ESEARCH CO-OPERATION FOR SUSTAINABLE RURAL DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAM (RDViet)

Applying institution

Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry

Project Coordinator: Dr Le Duc Ngoan, Dean of the Faculty

Address: Hue University of Agriculture and Forestry. 102 Phung Hung, Hue City, Vietnam

Tel. 84 (0) 54 525 439; Mob 091.4126048

Fax. 84(0) 54 524 923

Email: fas@dng.vnn.vn

Co-operating institutions in Vietnam including names and roles of representative researchers

A list of institutions in Vietnam that will be included in the programme initially is provided below. A brief description of each co-operating institution is provided in Appendix I.

Swedish Co-operating Institution:

Dept of Rural Development Studies(DRDS) at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), P O Box 7005, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden, Phone +46 18 67 19 53, Fax +46 18 67 34 20

Co-ordinators: Dr Britta Antonsson-Ogle, E-mail: britta.antonsson-ogle@lbutv.slu.se; Ms Malin Beckman Malin.Beckman@lbutv.slu.se

Main resource persons: Prof Kjell Havnevik, Professor in Rural Development, Britta Antonsson-Ogle

For a description of other potential resource persons see brief profile of Swedish Collaborator in Appendix II.

Abstract

This part of the proposed research and capacity building programme in Rural Development will have a main coordinating function for research activities within the Sida supported rural development sub-programme that involve primarily institutions in agriculture, forestry and rural development in Vietnam. The objectives are to further develop existing research and teaching capacity at the collaborating institutions to enable them to carry out multi-disciplinary research, designed to analyse rural development and reduce poverty in the rural areas. It will be based on combined approaches to social and natural sciences, systems analysis, natural resources management and rural livelihoods analysis. This will be achieved by networking activities, including annual national workshops and scientific meetings, support to relevant multi-disciplinary research projects with a focus on poverty reduction, institutional analysis and food security at the participating centres, support to research training and capacity building and a programme web-site. The capacity building component will include a two-year MSc programme, PhD training and participatory curriculum development. The expected results for the first phase (2004-07) include the publication of 15-20 scientific papers, seminar proceedings, popular scientific articles, training manuals, the production of 10 MSc graduates, and initially the training of 5-8 PhDs.

Rationale

Vietnam is the home of about 80 million people, of who about 37% are estimated to live in poverty (World Bank, Attacking Poverty, 1999, p3). Over 90% of the poor live in rural areas and agriculture remains their main source of living (World Bank, Attacking Poverty, 1999, p2). Vietnam has largely a rural economy, with two-thirds of the labour force deriving its livelihood from agriculture. Thus, policies and strategies that guide agricultural development will have an important impact in the near future on the economic growth and poverty reduction in Vietnam. In the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS), which is the main poverty reduction paper (PRSP) jointly drafted by the Vietnamese Government and the donor community and approved by the Government in May 2002, agriculture and rural development are considered as playing a crucial role in achieving widespread gains in poverty reduction (CPRGS, p132) and seen as a crucial component of the CPRGS (CPRGS, p 67). A number of important specific measures for Rural Development are put forward in this document (CPRGS, pp132-133).

There is an increasing realisation that rural poverty can only be alleviated through a holistic approach that takes account of the multifaceted nature of poverty and the need therefore to integrate activities destined to provide a sustainable solution. This will require a new generation of professionals with a broad and interdisciplinary training and a capacity to handle questions of research, training, extension/communication regarding natural resource management, sustainable livelihoods and rural-urban interfaces from economical, ecological and social viewpoints. Unfortunately, the training of resource persons at all levels has been mono-disciplinary, which produces specialists skilled in specific areas but with little experience in responding to needs outside their area of expertise. As a consequence, there is a serious lack of resource persons who are skilled "generalists" which is a prerequisite for the integrated approach that is needed to promote sustainable Rural Development.

Many universities/institutions in Vietnam have recognised the limitations of the mono-disciplinary nature of their training curricula and have taken steps to provide alternatives by developing initiatives that emphasise rural and community development as opposed to the commodity-oriented approach, which has been the norm in the past. Recently, several universities have introduced some subjects relating to Rural Development at undergraduate and postgraduate level, including short courses on introduction to Rural Development, agricultural extension and integrated farming systems. Nevertheless, many universities have been established BSc degree courses on or Economic and Rural Development (such as Hue College of Economics, Faculty of Economics of Hanoi Agric. University etc.) or Extension and Rural Development (Hue College of Agriculture & Forestry, Nong Lam University, An Giang University etc.). Thus, there are at present a number of new initiatives to bring together, and a keen interest to build a strong network in a capacity-building programme on sustainable Rural Development. However, the shortage of teaching staff with higher training in Rural Development limits the progress within the new initiatives.

