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Historical Overview: Development Cooperation Betweem the UK And Historical Overview: DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION BETWEEN THE UNITED KINGDOM AND VIETNAM (PO 6368) Key Project Data Name of Project: Evaluation of the Long-term Development Cooperation Between the UK and Vietnam Contractor(s): Landell Mills Limited (LML), Bryer Ash Business Park, Trowbridge, Wiltshire, BA14 8HE, UK. +44 1225 763777 (landell-mills.com). In association with: Mekong Development Research Institute (MDRI), Floor 8, Machinco Building, 444 Hoang Hoa Tham, Hanoi, Viet Nam.: +84 4 3247 4668, [email protected] Contracting Authority: DFID Date: January 2014 – December 2015 Contents Amendment Record This report has been issued and amended as follows: REVISION DESCRIPTION DATE 1 First Draft 16 December 2015 2 Final Report 31 January 2015 Designed and produced at Landell Mills Ltd. Evaluation Team: Dr Mark McGillivray (Team Leader), Dr David Carpenter (Deputy Team Leader), Dr Phung Duc Tung and Ms Chi Tran Thi Quynh (National Experts), and Ms Eunica Aure (Evaluation Specialist and Manager) Quality Assurance: Simon Foxwell (internal) and Adam Fforde (external) Photo credit: Giang Pham Disclaimer: The views and interpretations expressed in this report are the authors’ and do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies. i Contents CONTENTS.................................................................................................................................................. II EXECUTIVE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................................. 3 ACRONYMS ................................................................................................................................................ 7 1. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................................ 10 2. VIETNAM’S NATIONAL DEVELOPMENT PROFILE ....................................................................... 13 2.1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 13 2.2. ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL CONTEXT ............................................................................................. 13 2.3. DEVELOPMENT PROGRESS IN VIETNAM POST-2000 ....................................................................... 28 2.4. DONOR SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAM ......................................................................... 45 2.5. UK SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT IN VIETNAM ............................................................................... 49 2.6. ODA AND DEVELOPMENT ACHIEVEMENTS IN VIETNAM: SOME STYLISED FACTS............................... 57 3. DFID POLICY CONTEXT .................................................................................................................. 62 4. DFID SUPPORT FOR THE MILLENNIUM DEVELOPMENT GOALS ............................................. 66 4.1. AREA BASED AND POVERTY REDUCTION PROGRAMS ...................................................................... 66 4.2. GENERAL BUDGET SUPPORT AND ASSOCIATED TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMS ...................... 76 4.3. DFID SUPPORT FOR CROSS CUTTING ISSUES ............................................................................. 105 5. DFID SUPPORT FOR GOVERNANCE ........................................................................................... 107 5.1. STRENGTHENING ECONOMIC GOVERNANCE AND FINANCIAL ACCOUNTABILITY ............................... 107 5.2. STRENGTHENING ACCOUNTABILITY AND ANTI-CORRUPTION EFFORTS ........................................... 109 5.3. INTEGRATING ECONOMIC MANAGEMENT, ACCOUNTABILITY, AND SOCIAL PROTECTION .................. 111 6. DFID SUPPORT FOR WEALTH CREATION ................................................................................. 113 6.1. SUPPORTING SOE REFORM ....................................................................................................... 113 6.2. SUPPORTING TRADE REFORMS ................................................................................................... 113 6.3. STRENGTHENING PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIPS ...................................................................... 115 6.4. SUPPORTING PRO-POOR MARKETS ............................................................................................. 115 6.5. HELPING VIETNAM ADAPT TO CLIMATE CHANGE ........................................................................... 117 7. CHARACTERISTICS OF DFID DEVELOPMENT CO-OPERATION WITH VIETNAM .................. 120 7.1. STRATEGIC CONSISTENCY .......................................................................................................... 120 7.2. LONGITUDINAL PROGRAMMATIC FOCUS ....................................................................................... 123 7.3. SPATIAL PORTFOLIO SELECTIVITY ............................................................................................... 123 8. CONCLUSION: THE QUALITY OF DFID SUPPORT FOR DEVELOPMENT VIETNAM .............. 125 8.1. AID QUALITY EVALUATION FRAMEWORK ...................................................................................... 125 8.2. THE QUALITY OF DFID SUPPORT IN VIETNAM .............................................................................. 126 ii Executive Summary Development co-operation between the United Kingdom (UK) and Vietnam dates back to the early 1960s. It entered a new phase in 1998 when UK-DFID opened an office and with the 1999 appointment of a Head of Office in Hanoi. Shortly thereafter the level of development assistance provided by DFID to Vietnam was substantially scaled up, with the UK being among Vietnam’s principal bilateral official development assistance (ODA) donors over the last 15 years. The UK has allocated £481 million bilateral ODA to Vietnam since 2001. UK bilateral ODA reached its highest annual level of £54 million in 2009. Almost the entirety of DFID ODA to Vietnam has been allocated under three so-called pillars: (i) Millennium Development Goals (MDGs); (ii) Governance; and (iii) Wealth Creation. The MDG pillar is by far the largest in terms of expenditure, with 55 per cent of total DFID bilateral support for Vietnam during the period 2001 to 2013 being allocated under it. DFID will exit Vietnam as a bilateral donor in 2016 and it is this that has prompted this evaluation. The overall purpose of the report is to provide an historical overview of development c-operation between Vietnam and the UK since 1999. It commences by examining the broad development context in Vietnam around the time DFID established its office and began to scale up its bilateral support. This examination takes into account the broad policy and institutional setting, Vietnam’s development achievements, support from the international donor community and various emerging development challenges and problems being faced by the GoV and its donor partners. Against this background, the report then looks at Vietnam’s development achievements during the period DFID has had on office in Hanoi. It focuses mainly on Vietnam’s MDG progress, but also the record with respect to economic growth, governance, inequality and sub-national living standards disparities. The preceding examination is largely quantitative. The report then moves into more qualitative investigation through and examination of activities that DFID supported under each of its MDG, Governance and Wealth Creation pillars. This involves a mix of (i) case study material, including information obtained from key informant interviews and (ii) review of relevant documentation (relating to previous evaluations, research papers, completion reports and the like) for the MDG Pillar. The examination of the Governance and Wealth Creation Pillars involves relying on the second of these sources of information. Key conclusions emerging from this examination are as follows. Vietnam was well positioned to continue to make strong development progress in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In particular it was in a good position to embrace the MDGs as development policy objectives, having a high level of government commitment to MDG type objectives, been on a very strong upward development trajectory since the mid- to late 1980s with respect not only to the MDGs but development achievements in general and having received high levels of support from the international donor community. This is notwithstanding a fall in economic growth in the late 1990s owing to the East Asian financial crisis. There were, however, emerging inequality and governance challenges. There were, in particular, high disparities in living conditions between geographic areas and ethnic groups within Vietnam. More generally, evidence was emerging of overall development context in Vietnam becoming much more complex and challenging than had been the case during the first decade after Vietnam’s Doi Moi economic reforms that commenced in the mid-1980s. Vietnam’s development performance from the early 2000s onwards has been exceptionally good by international standards. It has achieved most MDGs and likely to achieve all except the environmental MDG, MDG7, by 2015. Its performance against the income poverty reduction target of MDG1 (poverty reduction) has been particularly impressive. This target was to half income poverty 3 from its 1990 level by 2015. It achieved this target in the mid-2000s and will by 2015 have reduced income poverty by more than three quarters. Vietnam was a darling
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