University community engagement and collaborative governance for sustainable development learning from and with vietnam

Insights into the processes by which such learning can occur, and the impact this learning can have on the development work of Northern institutions, can be gleaied from the experiences

FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT:

LEARNING FROM AND WITH VIETNAM

Peter Boothroyd*

1 Introduction

Much o f the external assistance provided to Vietnam over the last half-century has oeen grounded in the global North’s paternalistic perspective that the role of international agencies is to guide “developing” countries in the global South This perspective, which underlay the establishment o f the World Bank at Bretton Woods

in 944, continued to inform “international development” programming of multilateral agencies and individual OECD countries even as their preferred strategies shifted over the decades from promoting economic growth with trickle- dowi, to meeting basic needs, and then to advocating supporting sustainability, go-oc governance, and social inclusion

Today, however, the validity o f the perspective that “North knows best” is begiining to be challenged - on the one hand by economic stresses and worsening ineqiality in Japan, North America, and Europe, and by the success o f development initiitives in the South ranging from social forestry to participatory budgeting Slovly, we are coming to understand that sustainable development should be

conceived as a long-term process o f countries learning from each other, and with

each other through jointly conducted action-research

Insights into the processes by which such learning can occur, and the impact this learning can have on the development work of Northern institutions, can be gleaied from the experiences and aftermath of a capacity-building project concucted jointly by Vietnamese and Canadian scholars, and funded by the Camdian International Development Agency (CIDA), from 1998 through 2003

* Professor Em eritus, The University o f British Columbia, Presentation to the 4th International Coiference on Viet Nam Studies, 26-28 November 2012, Hanoi.

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The project, Local Poverty Reduction in Vietnam; Building capacity fo r project planning and policy assessment (LPRV), illustrates well the potential for a

development project to contribute to international mutual learning and co-operative knowledge generation at the same time as it serves substantive development goals

o f host and donor countries

In this paper, I first describe LPRV's background, context, partners, goal, strategy, organizational structure, and results in Vietnam (Complete information on LPRV is available through its website http://www.chs.ubc.ca/lprv/overviewF.html

which includes the Final Report (2004) and the NCSSH LPRV Steering

Committee’s final assessment (2003) The latter presents the NCSSH perspective succinctly, yet comprehensively and with instructive examples.) After describing LPRV, I discuss the lessons it provided to us at UBC about university-community engagement and collaborative governance, how we applied them to capacity building for collaborative governance in Brazil and university-community engagement generally, and how we disseminated the lessons through publications

In preparing this paper, I have drawn on my observations and experience as an active participant in LPRV and in other international development activities of UBC Thanks are due to the many people from and with whom I learned during LPRV: they contributed significantly to my thinking Thanks are due also to C1DA and the partner institutions that made this learning possible Comments from LPRV participants or observers are welcomed especially if they include corrections to this paper or alternative interpretations o f the history it presents

2 Local Poverty Reduction in Vietnam (LPRV)

2.1 Background

LPRV was built on a strong partnership that had been developed between Vietnam’s National Center for Social Sciences and Humanities (now the Vietnam Academy o f Social Sciences) and the University o f British Columbia in the early

1990s Thanks to doi moi, Vietnam's momentous overarching policy o f social and

economic renovation meta-policy direction that had been initiated in 1986, Vietnam was open to such a partnership, and Canada was open to financially supporting it From 1990 to 1996, NCSSH and UBC jointly conducted a capacity-building project funded by CIDA, and a parallel research project funded by the International Development Research Centre The capacity-building project assisted NCSSH to enhance research and teaching on "development planning for sustainability and equity" by introducing Vietnamese scholars to concepts and literature then current

in many international circles but not in Vietnam because of historical political,

ecoromic, and linguistic constraints Sample course syllabi and core readings were prefared in four topic areas: rural development, urban housing, household economy antd social policy These activities were supplemented by English-language and librarian training

The research project involved joint Vietnamese-Canadian teams investigating the social impacts of Vietnam's evolving policies in the above-listed four topic area>, and assessing the implications for Vietnam's future development The

outputs were published in an IDRC monograph entitled Socioeconomic Renovation

in Met Nam: The Origin, Evolution, and Impact o f Doi Moi (Boothroyd and Nam

200)).

