COALITIONS SUPPORT PROGRAMME (CSP) INDEPENDENT END TERM REVIEW

John T. SidelLondon School of Economics and Political Science

30 October 2015

1. Introduction

This report has been written as part of the independent end term review of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP) of DFID’s Vietnam Empowerment and Accountability Programme. Funded by DFID and managed by Oxfam, CSP has been operating since 2012 as a programme designed to support and strengthen advocacy coalitions in six arenas of public policy concern in Vietnam: agriculture, forest lands, health, land use, mining, and water pollution. These six coalitions link non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs) with partners in government, the National Assembly, media, academia, and the private sector in policy-focused advocacy campaigns. Through these six coalitions, CSP has been advocating specific policy changes, enhancing the capacities of the coalitions and their component parts, and encouraging broader participation, public awareness, and reliance on scientific evidence in the policy-making process in Vietnam.

The aim and objective of this report is to examine the Coalitions Support Programme

(CSP) in terms of its effectiveness, relevance and sustainability, to evaluate evidence of programme achievements as contextualized within the circumstances and constraints of DFID’s work in Vietnam, to identify important implications and lessons, and to make recommendations for future programming to ensure sustainability and longer-term impact in Vietnam (and potentially elsewhere). As agreed in the terms of reference, the report focuses on three sets of questions. First of all, the report assesses the effectiveness of CSP management structures and personnel in pursuing the aims and objectives identified by DFID at the outset of the programme. Here in the most general terms the report examines:

the design and implementation of the programme from the outset;

the management of the programme by Oxfam;

the selection of sectors for coalition support;

the identification and/or expansion of coalitions;

the internal components and dynamics within the coalitions;

the capacities of coalition members to promote empowerment and accountability in various realms of public policy;

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the impact of the programme on coalition member organizations and individuals;

the key factors shaping effective coalition-building and coalition-based public policy work;

gender/ethnic/social/geographical equity and inclusiveness, and unconscious bias and discrimination, in the formation and management of the programme and its constituent coalition members; and

the internal mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation, and learning within CSP.

Secondly, the report examines the relationship between the Coalitions Support Programme and the broader operational context of Vietnam, in terms of the opportunities and constraints shaping the Programme and in terms of the Programme’s impact on various realms of public life and public policy. Here in the most general terms the report focuses on:

the opportunities and constraints shaping CSP’s identification and selection of issue areas for coalition-building;

the opportunities and constraints shaping selection and formation of coalitions and coalition members;

the opportunities and constraints shaping selection of issue-based projects and other initiatives;

the adaptation of CSP to changing opportunities and constraints over the life-cycle of the programme;

the contributions of CSP to concrete changes, decisions, and other outcomes at various stages and levels, and in various arenas, of civil society development and public policy-making in Vietnam;

the contributions of CSP to changing capacities, orientations, and operational dynamics of coalitions and coalition members as vehicles for empowerment and accountability in Vietnam;

the contributions of CSP to changes in the dynamics and processes of public policy formation/implementation in Vietnam, in specific policy arenas and more broadly;

and

the sustainability of these changes beyond 2016.

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Thirdly and finally, the report focuses on lessons, implications, and recommendations for further programming to support empowerment and accountability in Vietnam and to promote similar development programmes in Vietnam and elsewhere. Here in the most general terms, the report suggests:

lessons for the design of programmes supporting empowerment and accountability in Vietnam, other countries in the Mekong region, and other developing countries with similar socio-political contexts;

lessons for the management of programmes supporting empowerment and accountability in Vietnam and other developing countries;

implications for the adoption of an explicitly coalition-based approach to the promotion of empowerment and accountability in Vietnam and elsewhere;

recommendations for the extension and adaptation of CSP;

recommendations to promote sustainability and strengthen impact of CSP; and

recommendations for modalities for other coalition-based programmes elsewhere.

In terms of sources of information, the report is based on a) academic and other sources on the Vietnamese context and on the role of coalitions in promoting empowerment and accountability; b) internal CSP documents provided electronically by DFID prior to the visit in September 2015; c) additional documentary materials provided by DFID, Oxfam, and other CSP-related sources during the visit to Vietnam in September 2015; and d) interviews, discussions, and other observations in Hà Nội (and, more briefly, in Quảng Bình and Hoa Binh provinces) from September 9th through September 21st, 2015.

2. Internal Management Structures and Practices of CSP

Overall, both the diverse documentary materials provided and the information imparted by those interviewed offered ample evidence of the many constitutive strengths of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP) in terms of programme management design, structures, and actual practices. In terms of programme management design, for instance, decisions about the selection of policy arenas for programme involvement were made on the basis of extensive empirical research and political economy analysis, with options evaluated – and in some cases abandoned – on the basis of both the desirability and the plausibility of supporting and strengthening advocacy coalitions in various arenas of public policy. In a similar vein, decisions about the selection of advocacy coalitions to support and the enlistment of coalition coordinators and coordinating organization were made on the basis of

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ample familiarity with the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and other civil society organizations (CSOs) concerned as well as careful consideration of alternative options, and were subsequently re-assessed and at times re-calibrated, demonstrating the programme management team’s evident capacity for (self-)critical reflection and adaptability in the face of disappointments, diversions, and detours vis-à-vis earlier assumptions and expectations.

Alongside these strengths of overarching programme management design, there were additional strengths in the constitution of the six coalitions supported by CSP. These coalitions have engaged in advocacy work in diverse realms of public policy – agriculture, forestry, health, land use, mining, and water pollution – on a wide range of issues of importance and public concern in Vietnam. In all cases, the coalitions’ advocacy campaigns have focused on problems arising in the course of Vietnam’s economic development in which external support and strategic coordination could strengthen countervailing power against vested interests within the party-state and the private sector. The six coalitions supported by CSP typically emerged and evolved out of pre-existing patterns of collaboration, cooperation, and communication in a given policy field, not only among NGOs and CSOs, but also in embryonic networks extending into government ministries, the National Assembly, the media, the realm of academia, research institutes, and think tanks, and, to a lesser extent, the private sector. In all cases, the coalitions have operated not only as ‘coalitions’ in the sense of consortia of NGOs/CSOs, but also in a coalitional mode, in which ‘insider’ access, ‘expert’ scientific knowledge, and media coverage are combined in cross-sectoral coalitions or networks in support of advocacy campaigns.