Expected impact

• Improved capacity for impact assessment of policies for rural livelihoods, which can provide inputs for evaluating and monitoring the recently adopted Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) towards the benefits of the rural poor
• Several universities are offering BSc degrees in Rural Development. The programme will strengthen the capacity of the teaching staff of the Rural Development Departments. The research will also feed into the curricula development for the Rural Development Education.

Capacity objectives

The objective of the co-operation programme is to strengthen existing competence for research and education in rural development by creating a platform and network for co-operation between different universities and institutions bringing together experience from different disciplines. The national, regional and international interaction will provide a basis for the development of more multi-disciplinary and systems oriented approaches to development research.

The objectives are:

• To strengthen human capacity for rural development research and education at universities and research institutes in Vietnam.
• To build a network of universities and institutions involved in rural development facilitating the exchange of experience and co-operation in research and education.
• To develop curriculum for rural development education at the universities offering this education to get MSc on RD.
• To strengthen capacity of researchers to relate their research directly to the context of the rural population and improve methods for working with the farmers and rural population.
• To make results of the research available to policy makers and practitioners involved in rural development.
• To establish fora for interaction and sharing of information and experience between stakeholders in rural development.

Research objectives

Improved knowledge, skills and capacities in rural development research in areas, which require a multidisciplinary and integrated approach, such as the understanding of rural change processes, natural resource management and poverty alleviation.

The objectives are:

• Strengthened experience of multidisciplinary research and links between natural and social sciences in developing the understanding of sustainable rural systems.
• Strengthened experience of holistic approaches to research like systems thinking and livelihood analysis.
• Strengthened relevance of the research to policy and practice in rural development and the livelihood situation of the rural population.

Framework of analysis

The programme will emphasise multi-disciplinary and integrated analysis of systems in rural development. Questions of poverty alleviation, institutional analysis, gender questions and food security will transcend the programme.

The boundaries for rural development are recognised to be broader than the rural areas as migration and market interaction with the urban areas are increasing. Rural-urban linkages in livelihood development including rural industrialisation and employment are also part of rural development.

The Sustainable Livelihoods Approach (SL) provides a broad framework for a large part of the research. The sustainable livelihoods approach (as developed by Chambers and Conway (1992) and elaborated by Ian Scoones (1998)) recognizes the complexity in people's livelihoods and the multiplicity of strategies they adopt to secure their livelihood and adapt to changing circumstances. Their strategies and capacity depend on the level of risk, household assets and the institutional structures, policies and processes that provide the context for people's livelihood. This context as well as people's access to resources is continuously changing. Research in rural development therefore needs to focus on the broader capacities of rural systems to provide sustainable livelihoods under continuously changing environmental and socio-economic conditions.

Participatory methods for training and research and working in multidisciplinary teams are encouraged. The approach is based on collaborative learning with a range of participants and accepts that there are many views and visions, which affect, both the appreciation of the "problem" and the search for measures, which will improve the situation. The research methods therefore build on the interaction between different stakeholders in rural development, including researchers, policy makers, practitioners and the rural population.

Expected outputs

In particular the skills and capacities in the following areas which require an integrated approach will be reinforced: Natural Resource Management, Social Forestry, Community Development, Poverty Alleviation, Understanding of Rural Change Processes and the following methodological approaches: Systems analysis, Livelihood analysis and Participatory methods.

With respect to the programme components the following outputs are expected:

Research

An anticipated total of around 15-20 projects (supported by the research fund as part of the PhD and MSc student field research) will be carried out in the first four-year period. The results of these will also be translated into Vietnamese and made available at different levels of society (for example policy makers at government, provincial and district level, farmer groups, Women's Union, extensionists etc. It is expected that approximately 15-20 publications will be produced in the first programme period, including seminar and conference proceedings, journal articles, booklets, training manuals, electronic and web-page articles.

Capacity building

Capacity building is included at several levels, i.e. scientific and pedagogical short courses for researchers and teaching staff, PhD training and development of an MSc programme in Rural Development. In total 10 MSc graduates will be produced and initially 5-8 PhD graduates. Around 30-40 university and research institute staff will participate in 4-5 short training courses.