2.2 Context

LPRV was created in response to Vietnam’s need for poverty reduction efforts that could address local conditions by building local capacity, and to the enhanced oppjrtunities for experimentation, participation, and international co-operation that

w en enabled by the spirit o f doi moi.

2.3 Partners

LPRV expanded the early 1990s UBC-NCSSH partnership to include in Vienam the Universities o f Thai Nguyen, o f Vinh, o f Hue, and o f Dalat, and the Ho ChiMinh City College o f Social Sciences, and in Canada, Université Laval, and the Woild University Service o f Canada (WUSC) The project was co-chaired by NCSSH President Prof Dr Nguyen Duy Quy and UBC Professor Terry McGee; it was co-directed by Professor Pham Xuan Nam and myself Others, too numerous

to rame here, played strong leadership roles (NCSSH was renamed as VASS in

2004, just after LPRV finished.)

2.4 Goal and Strategy

The LPRV goal was to "build self-sustaining capacity in the [Vietnamese] partier institutions to develop and teach low-cost, participatory policy assessment and project planning methods that are effective in generating appropriate solutions

to ocalized poverty, and suited to Vietnamese cultures and administrative conditions."

The strategy was: i) to develop Centres for Poverty Reduction at each of the five Vietnamese universities; ii) to link them through NCSSH into a mutual learning netvork; iii) to undertake leam-by-doing commune-level pilot projects and policy assessments through the CPRs in collaboration with local officials and community menbers; iv) to draw lessons together about the effectiveness of various

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participatory methods in ensuring that women, ethnic minorities, and the poorest of the poor are meaningfully included in planning local projects and that policy makers are well informed about local conditions; v) to disseminate the results in curricular guides and texts

The pilot projects (related to small scale irrigation, livestock raising, crop propagation, domestic hygiene, micro-credit, eco-tourism, etc.) were to be implemented primarily with local resources and through local authorities They were not to be off-the-shelf suggestions from outsiders but instead grounded in local aspirations, conditions, opportunities, knowledge and skills

LPRV thus fell within what might be called the social development (as opposed

to growth-with-trickle-down) approach to poverty reduction: it sought to enhance the capacity of community leaders, local officials and academics to work with the poor in identifying locally specific causes o f poverty, considering options for solutions, and making action decisions or policy recommendations that are effective and fair It tried to build social capital as it expanded knowledge and skills

LPRV’s focus on participatory planning meant that it paid close attention to gender analysis and equality, and to working respectfully with minority peoples It also meant that it needed to mirror in its own program management the participatory ethos it promoted in workshops and explored in the field For example, from the beginning, it was agreed that its annual all-partner Steering Committee meetings would include at least one woman and one man from each of the partner institutions

2.5 Structure

LPRV was structured as an equal partnership among institutions—there was equality in goal setting, strategic planning, adaptive management, and budget control The idea was to create a "knowledge network" rather than the more usual North-to-South project which purports to "train-the-trainers." From the beginning, each institutional partner had considerable financial and programmatic autonomy within overall guidelines established annually by the Steering Committee

The degree o f autonomy was perhaps unusually high for an international aid project, and was not seen as positive by all active participants; some of them had well-founded concerns about accountability, effectiveness, and follow-through problems inherent in the network approach (See Scott and Chuyen 2003 )

The argument in favour o f the network, as opposed to a hierarchical approach (Canada or NCSSH led) on the one hand, or total laissez-faire (autonomy for all institutions) on the other, was that functioning as a network should encourage local

flexibility and creativity plus mutual learning and responsibility The network

approach also reflected the participation ideals that the program was dedicated to,

and provided opportunities for learning from practice about participatory planning

participation’s difficulties (e.g not enough time in large groups for all to talk),

barriers (e.g women’s traditional roles), solutions (e.g small groups) and benefits