Beyond these strengths of CSP management design and constitutive structures, there have also been additional strengths in the internal organizational processes and operational practices of the programme. The different forms of funding provided to the coalitions have combined to ensure stable support for the coordinating organization for each coalition, to encourage a very pro-active approach to media and communications, and to enable an appropriately iterative, adaptive, ‘opportunistic’ approach to the evolving exigencies of individual advocacy campaigns. In terms of monitoring, evaluation, and learning, moreover, the programme has maintained a rigorous and regularized practice of reporting and reflection on progress, plans, and prospects, as can be seen in the biannual progress reports, work plans, QAS matrices, and other written materials provided to the author in connection with this review. In addition, the programme has organized workshops and arranged other occasions and opportunities which enabled sharing and learning among and across the six coalitions and the diverse range of individuals and organizations enlisted in their advocacy work. These efforts have promoted a sense of awareness and inclusiveness that transcended the individual coalitions and allowed for useful exchanges of information, experiences, and advice.

Finally, the management of CSP has benefited from the special strengths brought to the programme by Oxfam. Here it is worth noting the experience and access, credibility and contacts which Oxfam – and the individuals recruited to the programme management team – brought to CSP. The programme has been run by a tightly organized team with an impressive depth and breadth of knowledge and understanding of the coalitions and the context(s) within

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which they have been operating. There is no evidence of ‘excess’ in terms of Oxfam staffing or spending, or of over-reliance by Oxfam on existing partners/grantees in its selection of coalition coordinating organizations and partners for support under CSP. The overall picture is one of professionalism, analytical rigour, self-consciousness, and adaptability in the design and implementation of the Coalitions Support Programme. It is also very clear that the CSP management team at Oxfam has played a crucial role in nudging embryonic advocacy networks to evolve into more formal and stable coalitions, and in nurturing linkages between NGOs, key ‘insiders’ in government ministries, agencies, and the National Assembly.

Alongside these many strengths of the Coalitions Support Programme in terms of management design, structures, and practices, there may also be some weaknesses which are also worthy of note. Some of these ‘weaknesses’ may perhaps be best understood as potential dangers or drawbacks inherent in the programme design itself. In terms of the overarching design of the programme, for example, the very structure and basis for selection of coalitions in terms of specific policy arenas has arguably led to a pattern of fixed ‘investment’ in a set of six coalitions which have limited CSP’s flexibility. While CSP did refrain from involvement in some policy arenas it initially explored, once the programme committed itself to support a coalition, it has continued to do so without any apparent inclination or effort to consider seriously the possibility of withdrawing such support. In terms of the constitution of the coalitions, moreover, some of the emphasis on semi-formal coalition-building may have encouraged artificial ‘consortia’ arrangements among NGOs and a reification of ‘coalitions’ in terms of affiliated organizations, rather than an emphasis on a ‘coalitional’ – i.e. cross-sectoral – modus operandi for advocacy campaigns.

Meanwhile, within the coalitions themselves, the strict financial controls exercised by DFID and Oxfam and the formal structures of the coalitions supported by CSP have carried additional drawbacks and dangers. The funnelling of CSP funding through coordinating organizations has created gatekeeping roles and in some cases appears to have bred resentments of such gatekeepers among NGOs included in the coalitions but not given more direct access to financial support from the programme. The designation of ‘coordinating organizations’, ‘coordinators’, ‘communications officers’ and ‘MEL officers’, moreover, may have encouraged an excessive formalization of roles within the coalitions in question. At the same time, the availability of a separate stream of CSP funding for “IBPs” (issue-based projects) may have in some instances enabled tendencies for NGOs to revert to traditional ‘project-based’ approaches, rather than the more iterative, innovative, agile, adventurous modus operandi for which CSP was originally designed. Evidence in support of this conclusion can be adduced from the striking under-utilization of the ‘opportunity fund’ also made available to the coalitions operating with the support of CSP.

It may also be worth noting some additional limitations of the internal management structures for the programme. The biannual exercise in QAS, for example, appears to have been more valuable as a regularized occasion for self-assessment and self-criticism by coalition leaders themselves than as a tool for effective evaluation and intervention by the CSP management team. The matrices themselves make it difficult to differentiate between

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stronger and weaker coalitions or to highlight important developments and trends within coalitions, and they do not appear to be linked to the accompanying narrative accounts in the biannual progress reports in a systematic fashion. Meanwhile, it should be acknowledged that the CSP advisory panel appears to have played a very limited role in terms of effective oversight and actual input with regard to the programme, with some members playing a largely nominal if not nugatory role, and others heavily involved on a more informal basis. Here it is further worth acknowledging that the sensitivity to gender displayed in the selection of the advisory panel was not fully evident in the running of all six coalitions. Some of the coalitions have been notable for the leadership roles of accomplished and eminent women, and women have been well represented in subsidiary roles in various sectors of advocacy work, from the media to government ministries and the National Assembly. But other coalitions appear to have been overwhelmingly male in staffing, and in other instances the gender dynamics are ones in which men assume positions of authority and women appear to be expected to play subordinate, supportive roles.

Finally, in terms of both the structures of the Coalitions Support Programme and the substantive steering provided by programme management to the coalitions operating with CSP support, there appears to be some evidence of an emphasis on major formal policy changes which may have had some unfortunate unintended consequences, as noted further in the pages below. Some of the coalition coordinators and partners interviewed suggested that they perceived a strong stress by DFID and Oxfam on the achievement of major formal policy changes, whether revisions of existing laws, the enactment of new laws, or the accession of Vietnam to international agreements and conventions. This – real or imagined – donor emphasis on major formal policy changes may have to some extent encouraged and incentivized the pursuit of longer-term goals, perhaps at times regardless of prospects, while perhaps unwittingly diverting attention and energies away from more modest but more concrete and potentially consequential alternative or complementary efforts and initiatives, with longer-term benefits of their own. Here, as noted in more detail in the pages to follow, some of the coalitions could arguably have devoted more energy and effort to work on government decrees and circulars, on the implementation and enforcement of existing laws and regulations, and on public awareness, participation, and monitoring if not mobilization. In addition, the emphasis on major formal policy changes in CSP-supported advocacy campaigns may have also encouraged an over-concentration of energies and efforts in Hà Nội and in the formal policy arena, perhaps at the expense of stronger subnational complements and/or alternatives to the legislative agenda.

