderly and children) to join

the workforce. That elderly in poor and short-handed households still work can illustrate the fact

mentioned.

From ethnic perspective, EMs couples usually have more children, resulting in their average

number of household members is usually higher than that of Kinh households. In average, each

Kinh household has 3.8 – 3.9 members, each EM household has 4.4 – 4.9 members. Correlatively,

average number of workers in EM households is slightly higher, 2.6 – 2.8 for EM households in

comparison with 2.3 – 2.4 workers/Kinh households (Table 2.7). It means, in quantity terms, Kinh

28

group has less workforce than EMs ones. However, quality of such workforces should be taken

into account to have a more comprehensive picture (see Table 2.7).

Table 2.7: Number of laborers in households in project areas, by ethnic groups (2011)

Average number of

family members (people)

Number of people in working

ages /household

size (%)

Real number of workers

/household size (%)

Household’s average

number of workers

project communes (130 communes) 4.4 59.3 63.1 2.5

Kinh 3.8 63.8 65.9 2.3

Indigenous groups 4.6 57.3 62.6 2.7

Other EMs 4.6 57.6 60.6 2.6

Non-project communes but in project districts 4.2 60.5 64.3 2.5

Kinh 3.9 62.9 65.3 2.4


Other EMs 4.4 59.2 62.9 2.6

project districts 4.3 59.9 63.8 2.5

Kinh 3.9 63.2 65.5 2.4


Other EMs 4.5 58.3 61.5 2.6

Non-project districts but in project provinces 4.0 61.2 66.0 2.4

Kinh 3.8 62.2 67.1 2.3


Other EMs 4.5 60.2 62.1 2.6

Overall (six provinces) 4.0 60.9 65.5 2.4

Kinh 3.8 62.3 67.0 2.3


Other EMs 4.5 59.4 61.8 2.6


From gender perspective, Table 2.8 shows that, in female-headed households, the average

numbers of household members and workers are both lower than those of male-headed

households but their ratio of real number of workers/household size is always higher. This reveals

somehow the short-handed situation but harder labor in female-headed households.

Table 2.8: Number of workers in households, by genders of household heads (2011)

Gender of the household head Average

number of family members

(people)

Number of people in

working ages /household size

(%)

Real number of workers

/household size (%)

Household’s average number

of workers


Male 4.5 59.1 62.2 2.6

Female 3.5 60.2 68.6 2.2 Average for 26 project districts

Male 4.4 59.8 62.6 2.6

Female 3.4 60.8 70.1 2.2 Average for six project provinces

Male 4.3 61.1 63.2 2.5

Female 3.0 60.3 75.0 2.0


Discussions in interviews and FGDs during the social assessment in 2013 also confirm arguments

drawn from quantitative data on hard works placed on shoulders of women in project areas. This

situation is found at both families under matriarchy and patriarchy (see more details of discussions

in Box 2.2 below).

29

Box 2.2: Discussions on division of labor between men and women in project areas

“Division of labor between men and women are not fair for women. They have to work more, even

hard works while men are very reluctant to help”.

(Staff, Farmers Association, province Quang Nam)

“Main workers in Co Tu families are women because (i) it is tradition, men have to pay much

money to marriage and women think they should be hard- working to “pay back”.

(Staff, Board of EMs Affair, province Quang Nam)

“In agricultural activities, women work on field, cultivate cassava and maze; men make traps and

catch fish”.

(Village patriarch, commune Phuoc Chanh, district Phuoc Son, province Quang Nam)


Labor quality, in project areas, is generally low. Regarding health situation, although there is no

available data on heath of people in working ages, data on under-5 children with malnutrition can

somehow tell the story about communities’ health status.

Figure 2.4: Percentage of children with malnutrition in project areas (2011)

a. % of under-5 underweight children

b. % of under-5 stunting children

Source: National Institute of Nutrition (NIN)

As illustrated in Figure 2.4, only Quang Nam and Quang Ngai can keep their ratios of under-5

underweight and stunting children as levels similar to the national average, other Central Highland

provinces have the ratios much higher. Situation of children with malnutrition in Dak Lak, Dak

Nong, and Kon Tum is very severe. These ratios not only show the quality of future workforce but

can imply the similar situation for current workforce because the malnutrition situation in children

somehow reflects the nutrition situation of the whole family. Such information is important given

that one of Project’s interventions in Sub-component 2.1 is enhancing food security and improving

nutrition status of target households.

This low labor quality is also reflected in data on qualification/education of workers in project areas.

At province level, there are 92.3% of household heads having no training certificate or not ever

participating in any trainings before (Table 2.9). If analyzing from gender and ethnic perspectives,

disadvantages of EMs and female-headed household groups will be revealed. Table 2.9 illustrates

more about low labor quality in the six provinces in general and 130 project communes in particular

with data on the highest qualification/education of household heads.

16.2

24.6 24.8 24.3

26.3

16 17.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Nationalaverage

Dak Lak DakNong

Gia Lai Kon Tum QuangNam

QuangNgai

26.7

34.5 35.1

24.3 26.3

16 17.2

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

Nationalaverage

Dak Lak DakNong

Gia Lai Kon Tum QuangNam

QuangNgai

30

Table 2.9: Quality of workforce in project areas – the highest qualification/education of household heads (2010)

Highest qualification/education of household heads (%)

Not trained or no certificate

Trained at professional secondary schools and

vocational colleges

Trained at colleges, universities, and

above levels

project communes (130 communes) 94.0 4.8 1.2

Kinh 88.2 8.7 3.0


Other EMs 96.0 3.5 0.5

Non-project communes but in project districts 93.4 5.0 1.6

Kinh 89.9 7.3 2.8


Other EMs 95.5 3.8 0.7

project districts 93.7 4.9 1.4

Kinh 89.4 7.8 2.8


Other EMs 95.8 3.6 0.6

Non-project districts but in project provinces 92.0 5.9 2.1

Kinh 90.8 6.7 2.5


Other EMs 96.3 3.0 0.7

Overall (six provinces) 92.3 5.7 2.0

Kinh 90.7 6.8 2.6


Other EMs 96.1 3.3 0.6


Table 2.9 shows us that most of household heads has no certificate or has not ever been trained

before. There is only about 3% of Kinh people being trained at colleges, universities or above

levels. And there is less than 1% of EM people reaching this level of education. Travelling around

the six provinces, even in 130 project communes or in non-project communes, among 100 EM

people, less than one has ever completed education at college or university levels. It can be stated

that labor quality of EM groups, especially indigenous EMs, is much lower than that of Kinh group.

Proportion of indigenous EM households having household head equipped with certain education

is always the lowest among three groups.

Discussions in interviews and FGDs with respondents in project areas also show that indigenous

EMs are usually the group with the lowest education levels, slow adaption to new production

models (see Box 2.3).

Box 2.3: Discussions on qualification/education of EM groups in project areas

“Co Tu People has the highest population is the in this province, most of them does not know how to

do business”.

(Staff, Provincial Women’s Union, province Quang Nam)

“They are not good at applying technologies. New knowledge/skills are only well applied for a crop

right after the training(s). After this crop, when agricultural extension officers leave, people return to

their old practices, giving little care to and using little fertilizers to crops”.

(Commune officer, commune Ba Kham, district Ba To, province Quang Ngai)

31

“Regarding livelihoods, they only dare to change a little. And they only cultivate trees requiring little

care, such as acacia, senna siamea, eucalyptus and khaya senegalensis. Their production of coffee

and cashew is not efficient”

(FGDs with women, commune Ea Trang, district M’Drak, Dak Lak)

“We give priorities to indigenous minorities but their skills too poor to meet businesses’

requirements”

(Businesses’ representatives, district M’Drak, province Dak Lak)

“EM people do not have the will to escape poverty. They think “this is ok” – working as playing,

eating what they can earn, buying what they can afford, having no demand for shopping. They work

only when they want”

(Officer of Farmer’s Union, province Quang Ngai)

“Indigenous minorities are lazy. Migrants are much quicker and better in applying new production

technologies. Indigenous minorities are just waiting for government’s supports”

(DARD’s official, province Dak Nong)


And with further analyses of male-headed and female-headed household groups, it is shown that

labor quality of female-headed households is also lower than that of male-headed group. Although

proportion of female heads of households reaching college or university education levels is slightly

higher than that of male heads at data levels of 130 project communes or 26 project districts (at

data level of six project provinces, this data return to be in favor of male-headed households), the

proportion of female heads having no certificate or not ever being trained is always higher than that

of male-headed households (at all data levels, from 130 project communes, to 26 project districts

or six provinces as a whole) (see Table 2.10).

Table 2.10: Labor quality reflecting in qualification/education of household heads, by genders (2010)

Gender of the household head

Highest qualification/education of household heads (%)

Not trained or no certificate

Trained at professional secondary schools and

vocational colleges

Trained at colleges,

universities, and above levels


Male 93.9 4.9 1.2

Female 94.7 4.0 1.3 Average for 26 project districts

Male 93.5 5.1 1.4

Female 94.6 3.8 1.6 Average for six project provinces

Male 91.8 6.2 2.0

Female 94.5 3.6 1.9


(c) Regarding physical capital: The definition of physical capital is quite loose. Physical capital

can include infrastructure components (transport, roads, vehicles, secure shelter and buildings,

water supply and sanitation, energy, communications), tools and technology (tools and equipment

for production, production inputs, etc.). The next part will not analyze situation of shelter or

sanitation in project areas but focus on (i) production infrastructure (roads, markets, bank

networks, communication networks, processing station for agriculture products, etc), and (ii)

ownership of agriculture machinery and equipment because these physical factors are targets of

CHPov Project’s supports. And, as mentioned above, most of people in project areas do the

farming therefore these two groups of physical capital are determinants of people’s livelihoods

capacity.

32

Data shows that limitations in infrastructure are the fundamental obstacle creating difficulties in

developing livelihoods in project areas. Not only basic infrastructure (roads and transportation),

other infrastructure components serving production, such as processing station, warehouses,

markets, communication networks, banking networks) are also very limited. This is common issue

of all beneficiaries in project areas (see Table 2.11 below).

Table 2.11: Infrastructure serving agricultural production in project areas (2010)

Car roads to

communes (%)

Communes having

post offices

(%)

Communes having

public loud

speaker systems down to villages

(%)

Proportion of

communes having markets

in commune

(%)

Proportion of

communes having banks/ba

nk branches

in commune

(%)

No. of households/

No. of stations

processing agriculture products in communes

No. of households/ No. of stations

processing forestry products

130 project communes 96.9 16.7 61.5 12.3 5.4 8.4 2.9 Non-project communes but in project districts 98.6 19.8 80.8 47.3 9.9 16.9 8.3

26 project districts 97.0 16.3 64.7 20.1 5.6 10.5 3.2 Non-project districts but in project provinces 99.0 20.7 83.9 52.0 10.9 18.0 9.5 Average for the six project provinces 98.4 19.4 77.9 42.0 9.2 15.6 7.5


Given selection criteria of poverty rate, in general, infrastructure serving agricultural production in

130 project communes is more limited than other areas. At all aspects in concern (car roads to

communes, post office systems, public loud speaker systems, markets, banking systems, station

processing agriculture and forestry products), project communes show lower availability than other

communes in the district as well as the average for whole six provinces. Taking the availability of

markets as an example, among project communes, there is only 12% of them having market(s).

While this figure in non-project communes is 47.3%, in non-project districts is 52% and the average

for all six provinces is 42%. Differences in availability of facilities serving agricultural production are

quite obvious. Within 130 project communes, average numbers of stations processing agriculture

and forestry products are only 8.4 and 2.9 per commune, respectively (equivalent to about 1/2 and

1/3 of these numbers in non-project communes). Proportion of communes having banks/bank

branches in 130 project communes is equal to only half of that in non-project areas and the

average for the whole six provinces.

“The main difficulty for the farmers is that they don’t have a road system connecting to fields to

transport products.”

(Village head, commune AeTrang, district M’Drak, Dak Lak)

“There are many poor households in the village but only 10 of them are listed in the official poverty

list. The major cause of poverty is difficult transportation and isolation in rain seasons. Products are

traded locally at low price. They can sell at higher price if they can bring to collecting point, but the

difficult transportation prevents it”

(Village head, commune Dak Ruong, district Kon Ray, province Kon Tum)

Regarding agriculture machinery and equipment, secondary data clustered by ethnic groups and

genders is presented in Figure 2.5 below. There are differences between Kinh group and EM

groups, and between group of male-headed households and group of female-headed households.

Kinh group always has the highest ownership of machines and equipment serving agricultural

production, especially millers and water pumps which must be used and used at high frequency in

agricultural production.

Similar to that, group of male-headed households, usually advantaged group, is also the groupthat

has higher ownership of machinery and equipment than that of female-headed households. The

33

group of male-headed households has all kind of machinery and equipment in concern. While the

group of female-headed households shows a very low ownership of such, especially auto millers,

wood - processing machines, and electric generators.

Figure 2.5: Proportion of households owning agriculture machines and equipment in project provinces (2010)

a. By ethnic groups

b. By genders of household heads


It is worth noting that the six project provinces, as analyzed before, are poorer than the national

average. Accordingly, the ownership of agriculture machinery and equipment is also very low. For

example only 2% of Kinh households own water pumps for agricultural production this figure in

indigenous EM households is 1.2% and in other EM households is 1.6%. It means in the six project

provinces, there are two out of 100 Kinh households owning water pumps for agricultural

production. Proportion owning other machinery and equipment like auto millers, manual millers,

wood processing machines, diesel engines, and electric generators ranges from 0% to less than

1% of total households in project areas. This too modest statistics confirms that ownership of

agriculture machinery and equipment in project areas is almost equal to zero, implying labor

intensive farming practices in project areas’ cultivation.

(d) Financial capital. Financial capital includes savings, credit and debts (formal, informal),

remittances, etc. The lack of funding is considered one of the main roots of low investment in

production in order to improve income. However, capacity to use such capital is the sufficient

condition to ensure that financial resources (if accessed) can be made the best use to improve

production and income.

The survey shows that savings of households for investment in production are very low, especially

with indigenous EM households. Many local officials say that EM people in project areas almost

have no practice of saving. In addition to common reasons (spending demands exceeding income,

0.01 0.03

0.01

0.04

0.01 0.03

0.2

0.01 0.01 0.01 0.02

0.01 0.01

0.12

0.01 0.01 0.01

0.04

0.01

0.04

0.16

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Rice millingmachine with

engine

Milling machine Wood powermachine

Force generator Generator Motoredinsecticide

sprayer

Water pump foragricultureproduction

Kinh

IndigenousEms

0.01 0.03

0.01

0.04

0.01 0.03

0.2

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

Rice millingmachine with

engine

Millingmachine

Wood powermachine

Forcegenerator

Generator Motoredinsecticide

sprayer

Water pumpfor agriculture

production

Male

Female

34

large expenses on health care, etc.), there is another reason that most of poor and EM households

have poor financial management skills. However, migrant EM people have built up the saving

practices. They save to buy land from indigenous EM households. Besides, living far from their

homeland makes themselves get used to preparing protection and savings, building their

“provident” attitudes. Regarding Kinh people, savings for investment in production are their

traditional and common practices. They are even informal credit providers for indigenous EMs in

many project communes (see Box 2.4 for more qualitative information on saving capacity of people

in project areas).

Box 2.4: Discussion on saving practices of disadvantaged groups in project areas

“...in many cases, indigenous minorities people get bank loans then put money in a safe place, just

waiting for the day to pay back. If they have some money from selling agriculture products they will buy

motorbike, cell phone, or something but not save for investment in production”.

(Communal official, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“Jarai people are not good at spending and spending management while Kinh people always know how

to make profits. Jarai people work to feed themselves, they do not make calculation of costs and benefits

like Kinh people”.

(Village head and village patriarch, commune Chu Mo, district Ia Pa, province Gia Lai)

“Poor people don’t have fund to invest, they have to rent out 1/3 of their land areas to buy fertilizer. Kinh

people are richer because they have fund, have “hard-working brain” (know how to plan) while EM

compatriots have to borrow their money. Jarai people just work hard without due planning and

consideration”.

(FGDs with Jarai people, commune Ia Broai, district Ia Pa, province Gia Lai)

“...migrant EM people only need two to three years to save money to buy land from indigenous EMs

compatriots. While indigenous people just sell land for money in need, after selling land they spend all

the proceedings in a short time”.


“...I have to save money to send my children to schools”.

“we migrants are only poorer than indigenous people in the first 1-2 years (selling all land and house in

homeland for about VND100 million, buying about 1 ha here; after sometime we are better off because

we have experiences, buy more land, and are better at doing business and production”.

(FGDs with migrants from Thanh Hoa, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)


Regarding funding from formal financial institutions, data of Agricensus 2011 shows that

households’ access to preferential loan schemes for poor households and promoting employment

or under other supporting policies is quite good. As of July 1, 2011, proportion of households in the

six provinces borrowing form VBSP, VBARD, and other commercial banks is 42.1%, 25.6% and

9.8%, respectively (see Table 2.12).

Table 2.12: Households’ access to financial capital in (July 1, 2011)

Overall

Proportion of households having borrowings from banks/credit funds

VBSP VBARD

Other commercia

l banks

Employment supporting

fund


31.0 48.0 34.5 5.6 1.6

35

Kinh 30.9 45.3 24.1 11.9 2.8

Indigenous groups 32.5 51.1 40.7 3.0 1.6

Other EMs 27.5 43.3 30.5 5.4 0.3

26 project districts

32.5 46.8 32.8 8.1 1.1

Kinh 34.4 46.0 23.8 16.4 1.1


Other EMs 30.0 42.6 32.2 5.1 0.3

6 project provinces

30.7 42.1 25.6 9.8 1.4

Kinh 28.1 37.8 18.5 13.1 1.3


Other EMs 33.1 41.0 30.8 6.0 0.7


Comparing ethnic groups, it can be seen that, in general, borrowings are distributed quite equally

among them. However, sources of their borrowings are quite different. EM groups borrow more

from VBSP and VBARD with borrowing proportion in indigenous EM groups is always higher than

that of other EM groups. This may be resulted from such banks’ policies which pristine poor

people, EMs, especially indigenous EMs. Another reason can be that newly-migrated EM people

(in last 3-5 years) have not yet settled and got their residential registration books, and they have

almost no land. That makes it more difficult for them to access loans from official financial

institutions than indigenous EMs.

“Migrants are not under any effective residential plan, have not transferred their residential registration to this

locality. Therefore they do not get much supports from government’s schemes. Land cannot be officially given

to them. Migrants cannot get loans from banks (they can only borrow from private lenders with high interest of

about VND50-70 thousand per VND1 million/month – that make some households sink in debts)

(Migrants, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

Although non-performing loan ratio of VBSP in project areas is not high (ranging from 3-5%) but

the survey shows that effectiveness of loan usage by vulnerable groups is usually very low.

Discussions in interviews and FGDs quoted below can somehow illustrate this argument.

“Lending them VND50-100 million will surely result in uncollectible situation, it is difficult to collect loans from

people. VBSP used to lend the poorest then lost. Their capacity for using and managing capital is limited.

Poor migrants can work and pay back but poor indigenous people find hard to pay back”

(FGDs with women, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, Dak Nong)

“People get loans but when harvest loss occurs, they have to extend the loan term or misused the loan. Debts accumulate over years and years, making severe poverty”

(Staff, Division of Agricultural and Rural Development, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“All of their [people] fund is from bank borrowing. They have assets but are debtors. They misuse loans, don’t know how to manage such money and accumulate capital from production. That makes them poorer and

poorer. All of their production inputs is from borrowing”

(Staff, DOLISA, province Dak Nong)

On the other hand, poor households demonstrate that loan ceiling for poor-household is too low

and do not meet their demand. Hesitance in getting loans due to fears of risk is very popular in

vulnerable groups. Therefore, except soft loans under pro-poor policies, access to other loan types

in still limited. Along with formal credit, informal credit from private lenders or agriculture-input

36

suppliers is quite popular in project areas. In extreme cases, households lose land and fall in debt

burden because they cannot afford usurious interests.