(e.g better plans, more commitment to them)

2.6 Evolution o f Strategy and Structure

While the core o f the strategy and structure - learning by doing, and

networking - was maintained throughout LPRV's five years, there was some

evolution in the project programmatically and structurally as a result o f its adaptive

management by the Steering Committee

Programmatically, the initial idea that Canadians would deliver “training”

courses in Vietnam was soon changed to organizing workshops and study tours

where Vietnamese could learn from each other and Southeast Asian neighbours, and

to having Canadians assist Vietnamese scholars as they developed course outlines,

curricular materials, and teaching formats The initial idea that Canadian “interns”

(university students or recent graduates) would help CPRs in circumscribed areas

such as English-language training was soon changed to seeing Canadian interns as

cO'leamers with the CPRs in diverse action-research activities, and intern

sponsorship was extended beyond WUSC to other Canadian agencies

Structurally, a Coordinating CPR (CCPR) was established in NCSSH to

strengthen the network's cohesion

2.7 Results in Vietnam

By the end o f the project, LPRV had produced results (“outcomes,” in Results

Based Management language) at three levels

1 The tangible results were that poverty was reduced in a handful of

communes thanks to faculty and students from the five partner universities acting

on three fronts: a) disseminating appropriate technologies (and related skills) that

had been scientifically or locally discovered (e.g., those related to latrines, or to

pepper trees); b) creating or reviving local institutions (e.g a cattle-raising co-op, a

water-management association, a lending circle); c) strengthening social capital

(e.g by legitimating local co-operative and aesthetic traditions, by facilitating

participatory project planning) on which local poverty reduction efforts depend

LPRV's tangible poverty reduction results had not been specifically expected

or planned for when LPRV began Rather than reflecting the meeting of targeted

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objectives (as the international development schemes Logical Framework Analysis and Results Based Management are often interpreted as prescribing), the results emerged from open-ended engagement by universities with local governments and community members Such engagement at its best (as was discussed at many LPRV meetings) fostered dialogue (open yet respectful communication), creativity (through fresh observation and brainstorming), and analytical rigour (through multi­ criteria assessment o f project and policy ideas)

2 Though the tangible results were gratifying, qualitatively they were not novel and quantitatively they were very modest Thus, a more significant level o f

LPRV results lay in the social learning it generated-learning, through acticn-

research by people in various roles (officials, community leaders, and academics, as well as students on their way to being those) who participated in LPRV and who then disseminated their new knowledge through word-of-mouth, workshops, and publications

LPRV generated learning about participatory methods, institutional strengthening, social system dynamics, collaborative governance, capacity building and university- community engagement Some o f the specific areas o f learning that were enriched

by LPRV related to: a) planning tools (e.g gender analysis, participatory rural assessment) which the Canadians were responsible for introducing to Vietnam through training workshops in the early stage o f the program; b) the value for poverty reduction work o f traditional ecological and other local knowledge, indigenous mutual aid norms, and informal institutions; c) the gendered nature o f poverty; d) the danger, on the one hand, that the poorest o f the poor may be overlooked in commune-level projects, but the opportunity on the other hand, for organizing projects in ways that connect households across a range o f incomes; e) benefits o f tripartite processes that link universities with local governments and communities in collaborative problem solving; and f) learning itself

The last item in the above list, learning about learning itself, was perhaps the most important learning that occurred We LPRV participants, Vietnamese and Canadians, learned about ways to strengthen ongoing learning capacities of individuals (e.g., capacity to reflect on and leam from pilot projects) and of institutions (e.g., capacity to gain feedback from many perspectives and to adapt management principles and programs in response) In fact, there was increasing realization on the part o f active LPRV participants that enhancing learning capacity was the program’s most critical outcome More important than the acquisition of specific skills was the sharpening of interest in life-long learning about tools that we ourselves could invent, adapt and apply to help people solve complex social, economic and environmental problems