That said, these tendencies in favour of major formal policy changes are best understood in terms of emphasis rather than exclusive focus. All of the six coalitions operating with support from CSP have in one way or another tried to combine advocacy campaigns focused on the enactment of major formal policy changes with other efforts in the realms of implementation, enforcement, monitoring, and promotion of public awareness. There are also good arguments in favour of the prioritization of formal policy changes and of a concentration of advocacy energies on government ministries, the National Assembly, and other arenas and audiences in Hà Nội. Nonetheless, as suggested in the pages below, there

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might also be good reasons to re-examine and reconsider the weighting of different kinds of advocacy work in terms of CSP’s overall agenda, its internal management structures, and the incentives engendered by the apportionment of reward and recognition to the coalitions operating with its support.

3. The Six Coalitions: Context, Commonalities, Comparative Analysis

This understanding of the internal strengths and weaknesses of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP) in terms of programme design, management structures, and practices must be combined with an examination of the advocacy coalitions themselves, their constitution, practices, and achievements, as situated within the specific context of contemporary Vietnam. Here, as noted in the inception report, the rich and growing scholarly literature on Vietnam has stressed the subtle but significant processes of social and political change which have unfolded amidst a transition from state socialism to a market economy, rapid, sustained economic growth, and related processes of industrialization and urbanization since the mid-1980s. On the one hand, the formal institutional context for political representation and authority has remained unchanged over the past three decades, with the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP) still operating according to Leninist principles of ‘democratic centralism’, maintaining its prerogatives to determine state policy and personnel decisions, and retaining established forms of control over public education and culture, and restrictions on public association, expression, and flows of information.

On the other hand, not unlike in neighbouring China, knowledgeable observers have noted developments and trends suggestive of the attenuation of centralized party-state authority and the emergence of new dynamics in the formation and implementation of public policy and, more generally, in the exercise of (party-)state power. These trends include:

the attenuation of central party-state power through decentralization and marketization, with accompanying opportunities for accumulation of power and wealth on the local level, in private hands, and in society;

the attenuation of Party control over the state and of ‘democratic centralism’ within the Party through the emergence, evolution, and articulation of diverse economic and other interests within the party-state and in Vietnamese society;

the increasing self-consciousness of the party-state leadership vis-à-vis domestic and international audiences and constituencies, due to the integration of Vietnam into the global economy and the infrastructure of the institutions of global governance, on the one hand, and the steady expansion of flows of information through the media, including the Internet and social media, in Vietnam itself;

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the increasing constraints and pressures on state policy exerted structurally by global and domestic markets, and instrumentally by foreign and domestic business interests;

the increasing importance and ubiquity of information and expertise accompanying economic growth and differentiation, industrialization, urbanization, and integration into the global economy;

the proliferation of sites and sources of cultural, educational, intellectual, religious, social, and technological production and consumption outside the direct control of the party-state;

the proliferation of new forms of associational activity and expression outside the direct control of the party-state;

the rise of ‘public opinion’ through formal polls and surveys and the broader emergence, evolution, and expansion of the media, including the Internet and social media;

the emergence of new forms of autonomous social organization, episodic forms of social mobilization and collective protest, and modes of ‘pressure politics’; and

the increasing complexity and contentiousness of policy formation and implementation in the context of these changes.

These developments and trends have created a broadening realm of opportunity for efforts to promote empowerment and accountability in Vietnam. The overall trend has been a broadening of actors, forms of activism, arenas, and point of access for involvement and intervention in the process of public policy formation and implementation. Indeed, over the past ten years, scholars and other researchers have begun to document a series of episodes in which a range of autonomous actors have engaged in more or less spontaneous efforts or more self-consciously organized initiatives to advocate – or oppose – one or another government policy, whether in a local arena or on the national level. These studies have suggested both the possibility for new multi-stakeholder advocacy initiatives to emerge and evolve as an increasingly established and important feature of the field of politics and policy-making, and the possible value of efforts to explore and expand a self-consciously coalitional approach to the promotion of empowerment and accountability in Vietnam. It is against this backdrop of both constraints and opportunities that CSP was originally conceived in 2011-2012, and it is against this backdrop of both constraints and opportunities that the six advocacy coalitions operating with the support of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP) should be situated.

Here, in terms of the six coalitions operating under CSP, their component parts, their practices, and their achievements, there are many shared strengths worthy of mention and commendation. The six coalitions have featured similar formal component parts and

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management structures, operating both as consortia of NGOs and other CSOs and, more broadly, in a cross-sectoral coalitional mode with linkages and networks extending into the realms of media, the academe, and (to varying extents) the private sector, on the one hand, and government ministries, the National Assembly, and local government, on the other. The coalitions have all been organized around advocacy campaigns with significant policy goals as sustained points of focus for their work. The coalitions, moreover, have all included organizations and individuals with long experience, expertise and access, not only vis-à-vis government, but also vis-à-vis international organizations and donor agencies.

Finally and perhaps most importantly, the coalitions have all achieved important goals in line with the expectations and aspirations of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP).

All six coalitions have enhanced media coverage of the issues focused upon in their advocacy campaigns, and have also improved coordination among different elements of the advocacy coalitions operating in these policy arenas;

All six coalitions have provided input and come to enjoy a measure of influence in the policy process in the arenas in which their advocacy work has been focused;

All six coalitions have accumulated experience, knowledge and access in the policy process;

and

All six coalitions have expanded the space for – and strength of – independent advocacy initiatives in specific policy arenas and, more broadly, in the public sphere as a whole.

Alongside these commonalities across the six coalitions operating under the auspices of the Coalitions Support Programme (CSP), there is also considerable variance meriting close, critical, and comparative analysis. Here it is worth noting:

differences in actual internal governance structures and practices;

differences in capacities and inclinations of coordinating organizations;

differences in coalitional formation/synergies;

differences in coalitional modus operandi across different arenas and levels of government and in engagement with media and academia;

differences in nature and extent of activism and achievement in terms of policy changes, in terms of input, influence, capacity-building, and the transformation of policy-making arenas and processes; and

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differences in prospects for sustaining advocacy work, for achieving their avowed core aims, and for broader impact on policy-making in Vietnam.

These differences between the six coalitions operating under the auspices of CSP merit close, careful, comparative analysis, with a set of three paired comparisons providing one vantage point from which to understand the variance observed.