Proportion of Kinh households borrowing from VBSP and VBARD (45.3% and 24.1%, respectively)

is quite high but still lower than that of EM groups while their borrowing from other commercial

banks and employment supporting fund is higher than any other group. Proportion of Kinh

households borrowing from commercial banks other than VBSP and VBARD is 11.9%, meanwhile

that figure of indigenous EM groups and other EM groups are 3.0% and 5.4%, respectively. This

figure with borrowings from employment supporting fund is 2.8%, 1.6% and 0.3%, respectively. EM

groups, especially other EM groups, borrow almost nothing from employment supporting fund. In

addition to the fact that Kinh people are usually pay more attention to education and long-term

planning (borrowing money to study in order to get jobs) than the other groups, there is another

important reason. It is the activeness and keenness of King people in identifying and making the

best use of opportunities.

Table 2.13 shows greatly different clientele from credit institutions’ perspective. VBSP and VBARD

focus their lending on EM groups. At 130 project communes or larger scope of all project districts

or six project provinces, their target clients are always EM groups, especially group of indigenous

EMs. Other commercial banks’ target clients are Kinh people. And may be due to its mission of

promoting employment in the locality, the fund targets King group also. This is the most active and

capable of using the loans for given purposes.

Table 2.13: Households’ access to financial capital, by genders of household heads (July 1, 2011)

Gender of the household head

Overall

Proportion of households having borrowings from banks/credit funds

VBSP VBARD Other

commercial banks

Employment supporting

fund

130 project communes Male 31.8 49.5 35.4 6.3 1.7

Female 26.7 39.6 29.7 2.0 1.5

26 project districts Male 33.5 48.5 33.8 8.7 1.2

Female 27.2 37.9 27.2 5.1 0.7

6 project provinces Male 32.2 44.3 26.7 10.5 1.5

Female 23.6 32.1 20.6 6.6 0.9


Among households having outstanding loans with banks and employment supporting fund,

proportion of male-headed household group is always higher than that of female-headed

household group, at all data levels (130 project communes, 26 project districts, and six project

provinces, see details in Table 2.13). This implies more disadvantaged access to formal credit

resources by female-headed households. This can be explained by (i) high proportion of male-

headed households in project areas (84.4% of households in six project provinces is male-headed

ones (Agricensus 2011) and this figure of Kinh group, which is patriarchy and the major group

(40%) of project areas’ population, is also higher); and (ii) hesitance of female-headed households

in general and poor female-headed households in particular in access to loans. Part of poor

female-headed households (if not matriarchy ones) are those lacking the sufficient and frequent

presence of male adults who has adequate labor. As shown in Table 2.8, female-headed

households have lower average number of workers than that of male-headed ones. This, in turn,

limits their economic development potential. Therefore, female-headed households, if poor, will be

more hesitant to access funding for economic development.

37

“Women here are afraid of obtaining loans, but without borrowing they will not have money for investment.

Women’s Union is encouraging them in borrowing, help them in production. Loans can be paid back after

harvest”

(Staff, Provincial Women’s Union, province Gia Lai)

“Women are afraid that they will not be able to pay back loans. Some households borrow to raise cows then

the cows die. Others see such cases and step back from borrowings (despite trainings and communication

interventions)”

(Staff, Provincial Women’s Union, province Kon Tum)

This is a waste of opportunity because access to financial capital/credit, as proved in many

countries and Vietnam also, is an effective way of empowerment and poverty reduction for women.

(e) Regarding social capital. Social capital refers to networks and connections (patronage,

neighborhoods, kinship), relations of trust and mutual understanding and supports, formal and

informal groups, shared values and behaviors, common rules and sanctions, collective

representation, mechanisms for participation in decision-making, leadership. Secondary data from

available documents and research shows certain concerns on social capital of vulnerable groups in

project areas.

With indigenous EMs, the most important social capital is the community connections developed

and enhanced by rules, traditions, and religions. Although there are many changes in living

practices, religious rituals, and traditional rules, indigenous EMs communities still have tight

internal connections. Roles of village patriarchs and prestigious persons (sorcerers, religious

heads, etc.) are very important in common activities of communities. However, this connective

feature just confines in cultural activities but not “replicated” to livelihoods and production activities.

Many responses in the survey confirm this.

“Co Tu people is indigenous in Nam Giang District, Ca Dong people is indigenous in Nam Tra My District, Bo

Nong (Gie Trieng) is indigenous in Phuoc Son District. These EMs have high community spirit in cultural

activities but not in production”

(Staff, Board of EMs Affair, province Quang Nam)

With migrant EMs, relatives and friends are their important social capital. Most of them migrate to

the locality following relatives’ or friends’ information and persuasion. This social capital is as an

informal social security network protecting migrants, especially in early years of migration. Box 2.5

presents some discussion on community spirit as important social capital of migrant EM groups.

Box 2.5: Community spirit is an important social capital of migrant EMs in project areas

“My family migrant here because my friends and relatives living here told me that it is easier to live here”.

(FGDs with migrants from Thanh Hoa, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“Thanks to information from people migrated in 1996, my family (parents and 8 children) move here in

2007. My younger brother also migrated here. His family is smaller size, only 5 members. They live near

here”.

(H’Mong household migrated from Thanh Hoa, now living in Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak

Nong)

“During 2001 – 2004, there was a wave of migrants to this district. They reclaimed remote, forestry, hilly

areas to reside. Several new villages are composed of just free migrants. Migrants have better life than

indigenous households despite remote residence and difficult transportation because they have a lot of

land, will to develop, and community spirit”.

(Staff, Division of EMs Affair, district M’Drak, Dak Lak)


38

As for female group, community models such as group activities (e.g. saving and credit groups –

mainly managed by Women’s Union under VBSP’s entrustment; production groups under

development Projects/programs) are good ways to enhance mutual supports among women. This

is a form of social capital that interventions by Projects/programs currently implemented in project

areas develop for their female beneficiaries. However, these projects/programs in project areas

cannot include all women in such groups and connective models, therefore, this form of social

capital should be deployed in small groups of beneficiaries. In a broader views (beyond

projects/programs having production connective models designed for women), women are facing

many limitations in access to and use of social capital. Regarding women in migrant minorities

(most of them living under patriarchy), burden of housework is an important obstacle limiting their

participation in community activities. Regarding women living under matriarchy (mostly indigenous

EMs), the role of family head implies many burdens (including housework and production activities)

but not better participation in community activities. That limits their access to social capital in

comparison with men’s. Some discussions on this issue are presented below.

“Women participate only in gender-equity related programs. Other discussions on cultivation and breeding are

attended by men. Women have to stay at home to take care of their children”

(Staff, district Division of Agricultural and Rural Development, province Kon Tum)

“Elderly women have more time for meetings; younger women rarely come to meetings. That they (younger

women) are not directly informed limits their information and participation in decision making”

(Officer, district Women’s Union, province Gia Lai)

“In village meetings, women should be grouped in separated meetings to get their comments because they

are usually silent in meetings with participation of men.“

(Officer, Project’s Preparation Committee, province Gia Lai)

“Local EMs women rarely talk and very timid in meetings. When Kinh people join such meetings, they talk

more and faster, EMs women don’t add their comments because they think others (Kinh people) have already

talked about the issue”

(Officer, Provincial Women’s Union, province Kon Tum)

Although access to information is just a bridging factor, it is quite important to improve access to

social capital. For example, having cell phones helps people enhancing community relations by

sharing production and prices information, and exchanging experiences without meeting in person.

Or, having TVs helps them easily accessing information on policies, legal regulations, etc.,

facilitating their participation in management activities. A comparison between ethnic groups and

male-headed and female-headed groups can be seen as in Table 2.14 and 2.15 below.

Table 2.14. Ownership of telecommunication devices and TVs in project areas, by ethnic groups (2010)

Proportion of households owning TVs Cell phones

130 project communes Kinh 87.1 91.7

Indigenous groups 65.9 57.2

Other EMs 64.8 80.3

26 project districts Kinh 90.3 90.6


Other EMs 68.6 79.8

Average for six project provinces Kinh 90.7 84.4


Other EMs 74.7 81.6


39

In both two modern and common ways of accessing information in project areas, TVs and cell

phones, Kinh people is the most advantaged group with much higher access in comparison with

that of EM groups. Meanwhile, indigenous EMs is the most disadvantaged group. Aggregating for

all six project provinces, proportion of households owning TVs in Kinh group is 90.7% while that in

indigenous EM households is 74.3% and in other EMs is 74.7%. This proportion will reduce a

slightly when data is narrowed down to only 26 project districts or 130 project communes alone.

However, relative comparison among groups stays the same. And it is reasonable to state that

access to information of group having more TV ownership is better than others.

Situation with cell phone ownership is similar. And it is interesting that ownership of this device in

Kinh and other EM groups are even higher than their TV ownership (a common asset in most of

households having access to electricity from national grid). Telephones helps its owners

maintaining a closer connection with people in the phonebook, and having more information

(through having more talks and contacts), and it can be said that cell phone is a tool promoting

access to social capital. While, cell phone ownership in indigenous EMs is not only lower than their

TV ownership but also much lower than that of the other groups. As for 130 project communes

alone, there are only 57.2% of indigenous EM households having cell phones while the figure in

Kinh and other EM groups is 91.7% and 80.3%, respectively.

Table 2.15: Ownership of telecommunication devices in project areas, by genders of household heads

Proportion of households owning TVs Cell phones

130 project communes Male 73.3 74.3

Female 63.7 61.6

26 project districts Male 77.4 75.2

Female 67.7 62.2

Average for six project provinces Male 88.7 84.0

Female 76.0 62.7


From gender perspective, group of male-headed households always have advantages in access to

social capital of telecommunication devices (TVs and cell phones). The proportion of households

owning TVs in male-headed groups is 73.3%, 77.4%, and 88.7%, respectively for 130 project

communes, 26 project districts, and six project provinces as a whole. This figure in group of

female-headed households is always lower at about 10 percentage points (see details in Table

2.13). This tendency also repeats with cell phone ownership but the gap is wider (about 13

percentage points and even nearly 20 percentage points (84% in male-headed households

comparing to 62.7% in female-headed households) at province level).

In general, vulnerable groups’ social capital, as observed in the survey, has not been fully exploited

to promote production organization in order to improve livelihoods (people’s participation in socio-

economic development activities as a part of social capital is still limited and will be discussed

further in following parts of this report).

2.1.3 Some environmental/external factors contribute to the vulnerability of

disadvantaged groups in project areas

Vulnerability, as defined in SLA framework, includes: (i) shocks, e.g. armed conflicts, floods and

storms, droughts, epidemic diseases; (ii) seasonality, e.g. prices, and employment opportunities;

(iii) critical trends, e.g. demographic, environmental, economic, and technological trends. It should

be noted that as classified by SLA framework, policies and policies implementation are not

elements of vulnerability but organizational/institutional factors helping to transform livelihoods

capital into livelihoods results. Such results will, in their turn, impact the external context (see

40

section 1.3.1. Theoretical Framework). Information collected from the survey on external factor

shows that:

Shocks like natural disasters and epidemic diseases in recent years have deepened the

poverty in Central Highland in general and project areas in particular: In the last decade,

Central Highland has encountered many unusual weather incidents, creating difficulties and greatly

harming production. Most recently are the 2009 - 2010 floods or 2012 drought which lasted for an

unusually long time. High incidents of unexpected natural phenomena and traditional cultivation

practices have led to reduction in production of several crops. Especially, cashew, a crop

comprising a considerable areas in project provinces, bears nearly no fruit in last few years;

therefore, people remove, abandon, or stop replicating it. The severe impacts of adverse weather

incidents can be seen more obviously in project districts in Quang Nam and Quang Ngai,

especially heavy rains during September - December (accounting for 80% of annual rainfall)

usually lead to landslides and floods in mountainous midland areas and floods in riverside areas.

“Impacts of natural disasters on our commune’s livelihoods are huge. There was a devastating

flood in 2009, affecting many households in our commune, damaging or sweeping away people’s

livestock, domestic fowls, and appliances. After that, number of poor households has increased

considerably, from 45% to near 51.4 %. There are also droughts in many years, several areas in

village Tul have to be changed to cultivation of cassava due to droughts”.

(Communal official, commune Ia Broai, district Ia Pa, Gia Lai)

In addition to that, epidemic diseases on plants and domestic animal are more and more severe,

especially diseases on livestock and pepper crops in recent years. Unusual weather incidents and

epidemic diseases bring great losses to harvest and threat the sustainability of livelihoods activities

and poverty reduction in project communes/districts. Shocks may not create severe impacts on

well-off households as on poorer households (EMs and female-headed households usually belong

to poor group, as analyzed in section 2.1).

“Losing one farming season can consequence the selling land to pay debt; Well-off households may have

something left to serve debts but poor households just make ends meet for each crop...”

(Farmer, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“The flood in 2010 is a historic one. It has never been that severe. It put hundreds of families in moneyless

situation”


“Cashew has not bore fruits for a few years already, but we don’t have money to invest in another crop”

(Farmer, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak Nong)

“Floods every year, taking everything; each flood lasts about 2 days, rice and maze all dies after that”

(FGDs with Jarai people, commune Ia Broai, district Ia Pa, province Gia Lai)

“There was a huge flood in 2009. Many households lost their farm produce. Assets, livestock, and appliances

were swept away. They don’t have money to buy new things, don’t have crop and harvest to pay for debts.

Number of poor households increased greatly”

(Communal official, commune Ia Broai, district Ia Pa, Gia Lai)

Fluctuation of agriculture products’ prices has increased risks to agricultural production

and adversely impacted life of beneficiaries in project areas: Although project districts do not

have natural advantages in developing high-value industrial crops such as coffee, rubber tree,

41

pepper, etc., cultivation of such crops in small scale with low production is quite common in project

districts. Fluctuation of world’s prices for such crops’ outputs in recent years (e.g. coffee’s and

cashew’s price falling in 2012, see Figure 2.6) poses many risks to the development of such high-

value but requiring long-time investment crops. Replacing crops having low-price outputs (in short-

term) by crops having higher price expectation usually happens as an instant reaction to short-term

changes in price. With vulnerable households in project areas, the volatility of cassava’s and

sugarcane’s prices, two common short-day crops of their cultivation, has also increased the

volatility of their incomes. It is not easy to spot changes in cassava price in Figure 2.6 as with

coffee and cashew (just some thousand VND per kg) but the changes really affect its cultivators’

revenues. For example, in 2010 the price of tapioca was VND5,500/kg, in 2011 it was

VND3,000/kg, reducing 40%; in 2012 the price was VND5,700/kg but in June 2013 it reduce 15%

to VND4,900/kg.

As discussed before, agriculture brings main sources of income for people in project areas.

Therefore, seasonality has made their vulnerability more severe.

Waves of migrants from EM groups (mainly in Northern mountainous areas and Mekong delta

areas) create difficulties in access to natural capital serving production. One of reasons for poverty

(of migrant and indigenous EM people) is the lack of arable land, particularly fertilized land.

Regarding migrant groups, issues of access to cultivation land mainly happen to poor households

who have migrated in recent years when cultivation land is more scarce and land selling prices

(informal purchases from former inhabited households in project areas) is higher and higher.

Regarding indigenous EM groups, the issues happen to households who have sold their land (in

different ways, such as direct purchases or using land to settle debts) to migrants, especially Kinh

people. Such households now have no land for production, especially households selling land to

settle aftershocks issues (after natural disasters) or family’s bad lucks (prolonging and/or severe

sickness). Besides, waves of migrants create pressures on public utility systems in poor

communes/districts in project areas, which themselves are already in deficiency and low quality.

They also create ethnic mix in many project communes more diversified, creating new challenges

to local socio-economic development.

Box 2.6: Discussion on impacts of migrant waves

“In this commune, migrants are supported to set up a new residential area but not included in

population plans and provided residential registration books because such things are attached to

land planning. Many migrants buy land from indigenous minorities and such land, in many cases, is

reclaiming land. Therefore, these purchases cannot be formally certified. Migrants have to face

several difficulties due to the lack of residential registration book, e.g. they are unable to get loans

from commercial banks or VBSP, then they have to borrow from Kinh households bearing very high

interest rates. If they lost two consecutive farming season, they may lost all their land. They are also

marginalized from supporting programs and Projects”.

“Migrants have to buy land from indigenous EM people. Indigenous people sometimes sell a piece

of land to two different persons, leading to disputes”.

(FGDs with migrants and communal officials, commune Quang Phu, district Krong No, province Dak

Nong)

“There are disputes about land between migrants and indigenous people. Some pieces of land are

reclaimed by indigenous EMs. After sometime, they abandon due to water shortage. Migrants come

and cultivate on the land (they make small-scale irrigation better than indigenous people). Then, the

dispute happens”.

(Communal official, commune Chu Mo, district Ia Pa, province Gia Lai)

Source: Social Assessment Survey

42

It is worth to note that, waves of migrants happen only in four provinces in Central Highland.

The assessment team has consulted stakeholders on probability of shocks created by Project

implementation due to land lost for infrastructure development activities under Project’s

Component I and Sub-component 3.2. As of survey time, all relevant government agencies at

levels confirm that the probability of shocks is extremely low. Besides, Project Feasibility Study did

include policy framework for resettlement (for impacted groups that may lose their land for Project

activities) in line with WB’s policies. If being well implemented, the policy framework will provide

Project’s beneficiaries a mechanism for social security.

Conclusion: It can be concluded that Project’s beneficiaries are poor people. Among them,

indigenous EMs, migrant EMs who have moved to project areas in recent years, and women are

poorer in terms of economic as well as other aspects (e.g. access to utilities, such as clean water

and sanitation). Both secondary data and data collected in the survey confirm that poverty is rooted

in limited access to most of livelihoods capital (lack of land, capital, and labor; limited production

infrastructure, and social capital). Besides, impacts from shocks like natural disasters, waves of

migrants (four Central Highland provinces/six project provinces), unexpected expenses on health

care, seasonality, and volatility of agriculture products have increased the vulnerability of such

groups. Vulnerable groups’ self-defense ability (coping with and mitigating impacts of adverse

trends as well as recovering after shocks) is very low, almost none. The picture looks like a vicious

circle for poor people in project areas, suggesting a great challenge to Project’s implementation of

its livelihoods strategies. This point leads to a suggestion that livelihoods strategies should have

two approaches at the same time (1) improving access to capital for production, and (2) mitigating

impacts from vulnerable context to beneficiary groups. Along with these, building capacity for

beneficiaries to improve their ability to absorb and take most advantage of Project’s supports is an

urgent task, it is the sufficient condition for other supports (infrastructure, financial capital, and

social capital enhancement) to be brought into full play.

2.2 Organizational structures and processes

As presented in Section 1.3.1 Theoretical Framework, the livelihood strategies and

results/outcomes do not only depend on the accessibility to livelihood funding (as analyzed

intensively in Section 2.1.2 Accessibility to livelihood capital of target groups in project areas) or

disturbed by the vulnerability context (Section 2.2.3). They are also the transformations of

structures and processes. Organizational structures and processes are regarded managerial and

administrative factors, playing important roles in mitigating negative impact of contextual factor

causing vulnerability to target groups. These factors promote the accessibility of target groups to

livelihood funding in order to improve economic situation and enhance ability to respond to and

cushion against disadvantageous developments of environment. Changing vulnerability context

can be generated through changing macroeconomic policies (for examples, restructuring the

economy, alternating the plantation structure, emigration, etc.) and/or enhance self-defense ability

for Project beneficiaries by supporting target groups in terms of asset/funding (in general term), for

example, increasing the funding. In order to do so, the adaptability [to the need of Project

beneficiaries] of managerial structure, institutions, programs and processes must be enhanced.