As NCSSH wrote in its final report:

The most crucial gain from the LPRV program is shown in the improvement

o f p>verty reduction capacity, which means improved capacity for the poor to relie'e themselves from poverty [T]hey have shifted from passively waiting for ecommic assistance from the State and other organizations to actively exploring effective solutions to escape poverty; and from considering themselves project impbmenters to becoming project designers This is the most important basis for then to get out of poverty in a sustainable manner

Thanks to [LPRV induced and other] changes in terms o f awareness and appnaches, the poor, instead of being distrusted [by government staff] and passvely carrying out the tasks assigned, are encouraged to participate and make deci ions in planning and implementing poverty reduction projects, and bring into full >lay their capacity to find solutions to escape poverty

(NCSSH LPRV Steering Committee, 2003:4-5)

3 LPRV results at a third level potentially offer the greatest leverage in reducing poverty over the long term These results related to the strengthening of

univrsity capacities LPRV strengthened the capacity o f the Vietnamese partners

to cmtribute to development through innovative perspectives (e.g., commitment to ong<ing mutual learning), processes (e.g problem-based pedagogy, action-research, and collaborative engagement), materials (e.g curricular guides and Vietnamese

and English language texts on such topics as gender and development, poverty- redu;tion work with ethnic minorities, urban poverty, participatory project

plaming, policy assessment, and commune profiling), and structures (e.g., the

CPFs) More important than the Vietnamese universities’ starting to teach gender anal'sis or participatory rural appraisal, or initiating poverty-oriented action- resetrch projects, was their commitments to continuously and creatively develop their capacities to do so

The degree to which and ways in which the strengthening of university capacities to engage with community-based poverty reduction have been sustained aftei LPRV in Vietnam are areas of inquiry deserving o f careful study To my knovledge, this has not been done At this point, I can only report that the anedotal evidence available to me suggests that some LPRV-induced changes in pers>ectives and processes have been fairly continuous and long-lasting, while the strustural changes have been more varied and dynamic - in part, because of changes

in nstitutional leadership Some of the CPRs may have simply atrophied Hovever, some have morphed into mainstream teaching and/or research units - e.g

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the Centre for Environmental and Rural Development at Vinh (Ramachandran aid Scott 2009), and the Department o f Social Work and Community Development at Dalat Some created ad hoc structures to continue their work: an example is the team o f VASS and Thai Nguyen scholars that was formed to address trafficking in women in northern Vietnam

The impact o f LPRV on the Canadian partner institutions has been much more modest Structurally, no new units or programs were created at UBC nor, to my knowledge, at Laval However, as elaborated in the next section o f this paper, LPRV did have an impact on the perspectives o f the Canadian faculty and interns who participated, and on various development processes we subsequently led I say this on the basis o f references to LPRV in formal and informal meetings, and on the basis o f self-reflection

3 Lessons learned at from and irith Vietnam through LPVR

While I am unsure o f LPRV's after-project impact on Vietnam (partly because other UBC responsibilities have prevented me from maintaining close contact with the principals at most LPRV partner institutions), I am confident in declaring that LPRV has continued to have significant learning value for some o f us at UBC, and that it has therefore continued to influence the nature of our international development work

For me personally, the LPRV experience provided two overarching sets of lessons: lessons about the ways community engagement can strengthen universities

as centres o f learning; and lessons about the potential o f collaborative governance to contribute to sustainable development Together, these lessons have enriched my understanding o f what participatory development (as opposed to technocratic development) ideally means, and o f the roles universities can play in leading long­ term social learning and initiating collaborative problem-solving

3.1 University-Community Engagement

LPRV’s community engagement lessons relate to the role that universities can play in promoting action-research as a strategy for building capacity to promote sustainable development, and to possibilities for strengthening performance in that role through international partnering The university, we learned, can be a social learning leader

