VIET NAM COUNTRY PROGRAMME EVALUATION MAIN MISSION 3 24 March 2011 Preliminary Review of Findings

Office of Evaluation, IFAD 21 March 2011

Management and Staffing

Luciano Lavizzari: Director, Office of Evaluation (IOE) Anne-Marie Lambert: Lead Evaluator (IOE) Basil Kavalsky: Consultants Team Leader (IOE) Ganesh Shivakoti: Consultant (IOE), Agricultural Production, Natural Resource Management and Environment

Jicheng Zhang: Evaluation Research Analyst (IOE), Market Integration and Enterprise Development

Oanh Nguyen: Evaluation Research Analyst (IOE), Programme Management

Uyen Vu Ngoc: Consultant (IOE), Gender, Ethnic Minorities, and Community Development
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Mission Schedule
3-4

March 2011: Meetings with national ministries and mass organisations in Hanoi 6-18 March 2011: Field visits to IFAD Programmes in:
Bac Kan Ben Tre Ha Giang Ha Tinh Quang Binh Tra Vinh Tuyen Quang

21-24 March 2011: Wrap up meetings

and remaining

meetings in Hanoi
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Remaining Milestones
5 3

September: Share draft with Government for comments October: Governments comments to IOE on draft report October: Finalise draft evaluation report and share

End

with all partners

End

November: CPE National Roundtable Workshop 2012: Finalise CPE Agreement at Completion

January

Point, publish report

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Scope of the CPE

Three Ten

COSOPs

projects (recent approvals not covered) activities

Non-lending

A large number of grants global and regional grants covering Viet Nam and some country specific grants Policy dialogue, knowledge management, and partnership building (for the most part not free standing but implicit in the kind of activities it supports)
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Evaluation Criteria

Relevance Effectiveness Efficiency Rural poverty impact

Household income and assets Human and social capital and empowerment Food security and agriculture productivity Natural resources and environment (and climate change) Institutions and policies

Sustainability Innovation, replication and scaling up Gender equality and womens empowerment Performance of partners
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Overall finding of the evaluation

The evaluation team has concluded, based on the evidence on the ground, that IFADs programme is adding substantial value to the Government of Viet Nams efforts to reduce rural poverty.

Targeting Poverty
IFAD

supports provinces, districts and communes with a relatively high poverty incidence often associated with a large weight of ethnic minorities in the populations of those localities. IFAD targets women in many projects because this has been demonstrated as one of the most effective instrumentalities for addressing rural poverty.
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Integrated Rural Development Model

IFAD

supports poverty reduction through a range of

programmes at the commune level that are undertaken together so as to derive synergies.
These

programmes operate on both the supply side -

building the capacity and providing financial resources for investment by the rural poor; and the demand side -linking producers to markets.
It

also supports the enabling environment by helping

improve the coordinated delivery of government services to the poor.

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1. Decentralisation, Coordination and Building Management Capacity

Projects work directly with provinces with PPCUs generally reporting to a steering committee headed by the Chairman of the Provincial Peoples Committee Line departments associated with the project at all levels Project implementation is responsibility of Commune PCU Project invests heavily in building capacity of staff at all levels to promote poverty reduction and implement programmes effectively PCU coordinates contributions to project implementation of line departments and builds capacity to deliver

Key Issue: How best to institutionalise this integrated approach of coordinating support provided by the PCU and the line departments to delivering services for poverty reduction, and make it sustainable.
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2. Small-Scale Infrastructure using Participatory Planning and Commune Development Funds

Villages submit project proposals and commune project unit prioritises on the basis of established criteria.

Projects are for the most part integrated into the commune SEDP Resources mainly used for access roads and small-scale irrigation Programmes use more rigorous procedures than those under Governments programme 135

Key Issue: IFAD and the Government need to work towards a uniform approach to strategic planning and project implementation procedures.