CHPov Project is considered the consolidation of actions, i.e. livelihood strategies, in order to

achieve livelihood outcomes; thus, organizational structure, institutions and processes are

analyzed in line with the implementation of the Project. Hence, this Section analyzes the structures

that may have potential effects on the success of the Project implementation (Section 2.2.1), as

well as the institutions, policies, processes and their levels of impacts on the participation and

43

benefits of vulnerable target groups (Section 2.2.2). Last but not least are some cultural and

religious practices having significant effects to the Project implementation (Section 2.2.3)

2.2.1 Organizational structures having potential effects on the success of

the Project implementation

As set forth in ToR, one of the objectives of this Assessment is to “identify and formulate the roles

and impacts of stakeholders to [the ability to realize] CHPov Project’s objective”. This Section

focuses on analyzing and assessing the potential impact levels of stakeholders on the

implementation following the current design of the Project, particularly those having direct impacts

on activities relating to main Project beneficiaries (in Component 1 and Component 2).

Accordingly, stakeholders are classified into main groups as follows: (i) entities leading the process

of Project implementation; (ii) entities directly implementing the Project; (iii) entities supporting the

implementation, including provincial sectoral agencies, mass organizations; (iv) communal entities;

(v) other entities: private manufacturing sector, service providers. According to the classification of

SLA Framework, these entities can be in state-owned/public sector, private sector, mass

organizations and civil societies.

2.2.2.1 Entities leading the process of Project implementation

The key entities having the leading role in Project implementation are mainly at local levels

(province and district). At province level, PPC is the responsible agency to lead the Project.

According to the current Project design, PPC is the agency to issue strategic orientations; and at

the same time, ensure institutional interventions at highest level (at province level) so that the flow

of the Project is in accordance to the objective and designing principles. Particularly, the role of

PPC is of great importance in case the cooperation among departments and sectors and different

levels in deploying the Project is ineffective. With such a leading role, PPC is the agency holding

the decisive role to the success of the Project; particularly if the implementation process

encounters institutional impedances.

In this aspect, the Assessment proposes some key warnings: PPC must truly and fully present its

leading role. This is of great necessity in the condition that the Project introduces some relatively

new approaches to the project areas, requiring a close institutional support from PPC to ensure the

success, particularly issues concerning the classification, empowerment, staff policy, the

participation of provincial sectoral agencies together with provincial PMU in implementing the

Project. Noticeably, there concurrently exist several programs/policies (as mentioned below) in the

project areas. This typical condition implies a risk that PPC heads may not have sufficient time and

determination to lead the Project implementation. Under such a circumstance, it is important to

have a province leader (President or Vice president of the provincial People’s Committee) with

deep understanding of the Project design keeping an eye on the project implementation and giving

strong instruction when necessary, especially instruction on project orientation and institutional

supports for the implementation of the Project.

At district level, district PCs play the leading role to district PMUs, commune PMUs and

responsible district sectoral agencies in implementing the Project. The current design of CHPov

Project, as well as other projects/programs, directly nominates district PC President/Vice President

to be the leader of district PMU. This mechanism assures the direct instruction of district PC to

Project activities. This arrangement, however, bears certain risks due to the fact that district PC

leaders usually have to solve regular issues of the district while managing the poverty reduction

programs/projects in their locality, hence, overwhelming workload is likely to happen. This implies a

necessity of having proper institutional arrangements to positively support district PC leaders in

implementing and supervising Project activities.

2.2.1.2 Entities directly implementing the Project

44

According to the current Project design, entities directly implementing the Project are PMUs at

different levels (province, district) and Commune Development Board (CDB). In the Project

management model, these entities are directly responsible for consulting, planning, implementing,

supervising, and monitoring the Project activities as designed. At the time of this social assessment

survey, PMUs at different levels had not been established, yet the Project Preparation Units (PPU)

– which are the core part of PMUs when the Project comes into effect - at province and district

levels had already been established. Though in preparation phase, PMUs at commune level were

not established, the key positions in CDBs (for examples, commune PC heads, accountant, admin

officer, relevant positions, village heads, respected elderly people in the village, and

representatives of mass organizations) were also consulted in the formulation process of this

Assessment.

The survey findings assert that all the staff in province and district PMUs and communal officials

(as above-mentioned) have clear understanding of major features of vulnerable target groups in

project areas; at the same time, the prioritized orientation of this Project to ensure the participatory

level of and adequate benefits for these target groups are well understood and basically consented

in the consultation process. This is an important condition to ensure that vulnerable target groups

will not be excluded in implementation process of the Project. However, this is not the sufficient

condition. The more important matter is how to realize and transform this understanding into

practical action in the implementation process. From this perspective, the Assessment gives some

warnings as follows.

Firstly, the competence of project staff at local levels, especially at commune level, remains limited,

and this will be a considerable risk to the Project. The current Project design highlights the role of

commune level as the investment owner of almost all Project activities in Component 1 and

Component 2. Although in most project communes, there already exist several poverty reduction

policies and programs, this is the first time they have participated in a poverty reduction program

with such a large approaching scope and complex administrative procedures (required by WB),

especially procurement procedure. Besides, the Project planning procedure, infrastructure

development and livelihood diversifying activities are performed in the direction of a community

driven development (CDD) project that is designed to highlight the engagement of beneficiaries,

especially vulnerable target groups. Nevertheless, the survey results show that the capacity of

local officials to motivate and encourage the participation of beneficiaries and communities remains

insufficient. Most of the technical officials at commune level still lack important skills to motivate the

participation of communities.

“Village heads disseminate information to people in their villages. However, the efficiency is very poor. The

capacity of officials at village level also remains poor. Furthermore, allowance for them is low; therefore, they

don’t work positively.”

(Staff, District DOLISA, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

“Number of staff supporting beneficiaries at local levels is still insufficient; therefore, the information

dissemination is not really effective. It is regulated that there is one meeting at local level every month, in fact,

meetings are rarely held. And if being held, such meetings are combined with meetings of other mass

organizations’ representatives in the village.”

(Staff, Farmers’ Union, Province Quang Nam)

Secondly, knowledge, skills, and experiences to deploy market linkage livelihood activities remain

insufficient and poor. Project’s overall objective is to improve living standard for the beneficiaries;

thus, all core activities of the Project directly or indirectly focus on supporting the development of

sustainable livelihoods for beneficiaries. Component 2 in the current Project design includes two

Sub-components on food security, community forest and resource management, and market

linkage livelihoods. The survey results show various potential difficulties for the deployment of

market-oriented livelihoods. Most of staff in charge of agricultural issues at district level only has

experiences in developing small-scale cultivation and breeding activities but not yet in promoting

45

market-oriented production. Their access to the knowledge, market players (firms, private traders),

and price volatility or more complicated issues such as value chain, public-private partnership, etc.

remains limited. Hence, the implementation of Project’s livelihood development supports,

particularly market linkage livelihoods, will be a huge challenge to Project managers at levels,

especially district and commune ones.

Thirdly, motivating and delegating competent and dedicated staff for PMUs at all levels and

commune PPUs are considerable challenge, especially part-time positions. It is a commonly-seen

concern among local officials that they are afraid of the complication relating to processes and

procedures for implementing current Project design. According to relevant officials, that majority of

local staff is part-time but has to handle such a huge workload with modest allowance fixed as

provided in Decree 219/2009/TT-BTC dated 29/12/2009 will not motivate them. Therefore, though

they understand the promising learning opportunity they may have when participating in the project

management; most of the consulted officials demonstrate their concerns about long-term career

path. Additionally, another noticeable problem is that authorities at different levels (commune,

district, and province) are seemingly under-evaluating the importance of delegating competent

project staff to work with indigenous EM and female beneficiaries. Except for those communal

officials who regularly communicate with indigenous EM people, there are few officials at district

and province levels having significant experience in matters of EM policies; the participation of

Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs (province level) and Division of Ethnic Minority Affairs (district level)

in the consultation and designing phases of this Project is rather limited.

2.2.1.3 Entities supporting the Project implementation

Regarding the entities supporting the Project implementation being government sectoral agencies

at all levels, the survey indicates that they all convey their readiness to cooperate and support the

implementation of the Project. Among the supporting provincial sectoral agencies, Department of

Agriculture & Rural Development, Board of Ethnic Minority Affairs, Extension Center (and

extension system at different levels) play an important role in supporting the Project

implementation. In this aspect, this Assessment identifies some problems as follows:

Firstly, the level of support from provincial sectoral agencies largely depends on the instruction of

PPCs and cooperative skills of province PPUs. According to current Project design, Director of

province PMU is a leader of DARD and PMU is a component in organizational structure of DARD.

As can be seen from the practical implementation of other projects, the coordination and

collaboration between DARD and other provincial sectoral agencies in project activities are not

always effective. In some other poverty reduction projects in project areas, it is difficult to mobilize

supports from some functional provincial sectoral agencies that are not the implementing agencies

of the projects. Therefore, strong instruction from PPC is necessary if collaboration among related

sectoral agencies is not sufficiently effective to deploy Project activities in accordance to Project

design.

Secondly, in order to implement Component 2 of the Project – which can be considered the most

challenging component in the current Project design – successfully, it requires active participation

of staff in charge of agricultural issues and extension center system at different levels. As defined

in Project design, the livelihood supports in the Project are provided to production groups, and

these groups are given the autonomy in finding inputs and technical assistance. Given various

forms of livelihoods supported and large number of production groups, agriculture staff and

extension system at different levels have the leading role. They will cooperate with PMUs at

different levels to advice and provide supports to production groups in accessing to production

inputs and technical assistance. In order to do so, the instruction from PPC in assigning tasks to

officials in charge of agricultural issues and extension staff at different levels to support Project

activities as planned is needed.

Entities supporting Project implementation being mass organizations such as Women’s Union, and

Farmer’s Union have networks of staff and collaborators in communities, as well as a large number

of members being Project beneficiaries. Besides, the participation of Women’s Union’s

46

representative in CDB, the current Project design defines specific role of Farmers’ Union in the

management of Project at different levels. However, these socio-political organizations play an

important role in implementing Project activities, from consultation, planning to supervising and

deploying of specific activities. In consultation aspects, these organizations play an important part

in disseminating information, promoting the participation of beneficiaries into the consultation and

planning processes. In implementation aspects, these two organizations probably have the most

active roles in motivating their members to join production groups and deploy livelihood supporting

models in the Project. In supervision aspects, these organizations have representatives in

Supervision Board and they have positively performed supervisory role in their function. Regarding

this supporting entities group, the Assessment reveals some potential problems as follows:

Firstly, though these mass organizations have an extensive network and a large number of

members, their operation efficiency depend largely on the competency of the union leaders at

commune level in the project areas and the perception of local authorities about their roles and

how to promote their roles. The survey results indicate that in many project communes, the role of

socio-political organizations like Women’s Union, Farmer’s Union remains limited. Therefore, there

is a possibility that the support of these socio-political organizations to the implementation of

Project may vary among different project communes.

Secondly, Women’s Union and Farmer’s Union have important roles in receiving the entrustment

from VBSP to manage their funding in project areas. The continuity of supports from these

organizations may encounter difficulties because the workload will increase while capacity of their

staff remains limited and remuneration stay low.

2.2.1.4 Commune entities

As defined in this Assessment, communal entities are production group models or spontaneous

self-managed groups having participation of households in project areas. In the formulation

process of this Assessment, survey results show that these entities are not very popular in project

areas. The most common form may be credit saving groups under loans managed by socio-

political organizations under VBSP’s entrustment (and VBARD’s entrustment before). Besides,

some programs/projects being deployed in project communes have also formed some production

groups and saving groups (such as IFAD’s project in Dak Nong and Gia Lai), production clubs (in

Success Alliance Project). Additionally, self-managed groups established with the support of

communal authorities and mass organizations at local level to manage public infrastructures (clean

water tanks, wells, canals, etc.) are also quite common.

However, their popularity in project areas quite varies; even in the areas where these groups exist,

their capacity remains limited. Therefore, currently, these entities have not been regarded as an

important stakeholder of the Project. Nevertheless, the supporting principle of Component 2 is to

support the livelihoods through groups, and construction, operation and maintenance groups are

also encouraged in the design of Component 1 of this Project. Hence, along with the

implementation of Project, the role of communal entities will become more and more important,

especially to Project’s outcomes.

2.2.1.5 Entities from private sector in Project implementation process

Besides the above-mentioned entities, there is another stakeholder group who may have

significant effects on success of this Project, including private enterprises, private traders,

agriculture suppliers in project areas, and technical service providers (both individuals and

organizations) who provide trainings, extension services, etc. Regarding these entities, this

Assessment proposes some main issues as follows:

Enterprises are expected to play an important role in certain activities of the Project including

developing infrastructure constructions and market linkage livelihoods. Regarding Component 1

and Sub-component 3.1, construction and installation companies are assumed to implement works

47

in line with project’s preference to using local labors. In Sub-component 2.2, enterprises (including

private traders) play the role of ensuring markets for output products of production groups. In this

aspect, there are some problems as follows:

Firstly, according to the opinion of construction and installation companies, the employment of local

labors in infrastructure construction depends largely on the possibility to find qualified labors

satisfying job requirements. This is a considerable challenge to the enterprises, unless the works

are simple. Hence, the possibility to generate income for beneficiaries by providing jobs in

constructing infrastructures, even temporarily, is not significant.

Secondly, in project area, there are very few private enterprises operating effectively in agriculture

sector, hence, possibility to create linkage between enterprises and production groups is very low

(except for some products such as Japanese sweet potato, coca).

Thirdly, the network of private traders is playing an important role in the trading of agriculture

products in project areas. However, the survey results reveal that there is a significant competition

among private traders in some fields (such as trading cows and coca); therefore, price squeeze

rarely happens.

The network of organizations and individuals providing inputs for agriculture production is also

important. In project areas, this network comprises of mostly Kinh people, they open stores selling

fertilizers, pesticides, seeds; some of these stores are agents of providers, the remainder

collectively buy products from different sources (mostly from province or district centers) and

redistribute to people in Project area. With project areas’ limited infrastructure, this network is the

main source of production inputs to most of the beneficiary households, especially vulnerable

ones. In many case, this network is also the buyers of agriculture products in project areas (e.g.

private traders). Given this current situation, it can be foreseen that even if there is positive

intervention of the Project through supports to livelihoods and infrastructure development, this

supplying network will still play an important role at project communes.

The number of organizations/individuals providing technical services in Project area and

neighborhood is still insufficient, and their capacity remains limited. In Project area, there is hardly

any private technical or extension training service provider, thus, most of the services are provided

by extension system, some universities or local research institutions/centers. In some cases, firms

provide specific technical services to farmers who directly sell products to them, so that products

meet firms’ requirements. It is unlikely that this network of organizations/individuals providing

technical services will be able to meet the demand for quality technical assistance for production

group in Project area. The survey reveals that farmers receive technical assistance from only 3

main sources: (1) commune extension staff, (2) local suppliers of agriculture production inputs

(especially pesticide and fertilizer), (3) firms employing local labors (in forestry farm) and firms

buying agriculture products (for examples, cassava, Japanese sweet potato). Local officials at

different levels also assert that extension system is the most effective channel to provide technical

assistance/guidance to farmers, other agencies such as Research Institution or Vocational Training

Center also participated in programs/projects as technical assistance providers, but their services

are contract-based (they provide service basing on contracts and only deliver services when paid).

However, it is appropriate to employ these agencies in the Project implementation for selective

activities (such as training of trainers, first-time transferring technologies). But in the long term, the

local extension system and extension farmers are the more sustainable choices.

2.2.2 Policies, processes and institutions: their levels of impacts on the

participation and benefits of vulnerable target groups

2.2.2.1 Existing policies and programs targeting vulnerable groups are rather various

48

There have been many poverty reduction programs/project unfolding in the project areas. Given

their high poverty rate, difficult socio-economic situation, high concentration of indigenous EM

compatriots, all the project districts/communes are targets of several poverty reduction,

infrastructure and livelihood development programs/projects. Despite having different focuses and

supporting mechanisms, all these programs/projects have direct impacts on life of vulnerable target

groups in project areas. With the current coverage of those programs/projects, basically, major

impedances to socio-economic development in the project areas have been intervened at certain

level. Regarding infrastructure, Program 135/II, 3EM, TNSP prioritize developing small-scale

infrastructures at village level, meanwhile Program 30A and 30B focus more on those at district

and commune levels. Regarding production development supports, FLITCH and WB3 focus on

forestry livelihoods; Program 3EM, TNSP, ACP support the development of agricultural livelihoods;

Program 135-II, 30A also include production supports, though investments for these activities are

not as high as that for infrastructure development.

Provinces/Districts Programs/ Projects at District level 135-II communes3

Dak Nong 3EM (4); FLITCH (3) (7)/20

Dak Lak ACP (5); FLITCH (3) (13)/25

Gia Lai TNSP (4), FLICTH (3), 30B (4), ACP (3) (18)/25

Kon Tum FLITCH (3), 30A (2), 30B (3) (28)/30

Quang Ngai 30A (3), WB3 (1) (9)/15

Quang Nam 30A (2), 30B (1) 13/15

Though these programs/projects have had certain impacts to the enhancement of socio-economic

condition and living standard of people in Project area, the improvement of living standard among

vulnerable groups in this area is much lower than the average level of the Central Highlands. The

key question here is why there are so many poverty reduction programs/projects but the

improvement of living standard of vulnerable target groups is noticeably (and worryingly) slower

than the average level. Besides, objective reasons such as limited livelihood potential, difficult

natural conditions, the synthesis of some recent studies (for examples, Pham et al. 2010, UNDP

(2009), WB (2009)), combined with this survey’s results reveal some reasons as follows:

Firstly, though the number of programs and projects is large, their resources are limited and there

is duplication in management without an effective integrating mechanism. Several reports

synthesizing results of poverty reduction programs/projects for EM compatriots emphasize that

even though there are many programs/projects, the resources for them remain far lower than

required. Even in a large-scale program like Program 135-II (valuing nearly USD1 billion), due to its

large intervention scope, each commune is provided with roughly USD 75,000 on average. Some

Government programs are not provided with sufficient resources as planned (for examples,

Program 30A, NTP on Building New Countryside). While the resources are limited, it is almost

impossible to coordinate and cooperate such resources because each program/project has a

different management agency/level, with different regulations and implementation approaches.

Secondly, investment in “hard” connective infrastructure is still prioritized, particularly in

Government’s programs/projects which have little partnership of development partners (merely in

1Figures in parentheses () represent number of Project districts in CHPov Project that are concurrently in beneficial scope

of other pp – the list does not refer to National Target Program such as NTP on Sustainable Poverty Reduction 2012-2015, NTP on Building New Coutryside; 2 Figures in parentheses () represent number of Project communes that are concurrently in beneficial scope of 135-II, ACP

stands for Agriculture Commodities Program; “3EM” is Project for the Sustainable Economic Empowerment of Ethnic Minorities in Dak Nong Province, sponsored by IFAD; “FLICTH” is Forests for Livelihood Improvement in The Central Highlands, sponsored by ADB; “TNSP” is Tam Nong Support Project, sponsored by IFAD in Gia Lai Province; “135-II” is Program 135-II at villages with particular difficult conditions; “WB3” is Forest Sector Development Project, sponsored by World Bank; “30A” is Circular 30A on the Program to support quick and sustainable poverty reduction for 61 poor districts; “30B” is in accordance to Decision 293/QĐ-TTg on the objective funding support from State budget for 23 districts with high poverty rate, applying procedures and infrastructure investment policies in accordance to regulation of Circular 30°.