Networking

A core function of the programme will be to provide a network platform for agriculture, forestry and rural development institutions in Vietnam that are involved in rural development research/ and research training. A programme web site will be established and a national workshop held annually. Training courses (1 or 2 each year) will be held to strengthen communication and information flow.

To further support a strong network of expertise on Rural Development concerns the programme will build links with several other institutions in Vietnam and Sweden that are involved in research on Rural Development and provide a platform for sharing information in the broad field of research on rural development, encouraging multi-disciplinary, multi-institutional research and thereby providing a synergy effect to the joint Vietnam-Swedish research cooperation on rural development concerns.

Methodology

To achieve the set objectives the programme will initially organize workshops in Vietnam and Sweden to share views on priority issues in rural development research and strategies to strengthen multi disciplinary research and to plan in detail the MSc program. Courses to be included in the programme will be developed jointly by experienced national and international specialists in the field. Research seminars involving both national and international professionals will help develop a common understanding of the theme and help ensure that the research and training are of high quality and are focused on relevant issues.

Within the programme, research projects that are multi-disciplinary and multi-institutional and that focus on priorities of the rural poor will be developed with emphasis on improving the methods and capacity of analyzing how technical solutions can be effectively applied by the poor. Participatory methods, systems analysis and livelihood analysis will be applied. A multi-institutional group at DRDS will vet collaborative research projects that involve SLU and the active involvement of young researchers (both in the Vietnamese institutions and at SLU) will be encouraged. Research papers by PhD students must be published in internationally recognized, peer-reviewed journals.

Gender considerations

Priority will be given to research which furthers the understanding of gender aspects in rural development, including the impact on men and women of rural development policies, interventions and processes of change due to increased globalisation and market integration.

Gender awareness is one of the relevant criteria for which prioritisation of research applications are made. Gender considerations will also be taken into account when selecting participants for training and education in order to have a balance of male and female participants (4 of 7 PhD candidates are female).

Gender sensitivity is an important part of the training provided both at MSc and PhD level, both as an integral part of socio-economic analysis and as a separate gender course.

Environmental considerations

In a Rural Development research programme such as this environmental concerns will be a basic principle of all research and capacity building activities. Environmental issues are crosscutting and in research projects within the domain of this programme they will relate to how the poor affect and are affected in their livelihoods including access to resources, quality of resources, policy changes and exposure to risks.

Ethical considerations

Ethical approval of medical or health research projects is required as follows (for projects carried out in countries outside Sweden):

Projects involving human subjects require ethical approval by a responsible authority in the country concerned. In case Swedish researchers or institutions participate, approval is also required from a Swedish ethical committee.

Projects involving experiments with animals should, whenever possible, be approved by a responsible authority in the country concerned. In case Swedish researchers or institutions participate, approval is also required from a Swedish ethical committee for animal experiments.

Renewed ethical approvals are required, where applicable, when changes or additions are made with regard to the original project plan.

Risk analysis

Problems that could occur would be that key individual researchers at some of the collaborating institutions may leave for other positions and be difficult to replace leading to temporary delays or changes in planned activities

Programme activities during the first agreement period

Within the new programme, activities will be promoted within three main areas:

• Networking
• Research training
• Multi-disciplinary and joint research

Networking

A number of networking activities for staff and students at the participating centres will be initiated, including during the first year, an agreement on high priority research topics to pursue in the first period. As part of the staff development and networking at least one annual workshop/seminar on themes of current Rural Development concerns will be included. National and International specialists on relevant Rural Development issues will be invited to the seminars. Presentations will be published in hard-copy proceedings and electronically on the programme web platform.

Networking among the participating centres will be facilitated through the development of a programme web platform. Skills training in web-based communication will be included as needed. The website will strengthen communication and information flow among the programme stakeholders and have facilities for sharing of programme news, real time communication, access to information, web-based distance training, relevant data bases and links to other Rural Development sites. Research news exchange will be promoted among institutions. The hub for the interactive web site will be built at CRD/HUAF.