Comparative Analysis (I): Paired Comparison of Strongest and Weakest Coalitions:

A first pairing of two coalitions for comparative analysis contrasts what appears to be the strongest of the six coalitions – FORLAND – with what seems to be the weakest among them, namely LANDA. First of all, the Forest Land Coalition or FORLAND emerged over the course of 2012-2013 out of a pre-existing Forest Land Network comprised of four local NGOs and a university research institute and supported by the Netherlands-based Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation (ICCO). By the beginning of 2014, the newly formed FORLAND had emerged with seven NGOs and research institutes as members, and the Centre for Rural Development (CIRD) at the Huế University of Agriculture and Forestry as its coordinating organization. The coordinating and core constituent organizations of FORLAND had already been engaged in local advocacy work to enable the retrocession of forest lands to ethnic minority communities in various provinces, as well as national-level advocacy of reforms of state-owned forestry enterprises (SFEs). Over the course of 2014, moreover, FORLAND formalized and extended its linkages with the Vietnam Administration of Forestry (VNForest), expanded its research, media outreach, workshops and seminars, and engagements with officials on government decrees and VCP Politburo decrees related to SFEs. In 2015, FORLAND won inclusion on an 18-province audit of SFEs organized by the National Assembly, and the coalition is well positioned to engage in advocacy in the National Assembly on upcoming revisions of the Law on Forest Protection and Development in 2016-2017.

FORLAND’s advocacy work is distinguished by a number of special strengths. First of all, the internal composition and governance of the coalition emerged out of years of increasing coordination and cooperation among experienced activists, and the core organizations operating at the heart of the coalition appear to complement one another in an effective manner. Here it is worth noting that the key organizations in the coalition itself have been based outside Hà Nội, with an academic research institute in Huế serving as the coordinating organization and working closely with NGOs operating in different provinces of the country.

Secondly and perhaps more significantly, FORLAND’s advocacy work spans an impressively broad range of arenas of activity and points of access in the policy process. On the one hand, FORLAND has been actively involved in serious and sustained local,

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community-level work, as exemplified by its protracted involvement in the mediation of a forest land dispute in two communes in Quảng Bình Province. This work has involved protracted engagement with both local communities and local government officials, as well as active efforts to enlist media coverage. On the other hand, FORLAND has been actively involved in forestry-related policy formation and implementation in Hà Nội, through the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development’s Forestry Administration (VNForest), the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE), the National Assembly, and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA). In other words, FORLAND has been engaged in very active and expanding advocacy work at both the local and the national levels.

Against this backdrop, FORLAND has made important progress in terms of concrete policy changes, capacity-building, and a broader impact on the policy arena within which forest land issues are treated. FORLAND’s achievements have included input and influence in the making of legislation in the National Assembly, an active role in the drafting of government decrees and circulars, and participation in an eighteen-province-wide audit of state forestry enterprises. At the same time, FORLAND has also engaged in local-level monitoring, promotion of public awareness, and advocacy with regard to the implementation and enforcement of existing laws and regulations relating to forestry lands. FORLAND is thus very well placed to continue its local-level advocacy work in provinces like Quảng Bình and, at the same time, amply well situated to contribute to the review of legislation related to forest lands which will unfold in 2016-17.

This pattern of multi-faceted and expanding advocacy work by FORLAND stands in apparent contrast with the seemingly more truncated trajectory of LANDA, the coalition working on other land issues with CSP support. LANDA emerged in mid-2013 as a group of eighteen NGOs and research institute partners brought together by Oxfam, with the Centre for Rural Communities Research and Development (CCRD) selected by the group to serve as its coordinating organization. Many of LANDA’s constituent organizations had been involved in public consultations on revisions to the Land Law beginning in late 2012 and stretching into early 2013, and the formation of LANDA unfolded these organizations’ efforts to convince the National Assembly to postpone approval of the revised law until a second round of consultations were held and new recommendations were considered. The National Assembly acceded to this request, new consultations were held, and some new recommendations were incorporated into the revised Land Law which was eventually approved in November 2013. In the end, the revised Land Law included provisions strengthening consultation and compensation in the process of state land acquisition and confiscation, as LANDA had advocated. But since the culmination of its intensive campaigning on the Land Law late 2013, LANDA’s advocacy work appears to have lost focus, energy, and momentum. This trend is evident in the sharp decline in new coverage of land issues generated through the media outreach activities of LANDA since 2013.

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Compared with FORLAND, the more limited trajectory of advocacy work by LANDA seems to reflect a number of relative weaknesses in the coalition. First of all, LANDA appears to have emerged out of other, earlier coalition-building efforts among a disparate range of NGOs, but with only some of these organizations really experienced and interested in land issues, and with the coordinating organization allegedly assuming a problematic ‘gate-keeper’ role and lapsing into a traditional ‘project’- based operational mode at the expense of more active engagement with advocacy work. Here it is worth noting that the coordinating organization is based in Hà Nội and appears to have a stronger track record of community development work in the realm of livelihood projects rather than activism and advocacy efforts specifically related to land issues. Other NGOs in the coalition are likewise said to have similarly limited experience in land issues, with perhaps a majority having other primary interests, whether in community development work, women’s issues, or otherwise.

Secondly, the nature and extent of LANDA’s actual activities and access seem to be much more limited compared with FORLAND. The coalition’s activism clearly peaked in 2013 during the National Assembly’s review and revision of the Land Law, with key constituent organizations of LANDA involved in consultations thanks to their inclusion in an earlier network of NGOs. Their contributions to the revision of the law, moreover, seem to have been heavily dependent on the intermediation of Professor Đặng Hùng Võ, a former Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, who serves on the advisory panel of the Coalitions Support Programme. Since that time, LANDA does not appear to have enjoyed much direct access within relevant government ministries and agencies, and thus it has not been able to play a very active role in discussions and drafting of government decrees and circulars relating to land issues.

Alongside the limitations of LANDA’s advocacy work on land issues in the National Assembly and in government ministries, there also seems to be limited evidence of capacity-building or real advancement of change in policy implementation and enforcement, public awareness and monitoring at the subnational level. LANDA’s engagement in Hòa Bình Province, for example, has been based on linkage with the provincial leadership of the Farmers’ Union, an organization which seems to have served more as an instrument of social control than as a vehicle for interest representation. In Hòa Bình, it is not clear how far LANDA’s engagement with land issues goes beyond activities like the financing, facilitation, and finessing of public consultations on the confiscation of land for government projects (as opposed to private real-estate development). Even as suburban sprawl in Hòa Bình has clearly thrown up much thornier issues of land conversion, confiscation, and compensation, it remains to be seen clear whether LANDA and its local partners have much appetite, inclination, or aptitude for a more serious advocacy role on this front.