49

form of funding, if any). It is clear that developing infrastructure is necessary, but supporting

livelihood development to take advantages of those infrastructures in developing production is also

very important. Promoting investment in “soft” connective infrastructure in form of developing

production remains a huge difficulty because the livelihood potential in disadvantaged areas is

usually much limited than that in favorable ones. Additionally, promoting investment in “soft”

connective infrastructure to build capacity for local officials at different levels is also a challenge

unsolved.

Thirdly, to ensure that the programs/projects being truly “for the vulnerable target groups”, “for the

poor”, the resources allocation should be prioritized for groups/locations having more difficult

conditions or higher poverty rate. However, this principle is sometimes bypassed by poverty

reduction programs/projects. The common approaching method of programs/projects often defines

geographic areas (village, commune, district) as target approaching units and the resource

allocation is normally proposed based on the calculation using number of approaching units rather

than taking into consideration all the differences among geographic areas (in terms of poverty rate,

characteristics of vulnerable groups). Obviously, it is not necessary that some targets that are

benefited from social support/protection policy should also be targets of poverty reduction projects.

However, if the resource allocation does not take this factor into consideration, it will be unlikely

that vulnerable target groups can be able to improve their living standard faster than average level.

Fourthly, there are still controversies over the relevance of existing programs/projects to EM

compatriots’ needs and characteristics. WB (2009) points out that there exist various biases and

stereotyping about EM compatriots and these concepts may lead to the use of inappropriate

‘models’, ‘measures’ to improve living standards of EM compatriots. The survey results of this

Assessment also affirms the existence of biases, and it emphasizes that these biases can cause

disadvantages for EM compatriots in gaining benefit from the economic development opportunities

(the following Sections analyzes this issue in more details).

2.2.2.2 The processes to motivate the participation of people and communities in local

socio-economic development remain limited

Democracy at local levels and policies to motivate the participation of people and communities in

local socio-economic development have been conducted in project areas for more than a decade.

The engagement of communities and beneficiaries in the planning of socio-economic development

has taken place at project communes concurrently under Program 135-II (which comprises of 68%

of total project communes) or at project districts concurrently under IFAD Project in Dak Nong and

Province Gia Lai (which comprises of 31% of total project districts). This Assessment evaluates

participation of beneficiaries in the socio-economic development in 5 ascending levels, specifically:

(i) information; (ii) consultation; (iii) implementation; (iv) collaboration in implementation; and (v)

autonomy in implementation. According to the survey result at Project area, participation of

vulnerable groups at each level is summarized as follows:

Information level: When interviewed, most of the vulnerable target households are able to list the

supports they have received from different programs and projects, but they do not understand

contents of those assisting programs/projects. Only some of the households remember

programs/projects’ names (mainly Governmental ones such as Program 135-II, Program 167 on

Housing Assistance). Though there are several international sponsored programs, beneficiaries

barely know their names. EM households in Quang Nam and Province Quang Ngai have higher

level of understanding about programs/projects than those in the Central Highlands, particularly,

indigenous EMs demonstrate that they have received tangible support (rice, baby plants, support

to build house) directly from village and commune authority, but they are not aware of and do not

care about the origins of those supports. Spontaneous migrating EM households in the recent time

have very little information and barely receive any support from programs/projects. Noticeably,

50

women in matriarchy indigenous EMs often have more information about programs/projects than

those in patriarchy ones – this is resulted from their role as the head of the family.

Consultation level: The main consultation procedure conducted by programs/projects in Project

area is participatory planning, of which the first step is to organize participatory village meetings

where beneficiaries discuss and identify the priorities. The interviews with commune and village

officers reveal that the organization of participatory village meetings varies among locations and

characteristics of each program/project. The requirement on participatory village meeting is

regulated in Program 135-II, 3EM, TNSP, but is not clearly identified in Program 30A, ACP, and

many others. Normally, a participatory village meeting is hold at village common house or at village

head’s house, participants are informed in advance, there are representatives of commune

authorities, and the village head chairs the meeting (with the support of commune authorities’

representatives). Depending on the actual context, language of the meeting can be Vietnamese or

combination of Vietnamese and EM languages, meetings are rarely conducted by EM languages

only. In case of combining languages, beneficiaries discuss in EM languages, and then the

discussion result is summarized in Vietnamese language.

According to the vulnerable target groups’ evaluation, generally, participatory village meetings are

attended by representatives of almost all households in the village. However, vulnerable

households have not actively participated (they may attend the meeting, but their engagement in

discussion are limited). As for indigenous EM ones, they only attend and listen (passive

participation), they occasionally raise their voice, and only smile or answer by simple sentences

when asked. With such levels of participation, basically, vulnerable target groups have not fully

played their role in participatory village meetings to advice and identify priorities for specific

programs/projects.

Implementation level: Due to the limitation in participatory level as above-mentioned, the

engagement in the implementation of programs/projects activities in local areas remains limited.

Regarding the participation in infrastructure construction, some vulnerable households did

participate in constructing activities in their localities but mostly in forms of daily works. They

receive payments by day/week, perform simple tasks such as supporting in site clearance, carrying

materials, cooking. Because this type of income is irregular, it is mainly spent on temporary

expenses (for food, wine), hence, it barely has any meaning to the improvement of their living

standards.

Regarding livelihood development activities, the survey results show that vulnerable groups

receive quite a lot of supports for formulating different livelihood developing models, both in forms

of supports to individuals and groups of households. Although beneficiaries evaluate impacts of

these supports positively, there are signs of low sustainability. The most commonly-seen matter is

that when the support stops, beneficiaries also cease applying production methods/models; they

do not use their own money to buy seeds and agricultural materials and resume their traditional

cultivating method. Vulnerable households rarely succeed in deploying cattle raising models, the

main reason is that they cannot maintain the appropriate caring and veterinary conditions to

prevent epidemic for the cattle.

Regarding the participation in supervising programs/projects activities, most of the project

communes have Supervisory Board, functioning the supervision, and this Board is also a

component in management models of almost all programs/projects in the location. However, due to

the limited understanding of basic construction, the supervision is mainly formality, administrative

procedure but does not have practical meanings. The survey results show no case of active

participation in supervising activities. There are quite a lot of water supply schemes – a

fundamental infrastructure to people’s life – but the protection of theses infrastructures is poor.

Observations show that most of damages on these constructions are caused by the careless

users.

51

“Taking the road building project in this village as an example, villagers do have supervision, but the

supervisors are lack of responsibility and unprofessional, there’re a lot or nonsense opinions. Sometimes

materials are missing but no one is responsible. No one fixes the road when it is damaged.”

(An elder in village, Commune Ia Broai, Province Gia Lai)

Nevertheless, not all the supervision at commune level is ineffective.

“Our works are supervised by Commune Supervisory Board. We consider this supervision effective and it

does not impede our operation”

(Representative of Construction Company, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“Regardless of scale, all the recent projects are supervised by the community. They don’t have technical

knowledge about construction, but they evaluate based on what they see, such as thickness of cement

concrete, quality of road surface. An example is the program to refurbish and maintain transportation system

on 0.5 km of road (valuing VND800 million). 2/3 of the project value is mobilized from villagers: labor,

materials, tools; both the contractor and villagers positively and actively engage in the work. Villagers discuss

and assign work to individuals, who to do what, where to refurbish. When they discuss, they participate in and

understand the work, hence, it is successful. Their perception about their own benefit changes and it removes

the ineffectiveness. Before, even though the electricity system had been built, they didn’t even spend just a

small amount of money more to buy wire to conduct electricity to their houses. Everything has changed now,

like the example I have mentioned above”

(PPU staff, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

Regarding participation at upper levels of collaboration and autonomy in implementation levels, the

survey found almost no proof of such participation in project areas.

Generally, the participation level of vulnerable groups in existing programs/projects in the location

is low; basically, the beneficiaries know part of the information (receiving supports) and attend

some participatory meetings to comment on priorities. There are several reasons for such poor

participation of vulnerable target groups in programs/projects in the impacted area of CHPov

Project. Some major reasons are detected as follows:

At information and consultation level: Although the participation of beneficiaries is a fundamental

principle in many programs/projects, the method to motivate participation in consultation process

have many limitations. Firstly, village meetings are normally informed in advance, but the meeting

contents are not clearly informed, therefore, people often do not have preparation. Contents

concerning quick assessment to identify difficulties and challenges are not well-prepared at village

level; hence, there is not much information for the discussion. Secondly, the language used in

meetings is normally Vietnamese because there is also the presence of communal officials to

provide guidance. In many cases, participants have limitation in using Vietnamese, or due to local

custom, participants discuss in EM language and assign one person to summarize the discussion

content in Vietnamese. This interpretation causes certain impedance to the discussion result of

participatory village meeting. Thirdly, organizing a participatory village meeting requires

organizational, motivating and facilitating skills at certain level. These, however, are the

weaknesses of majority of communal officials in Project area. Fourthly, as above-mentioned, the

duplication of multiple programs/projects with the demand on participation of beneficiaries in

different ways and levels is also a negative factor affecting the efficiency of engaging people in the

consultation.

While the method to motivate participation of beneficiaries remains still have several limitations,

there are other reasons rooted from features of vulnerable target groups and biases towards them.

Firstly, the shyness and passivity of indigenous EM people are clearly recognized in the

consultation process. It is commonly agreed by many entities that in general the indigenous EM

people do not actively engage in discussion if there is participation of outsiders such as groups of

migrating EM people, officers, or other entities that do not belong to their community. Secondly,

52

even if there are inappropriate priorities proposed in the meeting, but due to the shyness, the

beneficiaries often keep silence rather than raise their voice. The survey results collected in the

formulation process of this Assessment shows quite many opinions of communal officials that

because EM compatriots often have low level of education, hesitation in communicating, and

limited Vietnamese language competency, it is very difficult for them to demonstrate their opinion in

participatory village meeting. Whether or not this bias is right or wrong (there are evidences of the

limitation of EM compatriots while communicating in Vietnamese as can be seen in citations

hereunder), it has negative impact on the organizing and chairing of participatory village meeting

that participation and opinion of vulnerable target groups are not given adequate importance.

“EM people and women participate in community activities, but not much. In the discussion Sections, they

contribute idea less. They attend the meeting but do not have valuable questions. They participate more

actively if the matters involve funding and interest rate of VBSP. The ability to actively search for information

of women and EM people in general is still limited, they are reluctant to ask and have high self-esteem.”

(Communal official, District Chu Mo, Province Gia Lai)

“85-90% of the EM people here can speak and communicate in Vietnamese. Those who cannot speak

Vietnamese are the elderly. However, only 50% can communicate fluently and 20% can read documents in

Vietnamese. Commune authority often disseminates information through local officials who can speak EM

language. In addition, 50% of them can’t even read in their mother tongue.”

(Village head, Commune Ea Trang, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

“All EM people here can speak Vietnamese language fluently. But some pretend that they don’t understand

Vietnamese when the officers come to give information on birth control. Those people normally speak

Vietnamese very well.”

(Staff, Women’s Union, Province Quang Nam)

At implementation level: The modest participation of vulnerable target groups in infrastructure

construction in Project area can be explained by several reasons. Objectively, this is not

permanent and long-term job opportunity; therefore, it is not an appealing choice for beneficiaries.

Besides simple manual works such as supporting in site clearing, carrying materials, the others

require certain skills that local workers have not been trained. Subjectively, according to many

interviews with contractors and local officials, indigenous EM young workers are not very

disciplined, spontaneous, off-and-on way of work; hence, it is very risky to hire them. In this aspect,

all the contractors demonstrate that they understand the advantage of labor cost saving when

employing local workers. Given the concerns as above-mentioned, contractors often bring labor

from other places, or hire only local Kinh workers.

Regarding livelihood supports, the survey results demonstrate that vulnerable households only

conduct traditional livelihoods. They produce food and raise animals to supply their daily

consumption with simple traditional experiences. Market linkages are just in form of irregular small

scale selling of some output products to increase income to cover daily expenses. The use of

agricultural materials to increase productivity and application of intensive cultivation techniques are

also implemented but not common among vulnerable groups in Project area. Therefore, without

training and effective information dissemination, it will be difficult for vulnerable groups to receive

and apply new production models.

“In order to promote the “talented farmers” movement, we establish clubs for farmers of same interests, create

favorable conditions for them to observe, study and new production models. Selected households are often

poor ones who are lack of production experience.”

(Staff, Farmers’ Union, Province Kon Tum)

53

2.2.3 Some cultural, ritual practices affecting the Project implementation

The field study shows the importance of some cultural and ritual practices that may have potential

impacts on the Project, including:

Firstly, the community spirit and the role of the elderly in creating consensus in community life are

important factors. The community spirit often results in leveling off benefits as well as creating

concessions or selective consensuses in order to gain fractional benefits. This will deteriorate

efforts of some proactive households and create free-rider mentality in some others. There are

feedbacks on the matter of benefit leveling off in classifying poor households as follows:

“The classification of poor households is conducted transparently in the village meetings. However, there are

cases where both the husband and the wife in a poor household do nothing but drinking all day long (poverty

is the result of laziness) – work for one day then drink for three days, but then they are still qualified to be poor

household to be benefited from Government policy”

(FGDs with H’Re EM women, Commune Ba Kham, Province Quang Ngai)

“Last year, my family was classified as poor household. At the end of the same year, communal official came

and told us that we were still poor household but would not be able to enjoy policies supporting poor

households any more; we have to be excluded from the list for the other households to be in. Hence, in the

meeting, we are no longer in the considering list”

(Female farmer, District Krong No, Province Dak Nong)

“There are many poor households, but poor ones due to laziness should not be helped. However, they are still

qualified to benefits from pro-poor policies”

(FGDs with EM groups, District Krong No, Province Dak Nong)

Secondly, the role of folk doctrine in daily life and production, especially religious rituals and

traditional parties to celebrate seeding, harvesting, disease curing, wedding, funerals, often costs

much money and time; some families are even in debt due to the expenses for those custom.

Hence, the custom has certain negatively effects on the production development.

“There are many festivals with various offering and abstaining rituals, affecting the production. When

conducting the offering rituals, people have to cease working, even in the middle of the harvest or in the time

of urgent fertilizing. Each festival takes place in up to 10 days; the festival to celebrate the harvest last about

10 days. If a family has thunderstorm stricken on their field, then they have to offer seven (7) buffalos, not until

they have offer that number of buffalos can they resume cultivating on that field”

(Village head, Commune Phuoc Chanh, District Phuoc Son, Province Quang Nam)

“The ritual of sharing assets to the dead people still exists. The biggest expense is on offering parts of a

buffalo to the dead one, a little of every part: leg, head, tail, etc., offering pork, wine, and rice. The whole

village will come and help. This ritual is consuming, but that’s the custom, we have no way but to follow”

(FGDs with H’Re women, Village Dong Ram, Commune Ba Kham, Province Quang Ngai)

Thirdly, the routines in daily life are originated from the kaingin cultivation agriculture and extensive

farming of indigenous EM compatriots in self-sufficiency model, resulting in monotonous routine,

slow pacing of life with vague sense of pressure; the free lifestyle, especially farming routines that

require little effort and investment. These can be the factors barring the compatriots’ mentality from

accessing new things, particularly intensive farming models, plants and animals that need

complicated cultivation and breeding procedures, or exploit the forestry resource.

“In our village, we use neither fertilizer nor manure. Farmers only sow the seed and wait to harvest. They think

that the soil quality is good enough so no need fertilizer.”

(Village elder, Commune Phuoc Chanh, Province Quang Nam)

54

“Commune authority assigns 1500 ha to 55 households (i.e. 30 ha/household) to protect, plant, and develop

the forest (forest land allocation to EM people in accordance to Program 304, 2007 of Government). EMs

people are provided with rice, money and allowed to exploit forestry resources. However, up to now,

beneficiaries are too lazy to develop the forest, they only protect it. These forests are rich forests. The

allocation is not effective because the beneficiaries neglect their allocated forests for the hijackers to destroy”

(Communal official, District Kon Rat, Province Kon Tum)

Fourthly, many indigenous EMs are matriarchy. However, the family heading role of the women

means that they have to take over the heavy works like men. At the same time, heading role does

not necessarily mean that women will participate more actively into community activities. In fact, in

matriarchy and patriarchy societies, the women rarely represent their households to take part in

social life like men do.

Box 2.7: Opinions demonstrating that despite their important role in the family, women have limited

roles in community activities

“In matriarchy indigenous EM families, women make decision, they also work harder on farm than men do,

but men attend training Section more regular, hence, the training efficiency is limited”

(Agriculture officer, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

“The gender equality is improved, but husbands provide just a little help. We have to manage the

housework, take care of children, we have to earn money and take care of the housework at the same time”

(FGDs with women, Commune Ea Trang, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

“Women do more housework than men”

(Farmers in Chu Mo, Ia Pa District, Province Gia Lai)

”Women work harder than men do; they take care of everything in family: raising children, educating them,

cooking, farming. Men think that’s women’s responsibility to take care of the housework so they don’t care

about it, they just do the farming.”

(Staff, Division of EM Affairs, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“Women here are very poor because they have limited education, limited participation in social activities,

get married soon, and then work on kaingin to earn their living. About 60% of them take part in some

unions, the remainder rarely participate such activity, so they have little access to information and

technologies applicable to production.”

(Staff, Women’s Union, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“Women’s competence is more limited than men. In meetings they can interpret only 50-70%; they are

more reluctant and shy than men. Women often communicate in local language, so when disseminate

information, the officer have to speak little and slowly.”

(Staff, Women’s Union, Province Quang Nam)

Source: Social Assessment Survey 2013

Fifthly, in two recent decades, Catholicism and Evangelicalism with faiths and rules has been

becoming more and more popular in the Project area. Their religious values have made significant

impacts on people’s way of living such as they encourage people to quit smoking, reduce drinking,

simplify wedding and funeral rituals, expand the traditional social network. Catholicism and

Evangelicalism also have effect on traditional community life, people believe in and live up to

religious faiths and rules instead of traditional rituals.

Sixthly, the existence of biases and stereotyping about EMs, especially about indigenous EM

compatriots, also increase the vulnerability of disadvantageous groups. The problem of biases and

55

stereotyping about indigenous EM compatriots in the Central Highlands has been mentioned in

some previous studies on EMs and development. This Assessment reaffirms the existence of

these biases and stereotyping in project areas. It is necessary to emphasize that this Assessment

is not aimed to give judgment whether these biases and stereotyping are “right or wrong’; it only

synthesizes some existing biases at the locality, and basing on that to give some warnings and

recommendations for the Project designing. Therefore, the recognition of these biases and

stereotyping reflects reality but not necessarily reflects the opinion of consulted groups or involved

organizations. With such approach, biases about indigenous EMs compatriots involve some major

matters as follows:

Regarding general perception/understanding, the common bias towards EM compatriots is that

they have lower level of education than the average, they are slow in improving and even

backward.

”Indigenous E De people are not as smart as migrants from the North of Vietnam. The migrants work harder

to increase income; they are more flexible so their productivity is 1.2-1.5 times higher than that of indigenous

EM people. Indigenous people are lazy; their custom does not favor far-distance moving or risky activities.”

(In-depth interviews with enterprise’s representatives, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

Regarding livelihoods, the common bias is that indigenous EM compatriots only rely on

traditional ways of cultivating and breeding, which require little effort, hence, productivity is low.

Moreover, because they are used to these methods, it will be difficult for them to apply new

cultivation methods requiring a lot of time and effort. In addition to that, EM compatriots don’t

usually have practices of saving money. They spend huge expenditures on festivals (mostly for

parties), they do not have accumulation to reinvest in production.

”EM people rely on the fertility of soil. They don’t use manure; some officers show them how to use fertilizer.

People don’t know how to use rat killers. Last year, they applied some rat killing methods, but then, rat

reproduced even more."