Research training and capacity building

It is emphasized that research is the major part of the training, and both MSc and PhD level research should be based on actual problems of the rural areas in different parts of Vietnam, with interaction and sharing of results with different stakeholder groups. While considerable capacity for Rural Development research and higher training already exists in Vietnam further support to research training is necessary to reach the visions outlined initially in this proposal. We propose support at three levels:

• MSc level training
• PhD level training
• Short training courses for staff

MSc on Rural Development

A training programme at MSc level will be developed jointly in the first year with an international degree awarded by SLU for the first batch of 2005-06. In the last two years of the period the activities will concentrate on joint development of curricula, training material and a strategy to make it possible for Vietnamese institutions to offer a local M Sc in 2008. The MSc programme will be based at CRD/HUAF (Hue City), but it will draw on resource persons nationally and internationally. Pedagogical and scientific details of the MSc programme will be developed jointly in 2004 and it is expected that the first batch will start training in Feb. 2005. A batch for the MSc training will consist of 10 candidates, who will be proposed by the participating institutions and interviewed and approved by SLU. The MSc programme will take two years to complete and will include one academic year of training courses followed by 6-months research and 6- months analysis and writing of a thesis. A suggested outline of the theoretical part of the proposed MSc programme is attached (Appendix V). Expected outputs of this activity are 10 MSc graduates with their 10 publications and MSc curriculum including training materials such as books, guidelines etc.

PhD training

It is proposed that initially 3 PhD candidates go to SLU, Sweden and 3-5 other go to international universities in the region such as AIT, Changmai, Khonkaen (Thailand) that are well known for their Rural Development research training. PhD candidates (Attached CV's candidates in Appendix VI.1-VI.7) can initially be selected from existing staff and at a later point from those who have completed their MSc training. Individual supervisors must approve candidates for research training at SLU and funding assured before hand. It should be emphasized that the research will be carried out in Vietnam, and focus on issues of current concern. The thesis will consist of 4 or 5 articles published in international journals or a monograph depending on the theme. MSc and PhD research can be a part of a larger collaborative research project and the specific details of the research training will then be agreed upon during the first year. The PhD programs are generally expected to take 4 years to complete. Expected outputs are 5-8 PhD graduates with at least 8 publications.

Short courses

Short courses for research students, researchers and field staff, who will be involved in projects, may be included when required. Some of those courses will be taken in parallel with PhD courses. Such courses will be offered by existing staff at the participating centres as needed and may include: Website design and use, Introduction to Rural Development, Introduction to Agricultural Extension methods, Community development, Rural credit, Business planning & agribusiness, Project management and monitoring.

Multi-disciplinary and joint research

In a framework of the RDeVIET project, the research fund for PhD and MSc students aims to stimulate research into new and important areas of Rural Development. At the beginning of 2004 the participating centres will jointly agree on priority research areas. Research topics that have already been defined in the programme include:

1.      Integrated Farm Diversification for Sustainable Agriculture and Poverty Alleviation in Coastal Sandy Areas of Central, Vietnam (Ms HOANG THI THAI HOA - Dept of Extension and Rural Development, HUAF, Hue). The objectives of study are: (i) to carry out integrated assessment of the current farm diversification practice based on land use and natural resource exploitation; (ii) to analyze processes and dimensions of farm and livelihood diversification of the local communities; (iii) to analyze the degradation of agro biodiversity under the livelihood diversification and current economic globalization; (iv) to analyze livelihood (diversity) of the coastal sandy communities within the local framework for poverty alleviation and agro biodiversity protection. And the expected outcomes (i) Generated knowledge on current agro biodiversity, its management, utilization, issues for agriculture development; (ii) built awareness of values and roles of agro biodiversity for sustainable agriculture among stakeholders; (iii) Implemented pilot community-based conservation of integrated farm diversification; (iv) developed demonstration models on agro biodiversity conservation farming; (v) recommended policies to include agro biodiversity management in sustainable agriculture development.

2.      Rural Development for Poverty Alleviation in the Mekong Delta Basin Fresh Water Areas: Diversification in Agriculture - Promising Agricultural Practices from Farmers During the Flooding Season in the Mekong Delta (Mr. VO TONG ANH - An Giang University, An Giang). Research objectives will concentrate on analysing promising agricultural practices done by farmers during the flooding season in the Mekong Delta, finding the correlation between founded models opposed to physical, social and economical condition, propose options for promising agricultural models on different "agro-ecological zone" areas in the Mekong Delta. During the flooding season, farmers in the Mekong Delta (Vietnam) spend most of their time coping with flood disaster that effects households, other infrastructure, and in the same time also their land/livestock. Hence, they cannot effort to carry out any agricultural activities at all. Nowadays, the government has recognized the importance of farmer's income during the flooding season instead of providing relief for their damage due to such disaster. During recent years, many "cụm tuyến dân cư vượt lũ" projects (raising high dykes along rivers for farmers to build solid houses) allowed farmers to practice some agricultural activities during the flooding season for generating income as an evidence tendency. Studying the relation of different activities versus physical, social and economical condition for further extension is therefore a crucial concern from policy makers at different levels.