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3. Demonstration Models of Farm Production

Programmes aim at enhancement of food security and income diversification through the support of: Animal breeding and health models including new forages production Models of major cereals, cash crops and vegetables Forest production models including issuance of forest land use certificates Adaptation trials, farmer field schools facilitated increase in food production and efficient use of farm labor

Key issue: How to develop market-oriented production models including private sector engagement.
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4. Micro-finance
Savings and credit

groups

Provide the poor with a practical means of credit Enable small-scale farm activities Create linkage with banks Institutionalize mutual support mechanisms

Micro-credit through banks

Raise attention to the poor VBSP engages in low-interest lending to SCGs VBARD provides market-interest loans to small business Go only part of the way in filling the gap in addressing needs for credit Build formal credit record for the previously unbankable Provide potential for upgrading the SCGs and CIGs

Key Issue: VBSP provides only very limited amounts of credit too small for anything beyond the simplest activity; VBARD requires collateral for all loans . This leaves most poor farmers who want to expand the scale of their commercial activities without sufficient credit.
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5. Market Access and Micro Enterprise

A step forward in market access

Improved awareness through market based planning Increased market-oriented productions(CIGs) Inter-village roads connecting to local markets Gap in supporting physical markets, market information, and enabling environment

Micro-enterprise development
Limited capacity at local levels and few successful cases Gap in food and agri-processing in the value chain Limited engagement with the private sector Potential of co-investment with village trade leaders to create employment

Key Issue: How can business capacity for entrepreneurship be developed and programmes build links with small and medium private operators?
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Efficiency and Programme Management

Timely project effectiveness and completion

Effectiveness lags are well below the regional average Projects were either completed by the original closing date or extended but for no more than one year.

Programme management costs are in line with the region. Projects are generally multi-components. Decentralization requires lots of coordination among activities and levels. Effective project coordination enhances project efficiency. Some projects cover more than one province, and there is no strategic basis for the combination of provinces in each project

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Efficiency and Programme Management (cont.)

Financial management: The authorized allocation into the designated account is too small and projects tend to run dry during the high implementation phase. Bottlenecks in the flow of funds impede progress.

Procurement: IFAD thresholds are lower than government standards. Procurement takes time given the weak procurement capacity at the commune level, however these rigorous procedures promote better governance and more efficiency.

M&E system in general has captured financial and physical progress. Indicators in many cases are still confined to the output level and are quantitative. Efforts are being made to update the results chain, include more qualitative measures and aggregate to outcome and impact levels. Overall assessing impact is still challenging.
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Impact of the Viet Nam-IFAD Cooperation

IFAD looks at

impact in terms of a number of domains:

Household Income and Assets Agricultural Productivity and Food Security Institutions and Policies Natural Resource Management and Environment Human and Social Capital and Empowerment Gender Equality
Often difficult

to attribute impacts to the IFAD programme in a

context of rapid overall growth and an increasing number of Government programmes to support poverty reduction
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A. Household Income and Assets

Accurate

data is a challenge given the inflation in Viet

Nam which makes historical comparisons of poverty difficult

Impact

studies suggest projects are raising incomes of attention is needed to the near-poor who are at on household assets has been mainly through

poor households
Greater

risk of falling back into poverty

Impact

livestock and forest land ownership

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B. Institutions and Policies

Important

achievements through pioneering:

Participatory planning Decentralised project management Improved coordination for poverty reduction at different levels of government
Programme Focus

135 effectively builds on IFADs approach

on forest land use as an instrument for poverty

reduction has been another important contribution

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C. Food Security and Agricultural Productivity

Overall, the projects have helped

to increase cereals and vegetables

production both by increasing productivity and cropping intensity through the provision of both inputs and infrastructure development

Food security for poor and ethnic minorities have been increased between 1 to 5 months and aquaculture development may have

In addition, animal

contributed to improved nutrition status of the beneficiaries, but this needs to be confirmed.
However, there is further scope for adaptive production technology

development at local level suitable for the poor and marginal farmers
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D. Natural Resources, Environment and Climate Change