(Village head, Commune Phuoc Thanh, District Phuoc Son, Province Quang Nam)

“Traditional custom and habits have large impact on production. Cows, goats and pigs are mostly fed to serve

village’s rituals. If one family has some kind of rituals, such as funeral, the whole village cease working and

organize feasts in 2-3 days, it affects negatively to their living. The soil is fertile, but they seriously lack of

techniques and don’t want to learn.”

(Communal official, District Ia Pa, Province Gia Lai)

“The indigenous EM people only do farming. Thus, migrating Kinh people, who come later, only have land to

run services or trading such as fertilizer and rice milling.”

(Communal official, Commune Chu Mo, District Ia Pa, Province Gia Lai)

Regarding the participation in labor market, the bias is that EM young workers do not obey

working disciplines and time. They are not familiar with machine operations, thus, they are not able

handle complicated works and not suitable to the factory working environment.

“As a business, we have to assure our benefit, so we don’t want to employ indigenous EM workers. We only

hire them when investing in forest planting because they are more honest and have more experiences than

Kinh people”

(In-depth interviews with enterprise’s representatives, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

“We don’t have in-house workers. When we have forest planting project, we will find 200 people. The work

doesn’t require special skills and EM people here are familiar with it. For works that require technical

knowledge, we don’t trust them because they are incapable of doing those works. Anyway, employing Kinh

people is better.”

56

(In-depth interviews with forestry enterprise’s representatives, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“If the EM people work hard, they can do simple works. For example, Kinh people take over the technical

works (person-in-charge) and EM people can assist in simple manual works. Indigenous EM people are poor

but they are very lazy, they don’t want to work. When there is a festival, they skip work. Their cognitive ability

is lower than Kinh people’s. Kinh people only need brief explanation, but for EM people, we have to explain

many times. Moreover, EM people always want to receive payment right at the end of working day because

they are afraid that employer will not pay and also because they need money to cover daily expenses.

Therefore, EM people don’t have labor contract while Kinh people have because they get payment by month.”

(In-depth interviews with representatives of construction enterprises, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

Regarding the access to socio-economic development programs and policies, the common

bias is that most of EM compatriots passively rely on free support; they do not make effort to

overcome poverty.

Regarding the access to funding, there is a bias that EM compatriots do not know how to use

funding effectively; therefore they often cannot repay the loan.

”EM people are lazy and often passively rely on Government supports. Some households don’t do anything

but drinking. Some others rely on supports and don’t work, even though the elders and officials have

explained and helped.”

(An elder in village, Commune Phuoc Chanh, District Phuoc Son, Province Quang Nam)

“EM people don’t know how to do business (planting tree, feeding animals) effectively. Funding has been

invested quite a lot, but it’s still not efficient. Due to low level of education, they rely and depend on the

support from Government; they take what the Government provides. If the project requires contribution from

them, it will be very difficult to implement.”

(Communal official, Commune Chu Mo, District Ia Pa, Province Gia Lai)

“10-15% of poor households in the village are due to laziness, they don’t want to work. Therefore, the project

should require their commitment and have proper supervision. In the ADB project [planting acacia, improving

garden structure to plant fruit trees], beneficiaries are provided with baby plants, fertilizer and termite killer.

The project area is 200ha of non-commercial forest land. The implementation outcomes are evaluated by

ADB. If the outcome is good, beneficiaries will receive payment for their labor. All the beneficiary households,

regardless of their outcomes, have to refund 15% of the initial investment to reinvest in other households

(applicable to all households). Even when applying that procedure, the effectiveness is only 50%.”

(Village head, Commune Ae Trang, District M’Drak, Province Dak Lak)

The above-mentioned biases may cause risks to indigenous EM groups – the main targets of these

biases – in accessing Project supports [such biases toward migrant EM groups are rare]. As

several citations in this Assessment mentioned, migrant EM groups in the area are considered

active, hard-working, they pay attention to accumulating land and overcome poverty in only 3-5

years].The current Project design applies CDD - Community Driven Development approach and

emphasizes that the development plan must be formulated based on beneficiaries’ needs.

However, due to the bias on the limited cognitive ability of indigenous EM groups, they may not be

fully engaged in, or only formally consulted in the consultation and planning phases of the Project.

Secondly, according to the current design of Component II, livelihood models in Sub-component

2.2 are aimed at market linkage livelihoods and generating sustainable, high income.

Nevertheless, the bias on the limited ability to apply technology and production organization of

indigenous EM groups will pose a risk that the participation of these groups in Sub-component 2.2

will be low. Instead, they will receive simple livelihood supports in Sub-component 2.1, focusing

mainly on assuring food security. Thirdly, the opportunities for indigenous EM young workers to be

employed by construction contractors are low (as projected in Component I and Sub-component

3.1) due to bias on their discipline at work and limited ability in performing complicated works.

57

Overalls, it can be concluded that the existing cultural mechanisms, religions, biases can also lead

to certain impacts on the implementation of the Project, both positively and negatively. Particularly,

the living and production practices that have established over generations and relied on kaingin

cultivation and self-sufficient model, are considerable obstacles to access to new production

models, which require initial investment and significant efforts in cultivating. In addition, although

the religious custom and rituals, especially festivals and funerals, tend to be simplified, they may

still have significant effects to the investment in production and the sustainability of some

livelihoods because they still disturb beneficiaries’ decision on using livelihood assets (for

examples, slaughtering cattle while still in production process) or to abandon cultivation for a long

period due to communal events (e.g. festivals, rituals). Besides, if a proper intervention strategy is

not deployed, women, even those in matriarchy societies, may not participate actively in the

consultation and planning activities of the Project. The existing biases prevent beneficiaries from

fully engaging into the community-driven development and some Sub-components of the Project.

2.3 Verifying the suitability of the CHPov Project’s livelihood strategies

Collecting feedbacks and comments of related stakeholders and beneficiaries are amongst the

main focuses of the Social Assessment. During field survey, the Project’s strategies, principles,

basic design of components, models and implementation methods were shared with all relevant

stakeholders and beneficiaries in the project areas in order to collect feedbacks for the Project’s

design. However, it should be noted that the Feasibility Study of this Project was in its second

phase of development during the time of this field survey (December 2012 and January 2013).

Hence, the feedbacks reflected in this Report are towards the design of the Project at that time.

Generally, the draft of Project’s design, interventions and the proposed main activities are highly

appreciated. This report does not systematically summarize positive feedbacks, but instead,

summarize all feedbacks from beneficiaries and related stakeholders on issues that need further

considerations during the completion process of Project’ design and implementation at later

stages. All remarkable feedbacks are clustered into 3 main categories as follows.

2.3.1 Remarkable feedbacks on infrastructure development supports

In general, it was agreed upon that the construction of infrastructure will be implemented in the

direction to support livelihood development. However, comments on infrastructure scope and

investment budget are quite different, as of follows:

Regarding district infrastructures: The Project’s policy is to encourage development of

connective infrastructure. Connective infrastructure here refers to both ‘hard’ infrastructure (such

as road and irrigation, etc) and ‘soft’ infrastructure (such as market information). However,

connective infrastructure is not clearly defined in the Project design, and ‘connectivity’ is

understood by staff as different meanings. Most of district staff, especially district PPU, raised their

‘concerns’ during in-depth interviews, such as:

“What is connectivity, we don’t even understand. Is the inter-communes road considered connectivity, or must

it connect with the market ?”

(district PPU staff, Province Kon Tum)

or “Whether a bridge connecting an arterial road, but locates in just one commune is considered connectivity

or not?”

(district PPU staff, Quang Ngai province)

“We are so concerned about the connective infrastructure, since we are not explained clearly, whether a

market is considered connective infrastructure or not?”

58

(district PPU staff, Province Dak Nong)

Besides, a ‘hard’ connective infrastructure that could create important connection in terms of

transportation or infrastructure often required an enormous investment (even higher than the

expected funds for Component 3 at district level). It suggests that the term ‘connectivity’ should be

interpreted more clearly in the Project documents as any district infrastructure that could

strengthen the connection between district and communes, and between different communes are

classified ‘connective infrastructure’. A ‘soft’ connective infrastructure can be interpreted as any

supports to enhance cooperation/partnership between different stakeholders who involving directly

or indirectly in social-economic development at the locality, such as provision of information on

labor market, or changes in agriculture product prices.

Regarding commune infrastructure: Several issues are raised as follows:

Firstly, community procurement is highly appreciated, however detailed guidance on

implementation, and simplified procedure to facilitate community’s participation in construction,

especially procedure of advanced payment and settlement, are agreed to be of necessity.

Secondly, priority in mobilizing local labor in infrastructure construction is fully aware but its

capacity to meet work requirements is a question. In addition, the mechanism to encourage

contractors to use local labor needs more clarification, so that contractors have more incentives to

make long-term and earnest commitments in mobilizing and training local labor.

“Our company totally agrees with the Project’s requirement of using at least 50% local labor”

(Construction company, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

Thirdly, in addition to infrastructure serving livelihood development, several typical infrastructure

works are proposed during interviews, such as: electricity construction (mostly electricity line from

electricity pole to households), classrooms (for school sites at villages and schools at communes),

cultural houses, supplementation of equipments for commune health centers, restrooms, and even

lighting systems. Nevertheless, according to viewpoints of officials at commune and district level,

these typical infrastructure like electricity construction, schools, cultural houses, etc, has already

been supported by many other programs now and maybe in the future. Thus, as agreed by

different respondents, Project’ s supports in infrastructure development can still be focused on

serving livelihood development.

Moreover, a number of common issues on infrastructure at commune and district level are also

reported. Based on observations of other programs/projects, a lot of respondents think that the

Project should identify the maximum investment value for infrastructure sub-projects in line with

level of decentralization for commune investment owner. Besides, integration with activities funded

by other sources in the project areas are also posed as a quiz for the Project to solve. Given the

proposed fund allocation in CHPov may not be sufficient for the demand of basic infrastructure

development in the project areas, and a lot of other programs/projects have also supported

infrastructure development in the same areas, it raises the question of how to integrate different

funding in order to ensure the focus on key infrastructure and to improve efficiency. Up to present,

all stakeholders show concerns on differences in procurement procedure and financial

management applied by Vietnam and development partners. These differences may hinder the

possibility of fund integration.

“There are 24 settlement projects, but only 6 being implemented. It is because of capital shortage. Donors

don’t approve disbursement due to weak and false management

(Staff, DARD, Province Dak Lak)

59

“The fund was not used efficiently by district authorities. They will use whatever funding they have without

reviews, evaluation, or integration of funding. There are a lot of fundings, however due to disagreement of

management and time differences, thus it may be difficult to achieve affiance”.

(District official, District Ia Pa, Province Gia Lai)

2.3.2 Remarkable feedbacks on livelihood development supports

Feedbacks on livelihood development supports are clustered into 2 main categories, namely the

mechanism to support LEGs and specific supporting activities of the Project.

2.3.2.1 Regarding the mechanism to support LEGs

According to feedbacks from beneficiaries and local officials at all levels, the following issues

should be paid great attention.

Firstly, a lot of related stakeholders interpret LEGs as the former ‘collective production model’ in

economic central-planning mechanism during Vietnam’s subsidy period, thus certainly realizing no

effectiveness. This is not the correct interpretation of the Project’s design, however it shows that

LEGs are not common/popular in the project areas.

“Common ownership is not a good way. If the Project provides 10 cows, then just distributing them among 5

households, rather than giving to production groups. If beneficiaries interpret supports as group activities, it

will fails. The activities should be 100% privatization. Supports must be provided to each individual household,

and negotiable amongst the groups.

(District official, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

Secondly, a lot of local officials claimed that it’s important for these LEGs to avoid formality. In

other words, after establishment, these LEGs must have regular activities, knowledge sharing; at

the same time, specific regulations of collaboration amongst LEG members must be apparent.

“In recent time, there is a rice cultivation model having applied for 3 years but after project’s conclusion,

people go back to old practices and wait for supports from the Government. They always think “Why

supported last year, but not this year?”

(Staff, DARD, Province Kon Tum)

“We promoted vegetable planting in their home garden, but they didn’t follow. We told them how to grow

vegetable in their garden, but when we left, they just went to the forest to do cultivation and stopped

gardening”

(Staff, WU, Province Kon Tum)

“For example, the Central Poverty Reduction Project has a large investment fund and supports fertilizers and

seeds. However, project staff does not come to households [to provide instructions], but only focus on fund

disbursement instead”.


Thirdly, respondents show great concerns on whether the majority of members in each LEG are within the

same ethnic groups. This would create complexity if this event occurs, because it may enhance interaction

between members of LEGs but reduce interaction between different ethnic groups.

“The model of LEGs in the Central Poverty Reduction Project is successful because LEG members are from

the same ethnic groups. It is so difficult to integrate Kinh group with other ethnic groups. Kinh group seems to

be more wise and takes all the benefits”.

(Communal official, District Dak To Re, Province Kon Tum)

“The model of supporting the rich aims at pulling up the poor and training the poor. LEG members should

include people with good, average and low skills. And farmers should implement model replication through the

establishment of Farmer Union’s centers”

60

(Staff, Provincial Farmer Union, Province Dak Nong)

Fourthly, LEG leaders and active members will play an important role in ensuring the sustainability of the

group after receiving supports from the Project. Their [important or hindering] roles are shared in some

discussions as follows:

“There is a man in Chu Reng commune receiving a cow since 2008. Now he has 5 cows and sell 2 already.

He is elected as LEG leader, so the group is running very well. Other households learn from him and even sell

cows to have money to send kids to schools and pay for medical expenses”.

(Staff, DOLISA, Province Kon Tum)

“People are the key, choosing the right people who want to overcome poverty is the determinant for success.

Normally, poor households are hard-working. You should select the best man whom people listen to and can

make decision for the group.”


“There will be little cooperation since the leader sees no interest/benefit, he/she just want to be a normal

member, and so they don’t care much and take no responsibility. Sometimes, the leader even don’t know

anything when we ask, he/she only know what they do, and don’t know about others.”

(Official, DOLISA, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“Amongst those migrated from province Thanh Hoa or Me Kong region, they do help each other. If someone

knows how to do good business, he/she will help other people and people really trust him/her”.

(FGDs, commune Quang Phu, District Krong No, Province Dak Nong)

2.3.2.2 Regarding scope of supports and activities

According to beneficiaries, their main focus still lies on distribution of seed/livestock and

agricultural inputs. In this respect, according to the current Project’s design, LEGs will receive

fundings to buy seeds/livestock and necessary agricultural inputs after developing implementation

plan. However, this raises a lot concerns for beneficiaries because they do not have much

experience with LEG operation. In addition, supports for several new models are also proposed for

different reasons, with emphasis on effective communication/persuasion on indigenous ethnic

minorities to apply successful models – which implemented by other households in the same

village/hamlets and/or in the same ethnic group. Besides, there are a lot of comments on the

sustainability of livelihood activities after the completion of the Project.

“There are successful production models amongst ethnic minorities; however they are discontinued when

supports are no longer provided. Animal raising is successful, but then no reproduction. The main reason is

that production has yet become a habit for them”.

(Official, DOLISA, Province Dak Lak)

This raises a concern regarding the number of production cycles that the Project will support LEGs

in order for LEGs to maintain their livelihood activities after a certain number of cycles. Technical

training is emphasized as an essential factor for people to absorb new technique. However, it is

agreed by beneficiaries and local officials at all levels that technical training must be designed

appropriately to audiences, the training content should be easy to understand, and repeated

trainings should be provided for complicated/difficult livelihood activities.

61

2.3.3 Remarkable feedbacks on capacity building activities and project

management

Regarding the Project’s design at the time when this assessment was conducted, beneficiaries and

officials at all levels suggest almost no remarkable feedbacks on the proposed project

management. The following only summarizes main feedbacks on certain issues.

Regarding commune being investment owner, there are two main themes in feedbacks. The first

group thinks that commune investment owner will pose a lot of risks to the Project, because the

capacity of communal officials are at low level, and they do not have much experience with WB

loan projects. The second group thinks that decentralization is necessary despite limited capacity

of communal authorities. The decentralization will enable building capacity for communal officials

otherwise they would remain in the trap of low capacity. However, feedbacks generally show

agreement to the decentralization of the role of investment owner to commune level. But it was

suggested that such decentralization should come with clear roadmap and a concerted capacity

building process should be provided for officials at all levels, especially commune level.

“Effective supports are resulted from improved capacity at levels – production supports should come with

guidance in implementation and up-scaling. Moreover, local officials should also have better capacity to

provide required supports for farmers. Communal officials now do not have such required capacity”

(Staff, Provincial Board of Ethnic Minorities Affairs, Province Dak Lak)

”Investment owner roles can by assumed by commune authorities. They are capable now because district

officials are enhanced and decentralization has been gradually put into practice. It is required to have at least

a bachelor certificate to be a public servant. Constructions are implemented quite well because communal

officials live with people and know their needs. An investment of about VND500 million – VND1 billion can be

managed at commune level but VND2 billion may be beyond their capacity and should be placed under

district level management”

(Staff, District Division of Ethnic Minorities Affairs, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

“They are capable of handling works of PMU at commune level, however the remunerations must be clear to

create incentives for them. It should take advantages of their experiences in implementing commune level

constructions”

(Project staff, district PMU, District Ia Pa, Province Gia Lai)

Regarding remunerations for project staff at all levels, all the stakeholders consulted agreed that

the Project should recruit full-time project staff at provincial and district levels, because their current

workloads are already intensive. Besides, there are still a lot of discussions upon the

remunerations for project staff, especially related to long-term development and personnel

planning (for those expectedly to be assigned in PMU by PPC at levels) and the possibility to be

recruited as public servant government staff (for contracted staff) at the end of the Project.

“There must be a good organization structure and human structure. There are many staff who concurrently

hold different positions in different projects. There is even one person holding positions in 3-4 projects”

(PPMU, Province Quang Nam)

“No communal official have education at university level except persons assigned under Project 60. Most of

communal officials are from local ethnic minorities and their capacity is very limited”

(Staff, district Division of Agriculture and Rural Development, district Phuoc Son, Quang Nam)

Regarding technical assistance and capacity building, given the current project design, capacity

building is seen as an emerging priority in order to ensure that project staff all levels, especially at

commune/village level, is equipped with adequate knowledge on project management, particularly

on procurement. Capacity building must be conducted on a regular basis enhacned by repeated

62

trainings, short-term trainings with knowledge sharing and experience sharing with other relevant

programs/projects. In addition, technical assistance is of necessity for the implementation of the

Project at locality, especially for the implementation of market linkage livelihoods, monitoring and

evaluation, etc. so that all activities are carried out as planned in the Project’s design.

“The Project has been prepared for 6 months already, however a lot of district and communal officials do not

fully understand the Project. Due to their limitation in capacity and information gathering so they do likely not

to meet the Project’s requirements”

(Project staff, PPU, Province Dak Lak)

“The Project should focus on capacity building in the areas of project management. But local staff is the key

determinant, as “good staff, then good works”. Therefore, we need to create a good human resource for

village-level education, including preschools”

(Staff, Provincial Board of Ethnic Minorities Affairs, province Gia Lai)

“The most important thing is to enhance community capacity, to change the knowledge of indigence,

especially the beneficiaries. The trainings and instruction must be clear.”

(District officials, District Kon Ray, Province Kon Tum)

Therefore, it can be concluded that there are both opportunities and obstacles arising from

management structures/entities influencing Project implementation. Along with supports from local

authorities, limitations in capacity and working practices of government officials, especially

communal officials, who directly participate in project implementation are obvious challenges. If

these challenges are not addressed at the very beginning, Project’s success can be advisedly

affected. Cultural and traditional institutions as well as biases appear to have invisible but

threatening power over participation of vulnerable groups in the Project. Therefore, if activities to

build capacity, establish mechanisms promoting participation, bring people into play, and remove

biases are not put in place, impacts from livelihood improvement will be limited.