Thus the two cases of FORLAND and LANDA suggest a number of lessons for understanding the advocacy work being undertaken in Vietnam under the auspices of CSP. In the first instance, these cases provide a sense of the contingent circumstances within which CSP-backed coalitions have been operating, and of the constrained but still real opportunities for effective advocacy work in Vietnam. The two coalitions have both been working in

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challenging policy arenas, on complex issues, and without available or easily accessible built-in infrastructures linking local communities, broad social constituencies across Vietnam, and the National Assembly and government ministries in Hà Nội. Nonetheless, at least in the case of FORLAND, there have clearly been opportunities for advocacy work and real achievements in terms of contributions to policy-making, capacity-building for advocacy groups, and some qualitative change in the policy process.

In a similar vein, the different trajectories of the two coalitions over the past few years may also be understood as a reflection of the different ‘structures of political opportunity’ within which they have been operating, rather than differences in the coalitions themselves. In the case of FORLAND, for example, it may be the case that elements within the Forestry Administration (VNForest) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) have been particularly receptive to the advocacy work advanced by the coalition, given that it may strengthen MARD’s regulatory powers vis-à-vis the vested interests of the state-owned forestry enterprises (SFEs). It may likewise be the case that local (e.g. commune-level) officials in provinces like Quảng Bình are similarly receptive to FORLAND’s work insofar as it strengthens their hand vis-à-vis provincial-level SFEs.

In the case of LANDA, by contrast, there may simply not be a similarly supportive constituency within the national government in Hà Nội which would aid and abet advocacy work that threatens to render procedures for confiscation, conversion, and compensation in land development more costly and complicated. Among local officials in provinces like Hòa Bình, moreover, there may be a commensurate paucity of interest and appetite for engagement with LANDA on any basis other than one which eases the process of land dispute resolution through forms of local ‘consultation’ and ‘participation’ which remain severely circumscribed. Thus perhaps the differences observed between FORLAND and LANDA are understandable and explicable in terms of structural constraints operating in the two policy arenas rather than the coalitions themselves.

That said, the comparison between FORLAND and LANDA also gives some sense of the possible importance of contingent differences in the composition of the coalitions, the identities and orientations of the coordinating organizations, and the approaches taken in their advocacy work. FORLAND is notable for its strong roots and representation outside Hà Nội, in contrast with LANDA. FORLAND appears to have accumulated considerable experience, knowledge, and access through its work, both locally and nationally, again in apparent contrast with LANDA. FORLAND appears to have found more credible and constructively critical ‘insiders’ with whom to build advocacy coalitions as compared with LANDA. Thus it may be possible and productive for CSP to consider alternative scenarios in its support for further advocacy work in the realm of land issues, whether within the confines of the existing coalitional structures of LANDA or otherwise.

Comparative Analysis (II): Birds of a Feather?

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A second paired comparison – between the Health Coalition and the Clean Water Coalition – suggests additional lessons with regard to the advocacy work being supported by CSP, but thanks to the similarities between the two coalitions rather than the differences between them. In the first of these two cases, the Health Coalition emerged in late 2013 at the initiative of the Research and Training Centre for Community Development (RTCCD), a medical research and health advocacy outfit active in Vietnam for nearly twenty years. The coalition has expanded to include eight organizations and many more individuals working in the health sector, but the coordinating organization and core of the coalition has remained RTCCD, with the Vietnam Medical Association and both VUSTA and PACCOM (the People’s Aid Coordinating Committee) as additional partners providing official imprimatur and access for the coalition. In 2014, the Health Coalition engaged in efforts to advocate revisions to the Health Insurance Law and the Law on the Protection, Care, and Education of Children, with some impact evident in the introduction of broad new commitments among the general provisions of the revised legislation.

Over the course of early 2014, moreover, the Health Coalition decided to focus its energies on advocacy for a ban on asbestos in roofing and other construction materials, through Vietnam’s accession to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade. Since that time, the Coalition has worked assiduously to bring research findings on the grave health consequences and social costs of asbestos to the attention of government policy-makers, National Assembly members, and the broader public. To this end, the Coalition has combined workshops, seminars, and other direct approaches to members of the policy elite with a broader campaign of media coverage. Of all the six coalitions operating with the support of CSP, the Health Coalition’s media outreach has generated the most news coverage in 2014 and 2015, and by a considerable margin.

The Health Coalition has brought a number of signature strengths to its advocacy work. First of all, the Health Coalition is probably the most impressive of all the coalitions operating with support from CSP in terms of technical expertise in its policy arena and ability to access and utilize academic and other scientific research for policy advocacy. At the same time, the Health Coalition’s leadership may also be the most impressive of all CSP coalitions in terms of the extent of its access to government ministries (e.g. the Ministry of Health) and other power centres (e.g. the National Assembly) on the one hand, and the levels of its public visibility and credibility on the other, most notably in the person of Dr. Trần Tuấn, the director of the Research and Training for Community Development (RTCCD), the coordinating organization for the Health Coalition.

At the same time, however, the Health Coalition has not been able to leverage all of these strengths into commensurate achievements in terms of policy change. In terms of major pieces of health-related legislation before the National Assembly, for example, the Health Coalition has only managed to influence (and insert) very general language in new laws, rather than shaping the substance of their provisions. In terms of the drafting of government

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decrees and circulars, moreover, the coalition seems to have had little sustained involvement or serious interest. Finally, the coalition has demonstrated only very limited inclination or initiative in the realm of monitoring, documentation, and dissemination of information to the public on key issues of concern in health policy, even though the public health care system and various medical doctors’ associations provide a potentially powerful infrastructure for the collection, production, and circulation of scientific knowledge on public health issues throughout Vietnam. The coalition’s expressed interest in tackling widespread corruption in the health care system has thus remained essentially undeveloped in terms of advocacy work.