A significant development in preparation of land-use maps and distributing land title certificates to the ethnic minorities Forest land allocated for conservation and management to the individual households in the community Climate change adaptation mechanisms such as salt tolerant varieties development efforts and shift from rice to coconut planting underway among the poor coastal communities Adaptation of Good Agriculture Practice through organic farming or IPM for safe use of insecticides and pesticides not to pollute land and water. However, there is so far a lack of a strategic approach integrating communal planning and land-use planning. There is scope for a number of environmental interventions, such as exploring the potential for bio-gas as a substitute for fuel-wood, promotion of poor farmers exploitation of NTFPs, and awareness & participation of poor in understanding role of forest for conservation in a holistic manner.
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E. Human and Social Capital and Empowerment

The capacity building activities result

in visible improvement at

individual level (awareness and skills of staff; technical and managerial capacity of community members; and private business beneficiaries in some projects);
Community self-management

capacity and grassroots democracy

are stronger in project areas, though the degree of improvement observed varies across projects (commune development board, CIG, credit-saving groups, womens livelihood clubs, association of private producers and traders).
However, the issue is how to improve quality of the organisations

supported by the project (management, sustainability, benefits to members).

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F. Gender Equality and Ethnic Minority Development

Projects have empowered women as well

as womens

organisations at grassroots level through improved living conditions and livelihoods, access to credit, employment opportunities and services.

However, womens business and access to market is inadequately supported and encouraged overall

The objective for ethnic minority support

is not always explicit in

the project guidelines and data are not always separated by ethnic groups; It could be useful to strengthen monitoring of ethnic minority participation and development
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Sustainability, Innovation and Scaling Up

Issues of sustainability and scaling up have not yet received the attention they merit

COSOP will need to focus on reaching a consensus on a strategic approach to IFADs engagement in Viet Nam over the long term

IFAD could do more to bring the project and provincial level experience to the national level

Stronger partnerships with other donors and with the private and cooperative sectors may need to have more prominence in the strategy going forward for scale up and sustainability of market integration programmes

Selection of provinces for engagement seems arbitrary and there is no exit strategy at the project level
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IFADs non-lending activities

In addition to its lending, the evaluation covers activities such as: Policy Dialogue - IFAD could do more to assist the Government to strategise its
approach to rural poverty through building on its project experience

Partnerships - IFAD could do more to promote partnerships for scaling up the

programmes it supports

Knowledge Management IFAD has a substantial programme of knowledge

management in place, but could promote more systematic sharing of knowledge across projects through strategic selection of the provinces it supports.

IFAD also provides grants both regional grants that include Viet Nam and country-specific grants. These are playing a useful role in building knowledge sharing and partnerships, especially in the area of agricultural research, and this role could be further enhanced by strategic development of a grant programme as part of the COSOP.
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Key Questions to be Addressed in Upcoming COSOP

A. Programme Design Questions

Should IFAD adopt

more explicit targeting of the poorest of the

poor, ethnic minorities, women and youth?

Is the model

of covering one or two unrelated provinces efficient

and compatible with scaling up IFADs programme?

Could these programmes be more closely aligned with GOV

programmes so as to leverage its support more effectively?

How can the important

coordination role in addressing rural

poverty of the PPCU, DPCU and CPCU/CDB be institutionalised?

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B. Programme Content Questions

What

is the optimal model for providing credit to the

rural poor and what role should the VBSP, Agribank and the Womens Union play?
How

can the effectiveness of approaches to market

integration and enterprise development be enhanced?

Is

IFAD paying enough attention to issues of

environmental management and climate change in its programme?

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C. Programme Management Questions

Should

IFAD be doing more to build both financial and knowledge partnerships with other donors?

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Acknowledgements
Government for its support of the mission Viet

Nam Country Presence Office visited who

Project authorities in the provinces

provided extraordinary support to the mission and whose commitment to the task of rural poverty reduction made a deep impression
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