63

CHAPTER 3: CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

3.1 Conclusions

Based on the primary and secondary data collected from in-depth interviews and focus group

discussions with related stakeholders, this Social Assessment provides a multidimensional and

systematic analysis on the vulnerable beneficiaries of the Project. It can be concluded that the

CHPov is targeting those who have higher poverty rate in terms of income and other aspects (such

as access to basic services including clean water, sanitation). Their poverty status is examined as

suggested in the theoretical framework SLA and classified into two main categories: (i) access to

livelihood capital and (ii) vulnerability context/factors. The results show that the most vulnerable are

the poorest, who are mainly the indigenous ethnic minorities and spontaneous ethnic minority

migrants in recent years [within the past 5 years] and women (either in patriarchy or matriarchy).

These findings are not new and are reflected in previous studies. However, this Assessment

provides a regional-comparison between the project areas (130 selected communes in 26 districts

in 6 provinces) with other areas that are not covered by the Project and with the national average

so that the vulnerability of the Project’s beneficiaries, their gap/difference in economic, social status

and their disadvantaged accessibility to specific resources for livelihood development are

highlighted.

The Assessment shows that the necessity for livelihood development is the access to livelihood

capitals (include natural capital, human capital, physical capital, financial capital and social capital).

The ethnic minorities are likely to be more vulnerable than the Kinh in the project areas; women-

headed households are more vulnerable than those of man-headed. Land capital is reported not to

be an disadvantage for the indigenous ethnic minorities in terms of areas, due to their land

accumulation from ancients; however their land usage is less efficient than that of the Kinh and

migrant ethnic groups. The reasons are due to their unskillful workforce and traditional production

practices that rely mainly on natural conditions with limited adaptation of new and more productive

techniques. Not to mention, transfer of land ownership of indigenous ethnic minorities to cover the

cost occurring family’s internal shocks (e.g. sickness, death) has reduced cultivation areas of these

groups. However, access to social capital (within the small community) of the indigenous ethnic

minorities, migrant ethnic groups is quite good. Women groups can access to social capital through

programs promoting economic development and enhancement of women’s role/participation.

Though considered as more vulnerable, women are confirmed as the key contributors to economic

development due to their diligence, hard-working, non-alcoholness, activeness in learning and

participating in every activities of programs/projects implemented in the locality; women also take

more responsibility and important role in housework. Thus, supporting women in improving their

livelihood activities is a necessity. Another encouraging factor is that despite the limitation in

access to the most important natural capital, production land, the migrant ethnic groups have

exhibited determining efforts in adapting to the destination. They are usually found with hard-

working, diligence, willingness to improve conditions for production (such as small irrigation,

application of techniques). Therefore, their possibility of escaping from poverty and vulnerability is

relatively high, if the current polices on resettlement for the migrant ethnic groups in some localities

are more inclusive and effective.

The Assessment reconfirms the external factors that could increase the vulnerability of the

inhabitants in the project areas in general and the vulnerable in particular. Shocks include disasters

(floods, drought), diseases (include harmful pest like mice) have caused serious and unavoidable

damages such as loss of assets, human and crops. The coping capacity of the better-off

households seems to be considerably higher compared to the less better-off. Consequently, the

poor, indigenous ethnic minorities and women-headed households are most vulnerable in falling

back into poverty after shocks and recovery could take years. Trends that could increase their

64

vulnerability such as price fluctuations of key crops of the locality (include annual crops and

industrial crops) can push the poor and their agricultural livelihoods into an insecure status.

Another obvious trend being confirmed during the field survey is the migration flow from different

regions (including migration of the Kinh and ethnic minorities), of which those migrated from the

Northern mountains and poor provinces in the Central Vietnam (Thanh Hoa, Nghe An, Quang

Ngai, etc) has made significant changes for the socio-economic conditions of the project areas. It is

noted that positive changes exerted from migration are found during the field survey, namely

acculturation with the Kinh/migrant ethnic groups helps indigenous ethnic minorities to learn more

about agricultural production, to be more active in using capital and accessing information, etc.

However, the uncontrolled migration has caused difficulties for the local authority in providing

sufficient resettlement support for these groups (especially in productive land allocation and

residential planning). Thus, land trading between indigenous and migrant ethnic groups in these

areas are often spontaneous without control from the local authority. In some cases, this created

some tension between the indigenous and the migrants. The Project itself will not create another

disadvantaged ‘shock’ for the project beneficiaries, for example the event of loosing land

unwillingly due to the implementation of the Project will likely not happen, and the Resettlement

Policy Framework for people that may loss their land is currently developed in the Feasibility Study

of this CHPov.

The Assessment has also reviewed essential conditions for the implementation of the Project

interventions, namely the current [cultural] norms/ processes [participation, democracy]/policies

[poverty reduction, residential settlement] of the locality, as well as management

structures/stakeholders involving in the implementation of the Project. The Project is facing with a

‘double’ difficulty as confirmed by numerous viewpoints and factual information related to these

issues. A ‘double’ difficulty refers to the situation when neither the essential conditions [as

mentioned above] are favorable, nor the sufficient conditions are ready. This situation is reported to

happen amongst the key stakeholders from the Government authorities, for example it is difficult to

have a team of project management officers at all levels who are both dedicated and qualified.

However, it is encouraging that all government sectoral agencies show strong commitments on

collaboration in implementing the Project. But similarly to other ongoing programs/projects, the

effectiveness of this collaboration may be not as high as expected. And for some sectors

(especially the agricultural sector), as shared by most of the officers, their works is relatively

overload with daily work and management and so are specialized agencies (extension, veterinary,

plant protection). In spite of their extensive and broad network (down to the village level), their

capabilities and time committed to the Project remain as a concern. Especially with communal

officials – who will involve in a lot of commune investment processes under Component 1 and Sub-

component 2.1 and 2.2, the Assessment is not able to gather common feedbacks to confirm that

these groups are capable of delivering the expected role in the Project.

Regarding other stakeholders such as civil organizations (WU, Farmer Union), it is confirmed in the

SA that these ‘mass’ organizations has made positive contributions to past and present

programs/projects. These organizations are important and their roles need to be promoted in the

CHPov (as reflected quite sufficiently in the current project design). Regarding private sector,

construction firms are reported to participate actively as agreed to the commitment of mobilization

of more than 50% local labor in infrastructure works. However, agricultural and forestry

businesses are concerned about the possibility of involvement of the indigenous ethnic minorities

in their workplace, due to their lack of perception towards working contracts, working in

organization and skillful tasks. There have been not many positive signs of the effectiveness of the

community groups [established and active groups] who would likely to become key stakeholders in

the CHPov. There are only few women teams/groups established with supports from the local WU

are confirmed to operate efficiently.

65

Regarding the current cultural institutions/participation process/poverty reduction at locality, the SA

has collected proof to show that some important implications. (i) Cultural/religious institutions may

expose some hidden barriers to the production process such as costly festival, traditional

cultivation time or practices ingrained into indigenous people, thus even though they have changed

their production practices, but very slowly. However, their habits of living in harmony with the

community and listening to prestigious persons in the village/hamlet is a cultural advantage

because the Project can mobilize these groups to become a ‘leverage’ in the production

groups/organizations as designed currently. (ii) Participation of the local people in general and the

vulnerable in particular (especially indigenous ethnic groups and women) in the planning and

monitoring of the local social-economic development, despite its years of implementation, is still at

low level and mostly initiated by communes rather than people themselves. Limitation in

participating is explained by numerous reasons, such as shyness, habits of not raising voices,

inadequate technical skills, etc. However, there is not many evidences from the SA to suggest that

language is probably a barrier hindering participation (because Kinh language is reported to be

commonly used, and/or there are indigenous ethnic minorities working at commune office in most

of the project communes, and village heads and elderly are the key connection between local

authority and people in meetings, consultation activities). (iii) There have been a number of poverty

reduction and residential settlement programs/policies for spontaneous immigrants in the project

areas, and a lot of innovative model/mechanism encouraging participation and benefiting from

these programs. Nevertheless, as discussed in this SA, the effectiveness of most of these

programs is still limited, and the barrier determinants are discussed thoroughly in the analysis of

this report.

Livelihood strategies as designed in the Project are agreed upon the overall objectives and scopes,

but survey respondents express a lot of concerns/challenges regards to the implementation

approaches (such as LEGs, commune investment owner, community participation in infrastructure

construction and O&M, etc).

In short, this SA has indicated a full picture of the social challenges of the CHPov. The PDO and

livelihood outcomes would be hardly realized if there are lack of innovative but cautious

implementation approaches (fully accounted for the characteristics of the Project beneficiaries),

lack of commitment and concrete guidance from Government authorities at all levels. Some of the

recommendations below should be carefully considered.

3.2 Recommendations

Based on the main findings discussed in Chapter II, the following recommendations are proposed

to bring out the approach or solution in order to get the target, the effectiveness, and the

sustainable impacts of the Project. The recommendations are aimed at the targets, and classified

into two major groups: (i) recommendations to ensure the participation and to maximize the results

of livelihood beneficiaries, (ii) recommendations for entities that have direct or indirect effect to the

success and sustainability of the Project results. Recommendations are also divided into some

groups of issues (capacity building, communication, working mechanisms, etc.) and followed the

process from planning to implementation and monitoring / evaluation.

3.2.1. Recommendations to ensure the participation and benefits for

vulnerable target groups

The recent design of Project mostly consistent with the principles of the SLA framework. Thus it

should be improved continuously. However, all the measures which ensure the active participation

of vulnerable groups in the process of planning, implementation, and benefit from the results of the

66

Project, should be further classified in the recent design. It is necessary to specify regulations

(should be presented in the Project Implementation Manual) to:

(1) Ensure the active participation of vulnerable groups in the consultation and planning process of

the Project. The Project should consider to require a minimum proportion participation of the poor

and EMs households (both indigenous and migrants), and also women in the participatory village

meetings. In addition, the criteria for the participation of vulnerable groups should also be included

in the Project monitoring and evaluation index system. Trainings on participatory planning

procedure for the officials at all levels should place due focus on CDD approach, improving their

skills to mobilize community participation [as analyzed before, this capacity of local officials is still

very limited].

The community consultation meetings should be accompanied by group sessions for indigenous

peoples and must be deployed in their native languages. The contents of consultation meetings

should be built into the simple questionnaire by the forms of “agree” or “disagree” opinions, and an

open part for further opinions. However, it should not require participants to write down, their

opinions or proposals should be recorded by a secretary of the meetings. A framework guiding the

community consultation are presented in Appendix 1 of this Report.

(2) Ensure the participation of vulnerable households in the livelihood activities of the Project.

Detailed regulations on the participation proportion of each target groups (for examples, EM

households, female-headed households) in the Project beneficial groups are necessary. In

addition, number of supporting cycles for livelihoods of vulnerable households should also be

projected so as to sustainably maintain the activities even when the Project stop supporting.

Besides, it is important to ensure that vulnerable households are the prioritized groups in providing

technical training. The Project should form separated groups of women. At the same time,

livelihood development activities should be focused on developing sustainable livelihoods that

require little labor and ownership of machinery or production materials. Female-headed

households should be prioritized in selecting

(3) Ensure that the priorities in infrastructure investment reflect the expectation of vulnerable

beneficiaries. The vulnerable beneficiaries in Project area have typical characteristics, thus, they

have typical needs (e.g. female beneficiaries want to have water supply system, and supports in

constructing supplementary classrooms for schools and kindergartens, etc.). These typical

expectations must be taken into account adequately in the consultation process to formulate

annual plan when the Project comes into effect.

(4) Promote the information dissemination and motivation to encourage the participation of

vulnerable beneficiaries. As for vulnerable groups, particularly the poorest households, their

participation is hindered by the reluctant attitude or doubtfulness about efficiency of supporting

models. Therefore, the information dissemination and motivation must be highlighted to promote

the change and willingness to access new livelihood models. Mass media (broadcasting radio and

television, newspaper) and non-official communication channels such as the influence of respected

elderly in the village, village heads, successful farmers are other ways to make impact on

vulnerable beneficiaries.

To create favorable conditions for the Project to reach vulnerable groups, and ensure that these

groups are benefited from the Project, the information dissemination must concurrently be in local

EM languages. The rights and benefits of beneficiaries are summarizes clearly and printed in

leaflets to give to beneficiaries, especially EM groups in general and indigenous EM groups in

particular.

67

(5) Encouraging the approval of influential individuals in the community such as the elderly, heads

of socio-politic, religious organizations and agencies, promoting the community coherent are

significant factors that need being taken into account in designing Project. This will reinforce the

consensus and approval of community to the Project implementation and increase social capital for

beneficiaries. In this aspect, the participation of respected individuals, particularly the elderly, in

Commune Development Board is necessary. In addition, the Project should pay attention to

motivate the participation of these individuals in the consultation, planning and dissemination

processes.

(6) Existing biases, though cannot be changed in short term, should be one of the discussed

issues among management levels, beneficiaries and enterprises so that these biases will not

deprive target groups of opportunities to participate in the Project. For example, commune

authorities should support construction companies in recruiting local young laborers for the

construction of infrastructures at villages. The training for indigenous EM beneficiaries need to be

designed properly so that they can absorb the technology, and this will disregard the bias that EM

people are not able to learn and apply technology.

(7) In order to enhance the sustainability of livelihoods when the Project ends, trainings must be

closely integrated or mainstreamed into awareness raising activities. Production groups should

hold periodic meetings (every fortnight) in groups of 5-7 people. These meeting is aimed to provide

and revise knowledge. Group members cross check the technical procedures, application of

provided knowledge. These small groups can then be regrouped into bigger groups to have some

kinds of competition. The presenters and demonstration production models in competition must be

from EM people (preferably indigenous ones).

Technical trainings should be repeated, especially training for indigenous EM groups. Training

material should be translated in to local languages; in case that writing system of some EM is not

available, material should be transformed into recordings and illustration. In addition, in order to

ensure the continuing development of skills and knowledge, it is necessary to reinforce the

demonstration models deployed at prestigious households in the community who are able to

absorb, quickly buy in, and implement the models sustainably in the long run.

(8) According to the Project monitoring and evaluation regulations, it is necessary to have

compulsory regulations on consulting beneficiaries’ evaluation (particularly EM and women groups)

on the livelihood outcomes that they benefit from the Project and the significant changes in their

lives thanks to Project’ interventions. This consultation should not only be deployed in periodic

assessments such as mid-term assessment or project completion assessment, but other

independent topic-oriented assessments or non-periodic assessments by central and provincial

Project management levels should also be conducted at communities.

3.2.2. Recommendations on other stakeholders that could have direct and

indirect influences on the Project's success

Regarding officials that could have direct interaction with the beneficiaries: The most

important stakeholders that have key role in mobilizing beneficiaries' participation are commune

and village officials. Thus, in order not to marginalize the vulnerable, there must be a number of

approaches towards the local officials - who will be in direct interaction with the Project's

beneficiaries and implement Project's activities at community level with local people. In particular:

(1) Improving the current regulations on the focus of the capacity building for communal officials.

The current capacity building activities for communal officials presented in the Feasibility Study are

68

regarding commune investment owners, monitoring and evaluation of infrastructure construction

and participatory approaches. According to the research team of this Assessment, the focus of

these current capacity building activities is quite suitable, however the following issues are

suggested or emphasized to be necessary for the communal officials as well as officers from civil

organizations, village officers (village head, elderly): (i) specific skills are equipped (not just only

equipped with knowledge on participatory approaches) in order to promote community participation

in development planning; (ii) capability to handle inquires and complaints from the local people and

capability to provide the relevant information of the Project to the vulnerable targets (women, ethnic

minorities) are also trained; (iii) especially, these officers must be trained to collect M&E

information from the local people and community (such as focus group discussions, most

significant change, questionnaire survey on households).

(2) Requirement that Commune Development Board (CDB) should have members fluent in

language of the most dominant ethnic minorities in the locality. Currently, it is stated in the

regulations of CDB that the Vice Head must be the President/Vice President of the commune WU

to ensure women participation (it is indeed an appropriate and practical regulation). However there

have yet any regulations on the CDB composition to include an official fluent in ethnic minorities’

languages. If CDB can deploy indigenous ethnic minorities official, it will be much better. Field

survey suggests that it is not difficult to find ethnic minority people working as communal officials; a

lot of Commune President and Vice President are indigenous ethnic minorities. These are

favorable conditions to put this regulation into practice.

(3) Regulations on the working frequency between CDB officers at community in the Project

Implementation Manual. As indicated in Chapter 2 of this Report, the establishment of production

groups in the current programs/projects is often at the risk of formalism, hence they are not

sustainable. Therefore, a mechanism to ensure regular interaction between CDB officers and/or

community facilitators (for example periodic visits to LEGs on specific occasions, or on a regular

basis such as by months) is necessary so as to: (i) timely support LEGs when needed; (ii) provide

regular guidance to increase the probability of success of each model; and (iii) evaluate the

practical effectiveness of each model for timely interventions/decisions.

For stakeholders that could influence policies: As suggested in the SLA and along the findings

of this Report, if relying only on the time-bound Project interventions (within the Project duration

from 2014 - 2018), then expectations on systematic changes on the vulnerable context as well as

ensuring accessibility to sustainable livelihoods capital can be realized only when (legal) policies,

regulations and institutions are in good operation and the relationship between public and private

sector is in flavor/supporting for these systematic changes. Therefore, the Project must develop its

own strategies to ensure that these systematic changes will be applied at the local level (within

project provinces) and replicated on a wider scale outside 130 project communes. The strategies

may include the following activities:

(1) Regular policy dialogues at province level on the activities that the Project will initiate and

implement, especially those related to production in groups and agricultural cooperatives.

(2) Knowledge management of the Project should focus on the policy makers at province level.

The main focus should be lesson learnt on how to stabilize production for migrant ethnic groups,

models that could connect ethnic groups together, or how the physical capital supported by the

Project can bring about specific changes (can be quantifiable) to people's lives, etc. Through this

activity, policy makers are provided with sufficient information and practical evidences to develop

appropriate policies for application on a wider scale, outside of the project areas. This is not just a

69

matter of replication of Project's approaches, but also a solution to ensure the sustainability of the

Project outcomes.

(3) Models of businesses to support and cooperate with the poor, ethnic minorities and women in

all forms, if having potential to bring economic benefits to local people in and outside of the project

areas, should be promoted. The Project should take the active and leading role in connecting these

businesses with local authorities by numerous approaches, such as public-private dialogue, or

public-private partnership, etc in order to help the vulnerable easily access to social capital,

physical capital and financial capital from businesses for the purpose of economic development.

3.3. Final remark

Due to the objective and subjective limitation in data collection and report development, there are

several cautious notices in accessing and using results and recommendations from this report.

Firstly, a lot of important findings from this report is summarized on the basis of a relatively small

scale survey, especially the ethnic composition (the Report mentioned 8 ethnic groups with sizable

samples in the total project population, whereas there are more than 40 ethnic groups living in the

project areas). Secondly, the main findings presented here, including feedbacks/recommendations

on the current Project design are mostly based on the draft report of the Feasibility Study on

December 2012 - according to the master plan, the Feasibility Study is required more consolidation

and consultation, thus there would be significant changes between the current Project design (at

the time this Assessment is conducted) with the approved Project design. Thirdly, it should be

noted that the important factor in the Project design is its openness and flexibility as indicated in

the Community Driven Development. Therefore, the Project design will be continuously developed

and adjusted to fit with the beneficiaries after the Project comes into operation. This suggests that

the social policies of the Project would be 'open' to match with new changes amongst the social

impacts of the Project.

