The Government of Vietnam (GoV) gives significant attention to leading partnerships with other stakeholders, especially with external partners. The regular Consultative Group (CG) meetings that the GoV co-chairs with the World Bank, attended by external donors and increasingly by private sector and civil society representatives, have served as a vehicle for addressing partnership issues. Since 1999, the annual CGs have been held in Vietnam; more informal midyear CGs have also been held in-country since 1998.

At the midyear CG meeting in 1998, the benefits of such partnerships were raised by the GoV itself and discussed among external partners: strong partnerships with stakeholders could raise the level of ownership of development assistance by Vietnamese agencies, enhance transparency, improve financial management, and enhance overall development effectiveness. As a result of the Government’s call at this meeting, over 20 Government-Donor-NGO Partnership groups were formed. These groups are part of Vietnam’s implementation of the principles of the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF).

Successful partnerships in Vietnam now include the Private Sector Forum/Vietnam Business Forum, bringing together over 200 participants in regular meetings establishing working groups that discuss topics such as banking reform, manufacturing, and distribution; the Ho Chi Minh City ODA partnership that links external partners and their activities with the city’s planning department officials to add coherence to the relevant external partner-supported programs; the Forestry Sector Support Program, and other working groups in sector areas such as environment, infrastructure, rural development, and legal development.

Another successful partnership is the Poverty Working Group (PWG) and its core members who form the Poverty Task Force (PTF), currently comprising a majority of Government members, three bilaterals, three multilaterals, three international NGOs, and three Vietnamese NGOs. This group has been exceptionally active, meeting monthly since 1999, creating a forum for dialogue between sectoral government ministries and agencies, supported with analytical input, and providing capacity development opportunities. The PWG/PTF led the way in supporting the Government in developing the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS), Vietnam’s medium-term poverty reduction strategy (spring 2002), which served as its PRSP.

The World Bank in Vietnam works closely with Government, donors, NGOs and the Private Sector to make Vietnam’s development partnerships as efficient and effective as possible. While the purpose and organizational structure of partnerships vary greatly, they have a role in bringing different development partners together. They are proof of the increasing mutual commitment between the Government and both external and internal stakeholders to information sharing, joint diagnosis, agreement of principles, detailed action plans, distribution of tasks and funding.

Progress of Vietnam’s development partnerships is documented in a report for each mid-year and full Consultative Group meeting – for the latest report click here. For a list of Vietnam’s partnership groups and key contacts, click here .

Moving Closer to Clients and Partners

Since 1997, the World Bank has undergone a major program of decentralization to Vietnam, with authority and decision-making relocated from Washington, D.C. to the Vietnam Country Office in Hanoi. The majority of World Bank projects in Vietnam are now managed from Hanoi, which is also where the Country Director is based. Prior to this move, the East Asia and Pacific Region had three Country Directors in its Washington Headquarters who were responsible for a total of 21 countries comprising the region. Today there are field-based Country Directors in China, Indonesia, Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam. Country Directors are represented and supported by Headquarters-based counterparts called "Country Program Coordinators."
To be more responsive to client countries, the Bank has reduced the number of management layers from three to two and has given more authority to the Country Directors based in their respective countries. For example, the Hanoi-based Vietnam Country Director is responsible for developing and implementing the Bank's country development strategy and controls the annual budget for the country program. Together with a strengthened economic and sectoral team, the World Bank in Vietnam is able to respond quickly and efficiently to Vietnam's needs.

Partners

The World Bank Vietnam is actively engaged in partnerships which span from the private sector to non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Examples of such engagement include co-operative work in the various Partnership Groups, bilateral donor co-financing in a range of World Bank funded projects; joint Analytical and Advisory work (for example the Vietnam Development Report 2001 was a joint report of the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the United Nations Development Programme), and work with NGOs, for example with Oxfam GB, Save the Children UK, Plan, Catholic Relief Services and ActionAid to carry out village-level consultations for the Government’s Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS). We are always seeking to develop and deepen partnerships for development in Vietnam.

Reaching out to civil society

Community involvement in planning and implementing development projects is the key to project sustainability. Many Bank-funded projects incorporate community participation components and social assessments. These make good use of Vietnam's extensive and well-organized outreach channels to local levels, a tradition of decentralized policy implementation and 'bottom-up' identification and planning. In a growing number of cases, systematic workshops with the government, NGOs, and academics are used at various levels during Bank project preparation. The Community Based Rural Infrastructure Project and the Northern Mountains Poverty Reduction Project are recent examples of World Bank-funded projects that have substantial community involvement and participation. Both of these projects work in areas of great rural poverty with a high proportion of ethnic minorities.