To date, the most serious and sustained initiative undertaken by the Health Coalition appears to be its efforts to promote an asbestos ban. Here it is worth noting – and commending – the Health Coalition’s role in the drafting of a formal letter from the ILO and the WHO to the Prime Minister of Vietnam urging accession to the Rotterdam Convention and the imposition of a ban on asbestos in construction materials. Advocacy work on the asbestos ban has represented a very positive and promising focus for the Health Coalition. A ban on asbestos would have very concrete positive long-term consequences for public health in Vietnam, especially considering the prevalence of roofing materials in the on-going construction boom in the country. An advocacy campaign focused on an asbestos ban, moreover, also provides an excellent opportunity for establishing a broader voice for public health advocacy groups on issues of product liability, consumer safety, and the like in Vietnam. Finally, work by the Health Coalition on an asbestos ban also serves as a very useful exercise in capacity-building, insofar as the individuals and organizations involved may accumulate experience, knowledge, credibility, and public visibility which may assist in future advocacy campaigns on other policy issues of concern in the realm of public health.

At the same time, however, it is less than clear whether the Health Coalition’s approach to the goal of obtaining Vietnam’s accession to the Rotterdam Convention and achieving an asbestos ban in the country has really been sufficiently broadly conceived as to make full use of the opportunities for advocacy work in the realm of public health in the country. The coalition has made high-level representations to the Vietnamese government and is closely monitoring the manoeuvres behind the scenes by opponents of the asbestos ban to resist policy change on this front. Here there is strong support from within the Ministry of Health, but prospects remain uncertain given the strength of the asbestos lobby and the stubborn resistance of the Ministry of Construction. Thus there is a very real danger that the Health Coalition could be focusing on a policy change which will not be adopted by the government and/or effectively implemented over the years ahead.

Against this backdrop, it is important for the Health Coalition and CSP to consider the full range of available options in terms of alternative or complementary approaches to the coalition’s focus on the asbestos ban and its current approach to advocacy on this issue. Alongside or instead of the focus on high-level government policy-makers, for example, the coalition could devote even more energy and resources to the accumulation and dissemination of information on asbestos beyond its promotion of media coverage of this issue. Here the Health Coalition could explore new ways to make use of the available

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infrastructure of public health facilities, medical research, and doctors’ associations in Vietnam. At the same time, the Health Coalition could also intensify and expand its tentative exploration of new possible forms of collaboration with private sector interests, most notably those companies importing or producing asbestos-free roofing and other construction materials in Vietnam. In other words, it is important for the Health Coalition to continue to explore new approaches, points of access, and possibly new kinds of initiatives for advocacy work in health policy in Vietnam to strengthen and/or supplement its existing efforts in support of an asbestos ban.

Meanwhile, a similar set of points may equally apply to the Clean Water Coalition, which shares many features with its CSP-backed counterpart in health. As with the Health Coalition, the Clean Water Coalition was among the later additions to the group of coalitions supported by CSP, winning approval for funding by the programme in October 2013 and holding its first official meeting in late December of that year. As with the Health Coalition, the Clean Water Coalition has featured from its inception a very strong personality as its coordinator and a single coordinating organization at its core, namely Ms. Nguyễn Ngọc Lý and the Centre for Environment and Community Research (CECR), which she serves as director. As with the Health Coalition, the Clean Water Coalition has focused its advocacy work on a very clear, coherent, and compelling major policy reform, namely the enactment of a Clean Water Act to overcome ambiguities and inconsistencies in existing legislation and government regulations pertaining to water pollution in Vietnam. As with the Health Coalition, the Clean Water Coalition has combined workshops and seminars for government policy-makers and National Assembly members with broader efforts to encourage media coverage and dissemination of information to the public on its core issue of concern.

Further parallels between the two coalitions are also evident in their underlying strengths. As with the Health Coalition, the Clean Water Coalition has four research institutions among its core members and is blessed with real technical expertise in its policy arena and ability to access and utilize academic and other scientific research for policy advocacy. At the same time, the Clean Water Coalition’s leadership is, like that of the Health Coalition, very impressive in terms of the extent of its access to government ministries (e.g. the Vietnam Environmental Agency within MONRE) and other power centres (e.g. the National Assembly) on the one hand, and the levels of its public visibility and credibility on the other, with similarly strong linkages to influential international institutions and multilateral agencies as well. As with RTCCD Director Dr. Trần Tuấn of the Health Coalition, Ms. Nguyễn Ngọc Lý, the director of the Centre for Environment and Community Research (CECR), not only heads up the Clean Water Coalition’s coordinating organization but also provides a very powerful and prominent leadership as well as years of experience, access, and inside knowledge in terms of international institutions as well as the Vietnamese government.

At the same time, however, the Clean Water Coalition may also suffer from some of the same difficulties and dangers as the Health Coalition in terms of translating its considerable strengths into concrete policy outcomes. As with the Health Coalition’s efforts

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in support of an asbestos ban, the Clean Water Coalition has focused its resources and energies on a very ambitious policy change – a Clean Water Act – which constitutes an amply worthy cause, given how the social costs and dangers of unchecked water pollution in Vietnam arguably rival those of continued asbestos use in construction materials in the country. As with the sympathies for the asbestos ban found within the Ministry of Health, there is likewise evidence of support for stronger regulation of water pollution within some departments of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment. In both cases, there is ample scientific evidence in support of these advocacy coalitions’ calls for major policy changes in the interest of public health and the environment.

But as with the Health Coalition’s difficulties in bringing its campaign for an asbestos ban to fruition in terms of enactment and implementation, the Clean Water Coalition runs the danger of concentrating all its efforts on a single goal which may be unrealizable within the foreseeable future. Officials within the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) involved in the Clean Water Coalition have indicated that there is no appetite at the ministerial level for a new piece of environmental legislation and have expressed pessimism with regard to the prospects for a Clean Water Act over the next few years. Beyond MONRE, it appears that there is some interest among members of the National Assembly, but it seems that the passage of a new piece of legislation without the support of relevant ministries would be unprecedented.