70

References

1. CDI (2013), Consolidated Feasibility Study at central level – Poverty Reduction in the Central

Highlands Project, Ministry of Planning and Investment – WB

2. CDI (2012) and IMPP (2012), Feasibility Study at provincial level – Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Gia

Lai, Kon Tum, Quang Nam, Quang Ngai – Poverty Reduction in the Central Highlands Project,

Departments of Planning and Investment of 6 provinces - WB

3. Reports on socio-economic development 2012, 2013 of the surveyed communes

4. Reports on socio-economic status of Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Gia Lai, Kon Tum, Quang Nam,

Quang Ngai 2012, 2013

5. Annual Reports of Departments/Sectors in 6 project provinces: Department of Labor and

Social Invalid, Department of Agricultural and Rural Development, Farmer Union at provincial

level, Women Union, Provincial Project Management Unit, Center of Ethnic Minorities Affairs

6. Annual reports of commune departments/boards – of 6 surveyed districts

7. J.H. Mr. (2006), “Proposed Loan and Technical Assistance Grant Socialist Republic of Viet

Nam: Forests for Livelihood Improvement in the Central Highlands Sector Project” - ADB

8. Rob Swinkels and Carrie Turk (2006): “Explaining Ethnic Minority Poverty in Vietnam: a

summary of recent trends and current challenges” World Bank, Vietnam

9. ‘Sustainable Livelihoods Guidance Sheets’ – DFID

10. Jennifer Rietbergen – Mc Cracken Deepa Narayan (1998) “Participation and Social

Assessment: Tools and Techniques” - The International Bank for Reconstruction and

Development

11. Richard Clark and Alexandra Forrester – 2008 “Vietnam Central Highlands needs Assessment”

– UsAId

12. Several legal documents on the Ethnic Minorities (1999 – 2005) – Center of Ethnic Minorities

Affairs.

13. Pham Thai Hung, Le Dang Trung, Nguyen Viet Cuong - 2011 “Poverty of Ethnic Minorities in

Viet Nam: Situation and Challenges in Programme 135 Phase II Communes, 2006-07” – IRC

14. Manila (2005), “Livelihood Improvement and Ethnic Minorities Development Plan for the

Forests for Livelihood Improvement in the Central Highlands”, Asian Development Bank

15. Baulch, B (2002), “Ethnic Minority Development in Vietnam: A Socio-Economic Perspective”,

Ha Noi, World Bank

16. Andrew Wells- Dang (2012), “Ethnic Minority Development in Vietnam: What leads to

Success?”

17. Gay McDougall (2010)), “Report of the independent expert on minority issues – mission to

Vietnam”

18. Nguyen Viet Cuong (2012), “Spatial Poverty and its Evolution in Vietnam: Insights and Lessons

for Policy from the 1999 and 2009 Vietnam Poverty Maps”

19. UNDP (2010), Human Development Report 2010 “Real Wealth of Nations: Road to Human

Development”,

20. General Statistic Office (2012), “Vietnam Household Living Standards Survey 2010”, Statistical

Publishing House, Ha Noi

21. Pham Quynh Huong and Hoang Cam (2011), “Ethnic prejudices and emerging issues”, Ha noi

22. Hickey, G.C (1982) “Free in the Forest. Ethno history of the Vietnamese Central Highlands

1954-1976”, Yale University Press, New Haven and London

23. IRC, CEMA, UNDP, Finland Embassy (2012), “Impacts of Program 135 – phase II through lens

of baseline and endline surveys”, Ha noi

24. World Bank (2009), “Country social analysis: Ethnicity and Development in Vietnam”,

Washington

71

APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Consultation guidance framework

The Consultation Guidance Framework provides and recommends specific required skills to

assure the consultation effectiveness and motivating beneficiaries to participate in all fundamental

phases of the Project and to apply most effectively and consistently to various social groups in the

Central Highlands, in line with their socio-cultural characteristics.

In the implementation process of CHPov Project, the participation of communities is one of the

important requirements to assure that inhabitant communities in Project area will receive,

contribute and develop ideas to the Project activities. Thus, consulting the communities is to

ensure the Project activities (i) reflect beneficiaries’ expectation, and (ii) are appropriately designed

in line with beneficiaries’ conditions and capacity.

Community consultation is a regular activity that has been deployed throughout the Project

implementation process, from Project formulation to implementation of supporting activities.

Community consultation is deployed at multiple levels: province, district, commune and household.

Among those level, consultation at household level is focused and implemented through meetings

with communities and households, through broadcasting programs of local radio-television

stations. The direct beneficial groups of this Project are vulnerable and disadvantaged ones,

therefore, it is necessary to create favorable conditions for both the consultation groups and

beneficiaries in this activity throughout the Project implementation.

Implementing principles in community consultation process

Ensure the appropriate timing of consultation so that beneficiaries can demonstrate their

opinion and points of view most effectively

Ensure the focus is put on community

Ensure the interactivity of consultation content

Ensure the efficiency and meaning of the consultation content

Ensure the openness, equality and justifiability of the consultation content

Ensure the efficiency of information: Make sure that all the participants have enough time to

understand clearly the consultation content and they themselves become a source of linkage

information

Requirements for Community officers

Implementing principles for Community officers

Understand the Project objective and the role of a community officer

Work with, but not work for, beneficial groups and disadvantaged groups: help them

understand, do not change them. They have the right to demonstrate their understanding and

opinion on their own needs and rights.

Let the beneficiaries demonstrate their thinking and understanding, help them develop

themselves and understand what this Project’s objectives can bring about. The Project

objectives do not only generate income or improve living standard, but also create belief and

self-esteem for individuals and communities as the whole.

Engage beneficiaries’ responsibility into process

Establish and reinforce cooperative organizations in communities

Use simple, friendly and short way of expression

72

Community officer

Project area comprises of locations with diversity of cultures and ethnic minorities; hence,

community officers must be the ones who understand thoroughly about the locality (villages,

communes), about the communities, the language used in his/her responsible location. Most

importantly, they must understand the objectives and activities of the Project.

Community officers can be selected from community, but they must have adequate skills or training

on fundamental skills in the community consultation process. Community officers can also be full-

time officers (at commune level) or part-time officers who are also in charge of other functions.

Community officers are the factor facilitating the accessibility of beneficial groups to the Project and

vice versa, the impact of Project on beneficial groups. Hence,

Community officers are the accelerant that helps connect, share, provide information and

create favorable conditions for the beneficiaries to be open and contribute effectively to the

improvement of their own livelihoods, as well as their needs in terms of infrastructure items.

Community officers are the representatives of beneficial groups in proposing list of livelihood

models, livelihood needs, infrastructure needs as well as their rationales for those proposals.

Community officers are the trainers: they are in charge of training organizational and

management skills for community members. In addition, they also formulate detailed

implementation plan at commune level.

Community officers help contractors recruit laborers for infrastructure construction. The priority

is given to households in need of livelihood supports.

73

Community consultation framework for CHPov Project

Activities Consultation content Role of community and

beneficial groups

Rationale for the

participation of

community

Preparation phase

Collectively consult and

group discussion with

community groups in

Project area:

Formulate Project plan

Formulae livelihood models and list of infrastructure items

Consult on Project implementation plan and activities

Investment and implementation plan

Economic status quo in Project area

Potential livelihood models to apply in Project area

Infrastructure status quo in Project area

Approach to help beneficial groups accessing Project support

Participate in community consultation session

Establish community supervision boards

Provide information needed for the formulation of the Project

Identify their needs and provide information, contributing ideas to consultation group

Ensure the beneficial groups understand Project objectives

Collect information and needs of the beneficiaries

Motivate the direct participation of the beneficial groups

Provide transparent information to beneficiaries

Implementation phase

Consult on the implementation at local level

Consult on implementation of livelihoods

Consult on feasible outcomes of each project phase

Consult on implementation plan of the successive phases

Identify economic efficiency of livelihood models

Formulate, implement Project activities at the area

Evaluate the feasibility and necessity of investment sources

Evaluate efficiencies of livelihood models and infrastructure system

Plan for the multiplying of positive factors in the Project

Prepare solution plan for potential problems in Project implementation

Apply livelihood models at Project area

Participate in the construction of infrastructure at local levels

Supervise and implement Project activities

Participate and contribute idea to improve outcomes of Project area

Identify the status quo of Project implementation

Assess Project results in each phase

Clearly present results of Project activities

Provide information to serve the Project implementation process

Beneficiaries take part in the construction of infrastructures to increase income

74

Outline of a community consultation session

Step 1: Preparation

Select consultation issues and contents that appropriate to Project phase, targeted participants

Identify objective of the consultation session: (i) what are the objectives? (ii) who are the participants? And (iii) What are the expected outcomes?

The invitation to individuals or community must include information about time, venue, objectives of the meeting

In the consultation session at village level, there must be competent interpreter of local languages

Step 2: Meeting – consultation session agenda

Introduce the working agenda

Briefly introduce the project

Introduce guests and participants

Consulting session:

o Focus on evaluating the consulted contents

o Orient the participants to the tentative topics

o Ensure that participants understand the consulted content clearly

Template used in community consultation session

Step 3: Outcomes of the consultation

Evaluate consultation content in line with set objectives

Minutes of Meeting

Other consultation minutes

Synthesize, evaluate comments and ideas of target groups

Summarize the results in line with set objectives

Report the results to Project management agency at higher level

Agenda of community consultation session:

Objectives (Key contents):

Participants:

Time:

Venue:

Detailed contents:

No. Consultation content Time Person in charge Note

1

75

Appendix 2: List of provinces/districts/communes in CHPov Project

NO. Province District Project commune

1 Dak Nong

1 Dak Song Dak N'Rung, Thuan Ha, Dak Hoa, Dak Mol, Truong Xuan

2 Dak Glong Dak R'Mang, Dak Som, Dak P'lao, Dak Ha, Quang Hoa

3 Krong No* Nam Xuan, Quang Phu*, Dak Nang, Tan Thanh, Dak Dro*

4 Tuy Duc Quang Truc, Quang Tam, Dak R'Tih, Dak Ngo, Quang Tan

2 Dak Lak

1 Buon Don Tan Hoa, Ea Nuol, Krong Na, Ea Huar, Ea Wer

2 Krong Bong Cu Dram, Cu Pui, Yang Reh, Ea Trul, Yang Mao

3 Lak Dak Phoi, Dak Nue, Krong No, Nam Ka, Ea R'Bin

4 Ea Sup Ya To Mot, Ia Rve, Ia Lop, Ea Rok, Cu Kbang

5 M' Drak* Ea Trang*, Cu San, Cu Mta*, Krong Jing, Krong A

3 Gia Lai

1 Ia Pa* Ia Kdam, Ia Tul, Chu Mo*, Ia Broai*, Ia Mron

2 K' Bang Kon Pne, Dak Roong, Son Lang, Krong, Lo Ku

3 K rong Cho An Trung, Chu Krey, Dak Po Pho, K ong Yang, Dak To Pang

4 Krong Pa Dat Bang, Krong Nang, Ia Hdreh, Ia Rmok, Chu Ngoc

5 Mang Yang Lo Bang, Kon Thup, De Ar, Dak Troi, Kon Chieng

4 Kon Tum

1 Kon Ray* Dak To Re*, Dak Ruong*, Dak To Lung, Dak Koi, Dak Pne

2 Kon Plong Dak Ring, Dak Tang, Mang But, Mang Canh, Ngoc Tem

3 Ngoc Hoi Dak Nong, Dak Ang, Sa Loong, Dak Duc, Dak Kan

4 Dak Glei Dak Man, Dak Nhong, Dak Long, Dak Kroong, Xop

5 Tu Mo Rong Dak Ro Ong, Dak Sao, Tu Mo Rong, Van Xuoi, Dak Na

6 Sa Thay Ya Ly, Ya Xier, Ya Tang, Ro Koi, Mo Rai

5 Quang Ngai

1 Son Tay Son Mua, Son Long, Son Mau, Son Lien, Son Tinh

2 Ba To* Ba Kham*, Ba Trang*, Ba Le, Ba Giang, Ba To

3 Son Ha Son Nham, Son Ky, Son Linh, Son Cao, Son Thanh

6 Quang Nam

1 Nam Giang Ca Dy, Ta Bhinh, Cha Val , Dak Pre, Dak Pring

2 Nam Tra My Tra Mai, Tra Van, Tra Vinh, Tra Don, Tra Nam

3 Phuoc Son* Phuoc Chanh*, Phuoc Hoa, Phuoc Kim, Phuoc Loc, Phuoc Thanh*

Note: (*) areas in the scope of CHPov Project and conducted field survey for Social Assessment

76

Appendix 3: List of interviewees and participants in group discussions

Dak Nong

No. Full name Gender Position and institution

A. Representatives of Provincial Departments/Sectors

Department of Agriculture and Rural Development

1 Nguyen Huy Phong Male Head of Planning Division

2 Nguyen Huan Truong Male Deputy Head of Division of Forestry

3 Nguyen Van Thai Male Deputy Head of Division of Plant Protection

Department of Labor, Invalids & Social Affairs

4 Y Long Male Deputy Director

5 Bui Anh Vu Male Deputy Head of Assistant Division

Provincial Women’s Union

6 Nguyen Thi Thu Huong Female Standing Vice President

7 Tran Thi Kim Hoa Female Member of Standing Committee

8 Nguyen Thi Le Female Chief of Secretariat

9 Nguyen Thi Trang Female Senior officer of Ethnic Minorities and Religious Affairs

10 Nguyen Thi Anh Nguyet Female Commission of Family and Social Affairs

Provincial Farmers’ Union

11 Tran Xuan Hong Male President

12 Ho Ngoc Dai Male Vice President

13 Nguyen Huu Nam Male Director of Vocational Training Center

Provincial Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs

14 K Thec A To Male Head of Division of Ethnic Minority Policy

15 Nguyen Van Khue Male Head of Planning Division

16 Y Ai Buon Da Male Chief of Secretariat

17 Doan Van Su Male Vice Chairperson

Provincial FS Project Preparation Unit

18 Duong Minh Chau Male Officer of PMU

B. Representatives of Krong No District officers

1 Mai Van Hung Male Director of District PMU

2 Ngo Xuan Loc Male Chairperson of District People’s Committee

3 Dang Thanh Quang Male Vice Chairperson

4 Nguyen Gia Loc Male Chief of Secretariat

5 Nguyen Thi San Female District Women’s Union

6 Do Hoang Phu Male Deputy Head of Agriculture Division

7 Ngo Tran Vinh Male Officer of Division of ARD

8 Y Troi Male Officer of Division of EM Affairs

9 Tran Quang Hong Male Head of Division of LISA

Leaders of private enterprises - Krong No District

10 Tran Dinh Quang Male Director of Quang Phat Trading, Service and Manufacturing Ltd.,

11 Pham Duc Thang Male Director of Nam Lung Ltd.,

C. Representatives of Commune officers

77

Dak Dro Commune

1 Nguyen Van Binh Male Chairperson

2 Mai Van Vinh Male Vice Chairperson

3 Tran Ngoc Thuy Male Officer of Land Office

4 Hua Van Son Male K62 village head

5 Dieu Thi Ngoan Female Thai People_Wealthy household K62 village

Indigenous EM people discussion group

6 Ma Ve Male Ede People Buon 9

7 Ma Duyen Male Ede People Village No. 6, Buon Ol

8 Ma Duyen+A21+B41 Male Ede People Village No. 3, Buon K62

9 Y Xuyen Male Ede People Village No. 3, Buon K63

10 Ma Ri Male Ede People Ede People Village No. 6, Buon OL

11 Ma Tor Male Village No. 6, Buon OL

12 Ma Diep Male Village No. 3, Buon K62

Female group discussion

13 Nguyen Thi Tam Male Kinh People_ Village No. 3_ Buon K58

14 Do Thi Phuong Male Kinh People_ Village No. 3_ Buon K59

15 Le Thi Hue Male Kinh People_ Village No. 3_ Buon K60

16 Trieu Thi Dao Male Tay People_ Village No. 3_ Buon K61

17 Vo Thi Hoa Male Kinh People_ Village No. 3_ Buon K62

Quang Phu Commune

18 Ho Trang Male Chairperson of People’s Committee

19 Do Huu Sinh Male General Secretariat of Committee of the Party

20 Le Hung Vi Male Officer of Construction Land Office

21 Nguyen Anh Duc Male Officer of Agriculture Land Office

22 Y Wang Buon Dap Male Wealthy household

Female group discussion

23 Vu Thi Hong Gam Male Member of Women’s Union

24 Than Thi Phuc Male Member of Women’s Union

25 Ho Thi Dung Male Member of Women’s Union

Migrating EM people group discussion

26 Lu Xuan Thang Male Thai People

27 Dang Van Phuc Male Kinh People

28 Phang A Chu Male Mong People

29 Sung A Sinh Male Mong People

30 Lu Van Ngoac Male Thai People

31 Ha Hong Ngu Male Thai People

32 Huynh Tan Hien Male Kinh People

78

Dak Lak




1 Vu Van Lam Male Deputy Director

2 Tran Van Tay Male Officer at Division of Planting

3 Nguyen Duc Viet Male Officer at Division of Forestry

4 Nguyen Dinh Chinh Male Deputy Head of Planning Division

5 Anh Binh Male

Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs

6 Anh Dan Male Head of Division of Social Affairs

7 Anh Dung Male


8 Nguyen Thi Loc Female Standing Vice Chairperson

9 Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong Female Vice Chairperson in charge of Vocational Training