Action-Research as a Capacity Building Strategy

As we at UBC designed LPRV with colleagues from Vietnamese and other Canadian institutions, we speculated that action-research (which we called "leam- by-doing" for the purposes o f LPRV) would be effective in contributing to poverty

reduction in the short term while building the capacity o f communities, governments and universities to contribute over the long term

We were aware of action-research thanks to the writing o f social change theorists ranging from John Dewey to Mao Tse Tung, and o f professional practice theorists ranging from feminists to natural resource managers, plus our own experiences in development work In my own case, these experiences had included working with urban neighbourhoods and aboriginal communities in Canada, and on

a CIDA-funded UBC project to build participatory planning in rural Thailand with Thammasat University These experiences had showed me first hand that academics have much to learn from others, and in a vague sense that action-research could be productive; however, until LPRV I was not aware o f its potential for helping universities strengthen their capacity to build the capacity o f others

LPRV's action-research generated knowledge about the value o f action- research itself, and the diverse forms it can take Most interestingly for me, it revealed the potential for universities to contribute directly to meeting society’s immediate and long-term development goals while concomitantly serving the academic missions o f education and research The likelihood o f this potential being met, LPRV showed, is increased when commitment to action-research as one of a university’s priorities comes from the top, support is provided for professors and students to engage with complex development problems, units are established for this purpose, inter-disciplinarity is embraced, collaboration with government and communities is fostered, and mutual-learning networks o f like-minded institutions are established domestically and internationally with other higher education institutions

At the same time, LPRV showed the difficulties that academics face when they undertake action research, especially participatory action research These difficulties include the large amount of time required for consultation, the lack of full control over research questions, methods, and schedules, and the tension in determining authorship o f written products when many people-not just academics but also community members and government officials-have played significant roles in designing and conducting the action-research activities

In te rn a tio n a l P a rtn e rin g

LPRV's lessons for international partnering were o f particular interest to those

of us at UBC who were active not only in LPRV but also in other international development initiatives LPRV confirmed that international capacity building can involve not only transfers of existing knowledge between countries but also joint

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generation o f new know ledge- new knowledge about development, social learning, institution-building, and capacity-building It confirmed that development can be enhanced by framing projects in a spirit of mutual learning rather than North-to- South knowledge transfer ("training the trainers"), that structuring international programs as participatory institutional partnerships presents benefits and difficulties parallel to those associated with participatory planning at the community level

An implication, UBC suggested to CIDA, is that donor countries could perhaps increase their impact on international development by becoming less preoccupied with intensive but time-limited projects and paying more attention to supporting lasting partnerships

3.2 Collaborative Governance

Our LPRV experience helped me, and I believe others at UBC, to see collaborative governance as an essential component o f participatory development for sustainability, and to see possibilities for universities not only researching and helping communities bilaterally but also initiating and participating in multi-lateral problem-solving

By governance, I mean the processes by which a social system o f any size steers itself These processes, to continue the cybernetic metaphor o f steering, include determining destinations and courses to take (development goals and strategies), navigating (monitoring progress, threats and opportunities), and piloting (adaptively managing so as to change course, and even destinations, as necessary)

To put it more succinctly, governance is the ongoing process o f societal planning, decision-making, and evaluation

By collaborative governance, I mean involvement in governance by those who need to be involved if planning is to be rigorous, creative and responsive, if decision-making is to be effective and fair, and if evaluation is to be accurate and comprehensive Involvement of community members in the governance that directly affects them has for several decades been understood as an essential component of what I am calling here collaborative governance (The emergence of Participatory Rural Appraisal reflects that understanding, as does Vietnam’s Grassroots Democracy Decree) LPRV started with that understanding, and with the assumption that universities could assist with interpreting communities to government (e.g, by participatorily profiling communities, identifying their needs, and assessing the social impacts of policies) and could assist with participatory project planning