Under these circumstances, it would appear that more energy and effort could and arguably should be devoted by the coalition to complementary and/or alternative forms of advocacy work in support of stronger water pollution control in Vietnam. Most obviously, there is room for further exploration of ways to strengthen implementation and enforcement of existing laws and regulations to deter water pollution, drawing on the diverse resources and skills of coalition partners in MONRE, in the media, and elsewhere. At the same time, there may also be further opportunities to revise and refine existing government decrees and circulars in favour of stronger regulation of water pollution, and to strengthen available mechanisms for monitoring, evaluation, and documentation by local government agencies, NGOs, and local community groups as well. Here it is worth noting – and commending – the Clean Water Coalition’s work to help promote community-level monitoring of water pollution in Hà Nội, Đà Nảng, and provinces such as Bảc Ninh, Ninh Bình, Quảng Nam, and Bình Du’o’ng. It is to be hoped that this kind of advocacy work is already bearing fruit and can be intensified and expanded in the years ahead.

Overall, then, the two cases of the Health Coalition and the Clean Water Coalition suggest an additional set of lessons for CSP beyond those already drawn from the comparison of FORLAND and LANDA. Both coalitions, after all, demonstrate the potential importance of technical expertise, scientific knowledge, and intellectual credibility for advancing advocacy campaigns on complex policy issues of public concern. The very bases of the two coalitions’ advocacy campaigns, after all, are grounded in rigorous empirical research and are exercises (as explicitly emphasized by the Health Coalition) in promoting evidence-based policy-making in Vietnam.

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At the same time, however, the Health Coalition and the Clean Water Coalition also demonstrate the equal importance of political opportunities and constraints for determining the trajectories of advocacy work in support of serious policy changes. Both coalitions have set very ambitious goals for themselves, goals which may not be realistically achievable within the next few years, in terms of enactment and implementation. This prospect suggests the potential drawbacks and dangers of focusing advocacy campaigns on major formal policy decisions that are unlikely to be enacted or implemented in the short- or medium-term, at least if such a focus comes at the expense of other competing or complementary work towards the same broader goals of policy change. Attention and effort should also simultaneously be devoted to less ambitious but equally essential goals of accumulating and disseminating scientific knowledge, raising public awareness and strengthening available mechanisms – in terms of government regulation and social action – to promote other forms of change in the policy arena itself.

Comparative Analysis (III): Advocacy Coalitions Under Strong Constraints

Finally, a third paired comparison between the last two advocacy coalitions working with support from the Coalitions Support Programme merits consideration against the backdrop of the lessons identified above. Both coalitions, after all, are operating in policy arenas – agriculture and mining – in which the imperatives of economic growth, the incentives of market forces, and the influence wielded by vested interests within the party-state itself are powerful and combine to inhibit and impede effect advocacy work in the public interest. Both coalitions, moreover, face significant obstacles to conduct rigorous research and accumulate reliable information on complex economic activities, on the one hand, and to establish effective linkages with key social constituencies of concern (i.e. small-scale farmers and communities living near mining sites), on the other. But the two coalitions appear to have dramatically diverged in the ways in which they have operated within such constraints.

The Mining Coalition has been operating with CSP support since March 2013. This coalition began with CODE (Consultancy on Development), an NGO working on mining issues since 2007, as its coordinating organization, as well as three other NGOs including PanNature (the Centre for People and Nature Reconciliation), with whom it had been working closely since 2009. At the end of 2013, CODE decided to shift the focus of its work away from mining and left the Coalition, with PanNature taking its place as coordinating organization. Meanwhile, beyond these NGOs, the Coalition has also included the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), the Vietnam Forum for Environmental Journalists, and MONRE’s Department of Mineral Control as additional members.

From 2013 onwards, the Mining Coalition has had a clear focus for its advocacy work, along lines familiar from the Health Coalition’s campaign for an asbestos ban and accession to the Rotterdam Convention, or the Clean Water Coalition’s push for a Clean

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Water act. In a similar vein, the Mining Coalition has engaged in efforts to promote Vietnam’s participation in the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI), an international convention whose implementation entails public disclosure of information on tax payments, licenses, contracts, and production figures in resource extraction industries such as mining. This advocacy work has proceeded through workshops, seminars, and media outreach to familiarize senior government policy-makers as well as the broader public with the EITI. At the same time, the Mining Coalition has also been working on pilot projects in two provinces to examine, encourage, and expand local government agencies’ rigour and rectitude in the implementation, enforcement, and openness to public scrutiny of environmental and other regulations, licenses, contracts, taxes, and other fees relating to mining. Since early 2015, moreover the Mining Coalition has also been working with the Ministry of Finance to explore ways to strengthen procedures for the collection of environmental protection fees from mining companies, with a new decree reportedly anticipated by the end of this year.

Overall, in the case of the Mining Coalition, the constraints on effective advocacy work have clearly been very strong and stifling. These constraints appear to have circumscribed the nature and extent of access to policy-makers within the government and even to vital information on mining activities across Vietnam. Thus the coalition appears to have enjoyed very limited success in terms of influence and input in the revision and re-drafting of laws in National Assembly, and in the drafting of decrees and circulars within relevant government agencies such as the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) and the Ministry of Finance. At the subnational level, the coalition has enlisted the VCCI (Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry) to play a leading role in the pilot projects in two provinces to gather data and explore ways to enhance accountability and transparency in the realms of regulations and revenues related to mining companies. But it is not clear what progress or promise can be credibly claimed for these initiatives.

At the same time, the Mining Coalition has focused much of its effort and energy on a seemingly ambitious formal policy change, namely Vietnam’s accession to – and implementation of – the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI). Accession to the EITI would in principle entail public disclosure of information on tax payments, licenses, contracts, production, and other key aspects of mining operations. But today there are only 48 countries across the world claiming to be implementing EITI standards, and of them only 31 which are judged to be compliant, without any apparent sanctions or other consequences for non-compliance. There appears to be only limited appetite within the government leadership for accession to the EITI and less evidence that accession would lead to effective implementation and real impact in due course. Thus there is the obvious danger that the Mining Coalition has been placing emphasis on a major formal policy goal which may be both overly ambitious and insufficiently enforceable, and which may divert attention, energy, and effort away from other avenues of policy change worthy of exploration. Here the model of FORLAND suggests itself as potentially relevant for the Mining Coalition, given both the apparent similarities between forestry and mining policy arenas and the evident divergences between the two coalitions in terms of approaches and achievements to date.