10 Duong Thi Hong Female Vice Chairperson in charge of Law

11 H Phong Nia Female Vice Chairperson in charge of Religion

12 Dang Thi Huong Female Head of Standing Committee

13 A Jun H Huong Female Member of Committee of Family and Social Affairs


14 Y To Male Chairperson

15 Nguyen Van Tu Male Standing Vice Chairperson

16 Nguyen Xuan Doan Male Vice Chairperson in charge of Socio-economy

17 Te Thi Thanh Female

Member of Standing Committee, in charge of Socio-economy


18 Nguyen Van San Male Vice Chairperson of Provincial Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs

Ban Chuan bi du an FS tinh

20 Nguyen Viet Dung Male Officer of Provincial FS Project Preparation Unit

Representatives of M’Drak District

1 Nguyen Ngoc Binh Male Vice Chairperson of District People’s Committee

2 Dao Thanh Vinh Male Head of Division of LISA

3 Do Van Lap Male Director of PMU

4 Van Tam Hoai Male Technical officer, PMU

5 Nguyen Huu Hon Male Accountant - PMU

6 Phan Dinh Cuc Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Affairs

7 Y Lop Nia Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat

8 Pham Thi Thu Duong Female President of District Women’s Union

9 Le Thi Tuyet Female Division of ARD

10 Do Thanh Hai Male Deputy Director of M’Drak Forestry Ltd.,

11 Anh Chien Male Director of Sanh Chien Ltd.,

Representatives of commune officers

Ea Trang Commune

1 Femaleyenh Nie Male Officer of Land, Construction and Environment Office

79

2 Ha Ngoc Khoa Male Officer of Agricultural Land Office

Y – Jie Male Secretary of Commune Party Committee

3 Thao Thanh Cong Male Village Head, Ea Bar Village

4 Lu Xuan Hong Male Deputy Village Head, Ea Bar Village

5 Y Bri Kso Male Village elder in Buon Mlia

6 Y Thang Male Representative of wealthy household

Group discussion of migrating H’Mong people

14 Thao Thanh Cong Male Village Ea Bra

15 Lu Xuan Hong Male Village Ea Bra

16 20 people in the village - Village Ea Bra

Group discussion of indigenous EM people

17 Y Mat Male E de People, Member of Commune Farmer’s Union

18 Y Pem Male E de People, Village head Uzai ( M’zui)

19 Hua Van Xin Male Nuleng, Member of Commune Farmer’s Union

20 Y Khiz Male E de People, Elder

21 Y Pat Male E de People, Member

22 Nong Van Va Male Tay People, Member

23 Y Prok Male E de People, Member

Women group discussion 11 Ede people

Cumta Commune

21 Y Khoan Nie Male Chairperson of Commune People’s Committee

22 Nguyen Hai Toan Male Officer of Land Office

23 Phan dang Khoa Male Village head

24 Y Dhuan Nie Male Representative of successful farmer’s household

Group discussion of migrating Kinh People

25 Pham Dang Khoa Male From Ha Tinh Province

26 Pham Quang Van Male 69 years old, from Thai Binh Province

27 Nguyen Huu Thuong Male 49 years old, from Hai Duong Province

28 Nguyen Huy Binh Male 45 years old, immigrated since 1984

Women group discussion

29 H' Nhan Female 24 years old - E de People

30 H' Luyen Female 30 years old - E de People

31 Han Bich Female 20 years old- E de People

32 Vo Thi Huong Female 42 years old- Kinh People

33 H' Hung Female 42 years old - E de People

34 H Coro Mlo Female 44 years old - E de People

80

Gia Lai

No. Full Malee Gender Position and institution



1 Le Van Lenh Male Deputy Director of Department

2 Le Quoc Tuan Male Head of Division of Finance and Planning

3 Van Phu Bo Male Head of Division of Agriculture

4 Nguyen Van Du Male Deputy Head of Division of Agriculture

5 Duong Thi Hue Female Officer

6 Huynh Thi Le Hoa Female Chief officer

7 Vo Quoc Truong Male Senior officer of Division of Agriculture


8 Dinh Xuan Lich Male Head of Division of Labor and Work

9 Tran Anh Son Male Pho Head of Division of Social Protection


10 Ro Cham H’ Hong Female Vice President


11 Nghia Cach Dao Male Vice President of Farmers’ Union

12 Dang Ngoc Khoi Male Head of Socio-economic Division


13 Nguyen Khoa Lai Male President of Provincial Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs

14 K Sor Chong Male Deputy Head of Policy Division

15 Pham Duy Hoang Male Officer of Policy Division


16 Ho Phuoc Thanh Male Deputy Director of Department

17 Le Quang Dat Male Head of Division of Foreign Trade and Cooperation

18 Tran Thi Kim Thoa Male Officer of Division of Foreign Trade

Representatives of Ia Pa District

1 Nguyen The Hung Male Vice Chairperson of Ia Pa District

2 To Van Hieu Male Head of Division of EM Affairs

3 Nguyen Phu Male Officer of Division of EM Affairs

4 Nguyen Cuong Male Director of PMU

5 Ksor - H'Che Male President of Women’s Union

6 Siu - D'or Male Chairperson of Amaron Agricultural Cooperative

7 Lu Phuc Phong Male Head of Division of ARD

8 Nguyen Thanh Lan Male Deputy Head of Division of LISA

9 Tran Van Truong Male Chairperson of K-Tan Construction Cooperative

10 Huynh Vinh Huong Male Head of Division of Finance and Planning

A. Representatives of local authority and people

Chu Mo Commune

1 Bui Xuan Su Male Officer of Land, Construction and Environment Office

2 Hoang Van Nam Male Officer of Land, Agriculture and Environment Office

3 Hmah Prom Male Representative of successful farmer’s household


81

4 Ksor Nai Male Ama Hlale

5 Ksor Bybih Male Ama Hlale

6 Nay Nsoai Male Ama Hlale

7 Nay RyMon Male Ama Hlale


8 R’ O HDoai Female Amalim 1

9 Rmah Ha Van Female Amalim 2

10 Nay HDjuen Female Plei pa ama da

11 Ksor H’ Nhao Female Plei pa oi H’ Briu 2

12 Nay H’ Huyen Female Ploi Pa Amah Lak

13 Ksor H’ Nhun Female Plei Pa Oi H’ Briu 1

14 Rahlan H’ Blet Female Plei Ehroh Braih

Ia Broai Commune

15 Truong Nguyen Hao Male Chairperson of Commune People’s Committee

16 Kpa BaraK Male Officer of Land Office

17 Nay Hong Male Village elder

18 H' Jing Male Officer of Women’s Union

19 Kb Tho Male Representative of wealthy household in Broai Village

Group discussion of EM Ja Rai People

21 Rojar Male Ea Rniu

22 Nay - Thi Male Bon - Hoet

23 Ksor - Theo Male Bon Ju - Uok

24 Ksor - Nim Male Bon Tong O

25 Ksor - Khoan Male Bon Rniu

26 Ksor - Sen Male Bon Tul

27 Ksor - Mon Male Bon Tong O

28 Ksor - Ang Male Bon Ju - Uok

29 Kmah - Blor Male Bon Tong O

30 Rahlan - Wil Male Bon Tong O

31 Nay - Luon Male Bon Tul

32 Rcom ChLuar Male Bon Rniu

33 Siu Them Female Bon Ju - Ama Uok

34 Kpa - Then Male Bon Ia Rniu

35 Siu Nghiem Male Bon Ia Rniu

36 Ksor - Khon Male Bon Broai

37 Nay - Yoil Male Bon Ia Rniu

38 Ro.o Que Male Bon Tul

39 Nay - H' uot Male Bon Ju - Hoet

40 Ksor - H' char Male Bon Ia Rniu

41 Kpa - H'ut Male Bon Ia Rniu

42 Nay - H'nhuen Male Bon Tong O

43 Rcom H' jing Male Bon Broai

Kon Tum

82




1 Lam Thi Minh Thuy Male Deputy Head of Division of Agriculture

2 Pham Quoc Long Male Head of Division of Aquaculture

3 Tran Cong Lam Male Deputy Director of Extension Center

4 Vu Van Dan Male Head of Division of Finance and Planning


5 Lam Quoc Hung Male Officer of Division of Social Protection


6 Siu H Bia Female President of Provincial Women’s Union

7 Trieu Thi Linh Female Head of Economic Development Support Division


8 Le Van Thanh Male Head of Socio-economic Commission

9 Trieu Thi Linh Female Head of Division to Support Women in Economic Developing


10 Tran Van Tan Male Head of Division of EM Policies

11 Nguyen Thanh Hung Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Policies


12 Tran Van Tri Male Deputy Director of Department _ Director of PMU

Representatives of Kon Ray District

1 Nguyen Van Chung Male Chief of Secretariat of District People’s Committee

2 Le Huu Phuoc Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat

3 Dang Gia Male Deputy Head of Division of Agriculture

4 Huynh Ngoc Thai Male Officer Division of ARD

5 Nguyen Trong Phan Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Affairs

6 Dinh Thi Thuan Female President of Women’s Union

7 Dinh Xuan Thi Male Head of Division of EM Affairs

8 Hoang Huy Toan Male Officer of Division of Labor and Social Affairs

9 Nguyen Van Thuy Male Director of PMU

10 Bui Van Quang Male Director of Kon Ray Forestry Company

11 Nguyen Thi Sen Female Director of Tu Sen Ltd,.

12 Vo Trung Tien Male Technical Officer, Tu Sen Ltd,.


Dak Ruong Commune

1 Nguyen Van Sanh Male Chairperson of Commune People’s Committee

2 Nguyen Chi Van Male Officer of Land Office

3 A Dieu Male Representative of successful farmer’s household (Xo Ra People)

4 Hoang Van Hong Male Village head, Village 14


5 A Doi Male Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

6 A Phien Male Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

7 A Hoang Male Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

83

8 A Giao Male Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

9 Y Hin Female Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

10 Y Theo Female Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune

11 A Cham Female Village 10 _ Dak Ruong Commune


12 Le Thi Lam Female President of Commune Women’s Union

13 Y Hu Female Village 8_ Kon Nhem

14 Y Nghia Female Village 8_ Kon Nhem

15 Huynh Thi Yen Vi Female Village 9_Kinh People

16 Nguyen Thi Van Female Village 9_Kinh People

17 Nguyen Thi Song Huong Female Village 9_Kinh People

18 Y Ngoc Female Village 8_ Kon Nhem

19 Nguyen Hong Thuan Female Village 9_Kinh People

Group discusion of migrating people 8 people

Dak To Re Commune

20 Tran Minh Quang Male Chairperson of Commune People's Committee, Dak To Re Commune

21 Vo Anh Quan Male Vice Chairperson of Commune People's Committee

22 A Dum Male Village head, Village 8_Kon Do Xinh

23 A Vinh Male Village elder, Village 8

Group discusion of migrating Kinh people

24 Pham Thi Thai Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

25 Nguyen Thi Nhung Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

26 Do Thi Da Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

27 Nguyen Thi Chinh Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

28 Dao Thi Anh Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

29 Nguyen Thi Cang Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

30 Duong Thi Mai Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

31 Nguyen Van Dong Male Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

32 Dang Van Hoa Male Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

33 Pham Quyet Chien Male Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

34 Vu Thu Cuc Female Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

35 Nguyen Binh Toan Male Village 12 - Dak To Re Commune

Women group discussion of Ba Na People

36 Y Zoan Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

37 Y Tuoi Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

38 Y Khung Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

39 Y Duc Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

40 Y Xoan Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

41 Y Ngun Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

42 Y Treh Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

43 Y Hgec Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

44 Y Hyun Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

45 Y Xuan Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

46 Y Kham Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

84

47 Y Bluch Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

48 Y Doak Female Village 5 - Dak To Re Commune

Group discussion of indigenous EM people - Xo Ra

49 Y Buon Female Village 1 - Dak To Re Commune

50 Y Nya Female Village 1 - Dak To Re Commune

51 Y Eo Female Village 1 - Dak To Re Commune

52 A H'Lap Male Village 1 - Dak To Re Commune

53 U Roan Male Village 1 - Dak To Re Commune

Quang Ngai




1 Anh Duong Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat

2 Pham Van Tuan Male Head of Division of Agriculture

3 Do Ky Anh Male Head of Division of Rural Vocational Management


4 Do Tien Tan Male Head of Division of Social Protection

5 Nguyen Huu Dung Male Deputy Head of Division of Labor and Works

6 Phan Thi Thanh Thuy Female Officer of Division of Social Protection


7 Huynh Thi Tuyet Nga Female Vice President of Women’s Union

8 Truong Thi Hao Female Division of Society and Domestic Violence


9 Vo Van Chinh Male President of Provincial Farmers’ Union

10 Tran Ngoc Vinh Male Head of Socio-Economic Division

11 Vo Van Quang Male Deputy Head of Socio-economic Commission

12 Dinh Sung Sung Male Deputy Director of Extension Center

13 Nguyen Dinh Trong Male

14 Le Trung Viet Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat

15 Nguyen The Kieu Male President of Farmers’ Union, Tra Bong Commune

16 Nguyen Van Khang Male President of Farmers’ Union, Minh Long Commune


17 Nguyen Vuong Male Deputy Head of EM Affairs Committee


18 Le Tan Hung Male Deputy Director of Department of Planning and Investment

19 Tran Hoai Thu Male Deputy Head of Division of Foreign Trade

20 Tran Hoang Vinh Male Deputy Head of Division of Culture and Social Affairs

Representatives of Ba To District

1 Thanh Minh Thuan Male Deputy Head of Division of Finance and Planning

2 Nguyen Quang Vinh Male Head of Division of ARD

3 Nguyen Van Trieu Male Head of Division of LISA

85

4 Pham Van Dung Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Affairs

5 Phan Quang Duc Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat of People’s Council – People’s Committee

6 Nguyen Thi Hoa Female President of District Women’s Union

7 Anh Nam Male Director of Dai Nam Forestry Company

8 Nguyen Cong Thanh Male Director of Ba To Construction Company


Ba Trang Commune

1 Pham Van Mang Male Secretary of Commune Party Committee

2 Pham Van Chep Male Deputy Secretary of Commune Party Committee

3 Pham Van Mia Male President of the Commune Committee of Fatherland Front

4 Nguyen Van Long Male Officer at Commune People's Committee office

5 Pham Thi Bich Female Officer at Construction Land Office

6 Dinh Van Goi Male President of Commune Farmer’s Union

7 Pham Van Sam Male Secretary of Commune Youth Union

8 Pham Van Ra Male Village head - Con Doc Village

9 Pham Thi Mai Female President of Commune Women’s Union

10 Pham Van Huyet Male Village head - Con Rieng Village

11 Nguyen Thi Thanh Tra Female Commune Finance officer

12 Pham Thi Ha Female Member of Women’s Union

13 Pham Thi Choc Female Member of Women’s Union

14 Pham Thi Mat Female Member of Women’s Union

15 Pham Thi Ban Female Member of Women’s Union

16 Pham Thi Manh Female Member of Women’s Union

17 Pham Thi Go Female Member of Women’s Union

18 Pham Thi Re Female Member of Women’s Union

19 Pham Van Mon Male Chairperson of Commune People's Committee

20 Pham Van Ghe Male Representative of successful farmer’s household


21 Pham thi Mai Female President of Commune Women’s Union

22 Pham Thi Van Female Member of Standing Committee of Commune Women’s Union

23 Pham Thi Troc Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

24 Pham Thi Re Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

25 Pham Thi Ha Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

26 Pham Thi Mac Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

27 Pham Thi Go Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

28 Pham Thi Man Female Hre People – Ba Trang Commune

Ba Kham Commune

29 Le Ba Do Male Vice Chairperson of Commune People's Committee

30 Pham Van Tap Male Representative of successful farmer’s household _ Nuoc Gia

31 Pham Van Lan Male Officer of Land Office

Village Head

Thao luan nhom DT tai cho

32 Tran Phuong Dong Male Hre People– year of birth:1948, Dong Ram Village

86

33 Pham Van Ớ Male Hre People– year of birth: 1972, Dong Ram Village

34 Pham Van Cuong Male Hre People– year of birth: 1989, Dong Ram Village

35 Pham Van E Male Hre People– year of birth: 1974, Dong Ram Village

36 Pham Van Luong Male Hre People– year of birth: 1983, Dong Ram Village

37 Pham Van Gheu Male Hre People– year of birth: 1968, Dong Ram Village

38 Pham Van Nguy Male Hre People– year of birth: 1976, Dong Ram Village

39 Pham Van Xung Male Hre People– year of birth: 1956, Dong Ram Village


40 Pham Thi Goi Female Hre People– 54 years old, Dong Ram Village

41 Pham Thi Bup Female Hre People– 24 years old, Dong Ram Village

42 Pham Thi Thay Female Hre People– 25 years old, Dong Ram Village

43 Pham Thi Bech Female Hre People– 23 years old, Dong Ram Village

44 Pham Thi Thuong Female Hre People– 36 years old, Dong Ram Village

45 Dinh Thi Keo Female 30 years old, Dong Ram Village

46 Dinh Thi Cham Female 32 years old, Dong Ram Village

47 Nguyen Thi Anh Suong Female 30 years old, Dong Ram Village

Quang Nam




1 Anh Thanh Male Deputy Head of Division of Finance and Planning


2 Truong Thi Xuan Female Deputy Director of Department

3 Van Le Male Officer of Social Protection

4 Anh Khanh Male Officer of Department


5 Dang Thi Le Thuy Female Vice President

6 Huynh Thi Tuyet Female Vice President

7 Ho Thi Minh Hoang Female Officer of Committee of EM Affairs


8 Nguyen Ut Male Head of Economic Commission


9 Le Thi Thuy Female Deputy Head of Provincial Committee of Ethnic Minority Affairs

10 Nguyen Van Than Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Policies


11 Lam Quang Thanh Male Director of PPU

Representatives of Phuoc Son District

1 Doan Van Thong Male Vice Chairperson of District People's Committee, Phuoc Son District

2 Tran Anh Male Director of PMU, Phuoc Son District

3 Vo Van Ba Male Deputy Head of Division of LISA

4 Nguyen Duc Toan Male Deputy Head of Division of ARD

87

5 Lo Dinh Tai Male Deputy Chief of Secretariat of People’s Council – People’s Committee

6 Nguyen Thi Thu Hiep Female Vice President of District Women’s Union

7 Nguyen Dinh Toan Male Director of Construction Company

8 Nguyen Van Phuoc Male Head of Division of EM Affairs

9 Nguyen Thanh Ha Male Deputy Head of Division of EM Affairs

Representatives of commune officers

Phuoc Chanh Commune

1 Hung Male Vice Chairperson of Commune People's Committee

2 Dung Male Vice Chairperson of People’s Council

3 Nguyen Van Nam Male Officer of Land Office

4 Linh Male Chief Secretary

5 Ho Van Nhem Male Village elder

6 Ho Thi Duong Male Representative of successful farmer’s household


7 Ho Thi Do Female B h’noong People -29 years old, Village 2

8 Ho Thi Be Female B h’noong People -25 years old, Village 2

9 Ho Thi Man Female B h’noong People -35 years old, Village 2

10 Ho Thi Thanh Female B h’noong People -22 years old, Village 2

11 Ho Thi Loai Female B h’noong People -21 years old, Village 2

12 Ho Thi Lai Female B h’noong People -24 years old, Village 2

13 Ho Thi Duoi Female B h’noong People -28 years old, Village 2

14 Ho Thi Bon Female B h’noong People -30 years old, Village 2

15 Ho Thi Lai Female B h’noong People -23 years old, Village 2

Group discussion of indigenous EM people- Bh’Noong (nhanh cua Gie Trieng)

16 Ho Nhieu Male B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

17 Dinh Van Via Male Village 3 Rot Rot

18 Ho Van Bong Male B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

19 Ho Thi Thi Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

20 Ho Thi Thom Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

21 Ho Thi Tham Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

22 Ho Thi Bia Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

23 Ho Thi Phuoc Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

24 Ho Thi Thui Female B h’noong People -Village 3 Rot Rot

Phuoc Thanh Commune

25 Nguyen Thien Male Deputy Director of Program 600

26 Dinh Van Qua Male Chairman

27 Hua Van … Male Officer of Land Office

28 Ho Van Trinh Male Village head, Village 4b

29 Ho Van Ngoi Male Representative of successful farmer’s household, 64 years old, Village 4b


30 Ho Thi Hoa Female B h’noong People -28 years old, Village 4b

31 Ho Thi Hue Female B h’noong People -27 years old, Village 4b

32 Ho Thi Thanh Female B h’noong People -23 years old, Village 4b

33 Ho Thi Hoa Female B h’noong People -40 years old, Village 4b

88

34 Ho Thi Dam Female B h’noong People -19 years old, Village 4b

35 Ho Thi Pha Female B h’noong People -24 years old, Village 4b

36 Ho Thi Pho Female B h’noong People -36 years old, Village 4b

37 Ho Thi Dan Female B h’noong People -27 years old, Village 4b

38 Ho Thi Van Female B h’noong People -26 years old, Village 4b

39 Ho Thi Phai Female B h’noong People -27 years old, Village 4b

Group discussion of indigenous EM people- B h'noong (Gie Trieng branch)

40 Ho Van Hai Male B h’noong People -Village 3

41 Ho van Rieng Male B h’noong People -Village 3

42 Ho Van Soc Male B h’noong People -Village 3

43 Ho thi Kho Female B h’noong People -Village 3

44 Ho Thi Mim Female B h’noong People -Village 3

42 Ho Thi Khai Female B h’noong People -Village 3

43 Ho Thi Mau Female B h’noong People -Village 3

44 Ho thi Mien Female B h’noong People -Village 3

45 Ho Thi Vuong Female B h’noong People -Village 3

46 Ho thi Ech Female B h’noong People -Village 3

47 Ho Thi thuy Female B h’noong People -Village 3

48 Ho Thi Trung Female B h’noong People -Village 3

49 Ho Thi Hoa Female B h’noong People -Village 3

50 Ho Thi Inh Female B h’noong People -Village 3

51 Ho Thi Khag Female B h’noong People -Village 3

52 Ho Van Femaleong Male B h’noong People -Village 3

53 Ho Thi Phanh Female B h’noong People -Village 3

54 Ho Van Kem Male B h’noong People -Village 3

55 Ho Thi Khanh Female B h’noong People -Village 3

SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT - World Bank · SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS POVERTY...

Documents

Transcript of SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT - World Bank · SOCIAL ASSESSMENT REPORT THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS POVERTY...