3.      Development of sustainable crop-livestock farming systems in the rain fed saline area of the Mekong delta (Cantho University, Can Tho). This project is to develop a suitable and sustainable model of integrated farming system between crop and livestock in a typical rain fed saline area of the Mekong Delta. Several new agricultural technologies will be consistently combined into a farm household in order to better use household's resources for economic development while keeping good environment. The project is also to enhance the human resource of investigating partner in the project in rural development aspect. The research will base on bottom up approach to set up the farming model. In addition, much attention will be paid for the linkage between farmer, researcher, and extension worker to scale up the success from the project. Community in the research site will benefit from learning the technologies of sustainable farming from the pilot site setting. Study on ways of managing and using sloppy land to increase the soil quality and livelihood of the locals in the North Central Region of Vietnam (Mr HOANG VAN SON - Vinh University, Nghe An). The research aims to apply land management form on sloping land of upland region of Nghe An province/North Central region of Vietnam, to improve to soil quality, productivity and income of household and also contribute to hunger eradication - poverty reduction. Through this study, the University, researchers will have good chances to improve capacity by involving in research and training program. We do hope that outputs from the research on establishing a appropriate land management form system in the upland region of Nghe An province/North Central region of Vietnam will achieve following criteria: Productivity, resources conservation, economic efficiency, sustainability and accepted by farmers; applied and replicated in practice.

4.      Forest and forest land management policies and livelihood of rural people in mountainous areas of Thua Thien-Hue province (Ms. HOANG THI SEN - Dept of Rural Development, HUAF, Hue). The objectives of this research is to understand the policies and programs on forest and forestland management of Vietnamese government, analyse the roles of different stakeholders in implementing the policies and programs on forest and forest land management in the region, examine the access of local people to the policies and programs on forest and forest land management by gender and social groups, evaluate the influences of the policies on livelihood of the community from gender perspective and test the joint forest management model by doing participatory action research. The project will be conducted to understand the policies on forest and forest land management of the government, the roles of different stakeholders in implementing the policies in the region, accessing to the policies of local people by gender and social groups, influences of the policies on livelihood of the community from gender perspective. It will be also implemented to test the joint forest management model by doing participatory action research for adjusting policy to achieve the objective of watershed area protection and benefit of the local people at the same time. PRA tools, stakeholder analysis, formal interview and participatory action research framework will be applied to collect data and doing the research. Descriptive statistic and qualitative method will be used to analysis the data.

5.      Appropriate land use for poverty alleviation in the central highland of Vietnam (Ms. TRANG THI HUY NHAT - Nong Lam University, Ho Chi Minh City). The Central Highland Vietnam consisted of 3 provinces (Kontum, Gia lai, Dac Lac) covers an area of 5.45 million ha, of which about 1.25 million ha are agricultural land. Density of population of is low with many ethnic minorities. Agricultural production based on basalt soil is a main livelihood activity but the income does not adequately support people with poverty index: from 0.377 to 0.127 (according to data sources of United Nations- 11/2002). It results in deforestation, serious soil erosion. Expected results on (i) diagnosis on land use existing and poverty, including description of land use existing; assessment of productivity results; explication of farmer's motivation in production model selections; analysis of matrix SWOT (Strength-Weak- Opportunity- Threat) for major crops, livestock; regression analysis and factor analysis; poverty and inequity; (ii) forecast of socio-economic perspective and market tendency, including forecast of socio-economic perspective; forecast of important market tendency (price, new crops or livestock); (iii) planning agricultural development, including planning agriculture development on agro-ecological zones; planning relevant non-agriculture and infrastructure development; (iv) agricultural project feasibility studies: scenario on agricultural development; measures for agricultural project; cash- flow; financial evaluation (NPV, IRR, PP, Benefit and Cost ratio, risk analysis,..); economic evaluation of project: social effect and income distribution. Results from the Rural Development research will also be presented at the annual workshops and published in hard-copy proceedings, in international journals and also electronically at the programme website.

Budget summary

Details of the budget posts for the proposed programme are attached in Appendix IV. A summary of the overall budget as below:

Total budget of the RDeVIET is fourteen million Swedish Kronnor (14,000,000 SEK).