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Meanwhile, the Agriculture Coalition suggests another point of comparison and contrast. Formed as recently as March 2014, Agriculture Coalition has been unusual in its composition, with university- and government-based ‘think tanks’ predominating among its core constituent organizations. At the outset, the NGO iSee, best known for its work on LGBT, disability, and ethnic minority issues, as the coordinating organization for the Agriculture Coalition, and iSee has played a role in trying to expand participation in the Coalition beyond ‘policy wonks’ to include farmers’ voices and broader public participation in workshops, seminars, and media outreach. But the primary focus of the Agriculture Coalition’s advocacy work has been research and direct input into policy-making discussions and debates, and by the end of 2014 the Vietnam Centre for Economic and Policy Research (VEPR) had replaced iSee as the Coalition’s coordinating organization.

Since its founding in early 2014, the Agriculture Coalition has thus focused its energies on a wide range of specific policy issues relating to agriculture in Vietnam. Over the course of 2014, research was undertaken and reports were published on Vietnam’s rice and livestock markets, in which government policies and both state- and private agribusiness interests were shown to work against the interests of small farmers. By late 2014 and early 2015, these findings had been conveyed to policy-makers and broader public audiences through workshops and media coverage, and also fed into the policy-making process itself in more concrete ways. In particular, the Coalition’s input helped to spur the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) to promulgate a new decree allowing farmers more flexibility to shift from rice cultivation to other crops, and a new circular strengthening government regulations and promoting greater competitiveness in livestock markets.

In some ways, the Agriculture Coalition’s advocacy work has been inhibited by some

of the same constraints facing the Mining Coalition. As with the Mining Coalition’s difficulties in finding effective and organic linkages to communities affected by mining, so has the Agriculture Coalition struggled to develop credible or coherent mechanisms for representing small-scale farmers in support of advocacy work. As with uncertainties about the extent of the VCCI’s commitment to the Mining Coalition, so have there been there real questions about the role of iSee as original coordinating organization and continuing partner in the Agriculture Coalition, given this civil society organization’s lack of experience, expert knowledge, or organic linkages in the realm of agricultural policy.

But for all these apparent parallels and similarities with the Mining Coalition, the Agriculture Coalition appears to have enjoyed much greater access and influence, with its policy advocacy activities and aims following a very different logic and trajectory. With the prominent ‘think tank’ VEPR taking over from iSee as coordinating organization and prominent economists like VEPR’s Nguyễn Đức Thành assuming a leading role, the Agriculture Coalition seems to have focused its energies on policy-related research, discussion, and debate. Overall, the coalition does not seem to be focusing on pieces of legislation under review by the National Assembly or to have concentrated on major policy reforms. Instead, the coalition has drawn attention to very specific and concrete issues and

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problems in agricultural policy in ways which are said to have dramatically expanded the space – and improved the quality – of policy discussion and debate. Here it is worth noting that the level of access enjoyed by members of the coalition (i.e. Nguyễn Đức Thành) extends up into the ranks of economic advisors to the Prime Minister, as well as within government agencies such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD).

At the same time, however, there may be limits to the Agriculture Coalition’s advocacy trajectory. In general, it remains less than fully clear how academic research, intellectual debate, and elite access and influence will translate into concrete policy changes on issues in which powerful state agencies and major international agri-business conglomerate have vested interests. In institutional terms, moreover, it remains to be seen what kinds of constituencies and collaborators within the state can be identified for coalition-building in support of policy change, beyond certain departments of Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD). There are also broader questions as to the nature of the ‘coalitional’ approach of the Agriculture Coalition, given the weakness of its linkages to NGOs working in agriculture and to the broad constituency of Vietnamese farmers, the apparent limitations of its active engagement with the media, and its essentially ‘think-tank’ mode of operations in Hà Nội and Hồ Chí Minh City.

Thus in the case of Mining and Agriculture, we find challenging and constrained policy arenas within which advocacy is being promoted by the Coalitions Support Programme in very different ways. On the one hand, the differences between the two coalitions reinforce the importance of the drawbacks and dangers of focusing advocacy campaigns on major formal policy changes at the expense of a broader approach to capacity-building, policy change, and the enhancement of the policy process itself. On the other hand, the shared constraints and challenges faced by both coalitions also highlight the difficulties of building and sustaining advocacy campaigns without more broadly conceived – and actualized – coalitions, extending not only into government but into society as well.

4. Conclusions: Implications and Recommendations

Overall, the review suggests very clearly that the Coalitions Support Programme has been a very worthwhile initiative, very productive, and successful in terms of achieving some specific policy outcomes, positive changes in policy processes, and capacity-building for independent advocacy coalitions in the policy arena. These achievements are all the more impressive and important if we consider the short period of time which has elapsed since the inception of the programme, and the considerable constraints and challenges confronting advocacy campaigns on issues of public policy in Vietnam.

In terms of the programme as a whole, this review has suggested that CSP has benefited from at least three fundamental and foundational strengths. First of all, the programme has been very carefully designed and effectively implemented to focus energies and resources on

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the promotion of countervailing power to complement and check the powerful imperatives, impulses, incentives, and exigencies accompanying rapid economic development in Vietnam. The policy arenas within which CSP-supported advocacy coalitions are operating are all ones in which rapid economic growth and industrialization has generated consequences and costs – environmental, health, and social – which are not being adequately addressed or ameliorated by existing state policies and provisions for the public good. At the same, however, these are also all policy arenas within which certain constituencies within the Vietnamese state and in Vietnamese society could potentially be mobilized in concert or ‘coalition’ to effect positive policy changes. In all six policy arenas, CSP could identify component parts and – at varying stages of development – pre-existing patterns of collaborative work which could be nurtured into sustained advocacy coalitions. In other words, the six policy arenas for CSP’s work – agriculture, forestry, health, land, mining, and water pollution – have been carefully selected on the basis of both exigency and opportunity, and both significance and sustainability.

Secondly, the Coalitions Support Programme has been very carefully designed and effectively implemented to promote effective coalition-based advocacy work in these six policy arenas. On the one hand, the programme has been very carefully managed, with a rigorous regime of documentation and financial regulation, regular exercises in internal assessment and structured opportunities for learning within and across the six coalitions supported by CSP. On the other hand, the programme has also been conceived and actualized in line with a range of on-going experiments in ‘doing development differently’, with built-in flexibility and mechanisms to enable and encourage innovation and an iterative problem-solving approach in advocacy work.

Thirdly and finally, the Coalitions Support Programme has been constructed on very solid foundations in terms of internal staffing and sourcing of its coalition partners. The programme has benefited from the strengths of a very seasoned and sophisticated management team at Oxfam, with expert knowledge and excellent networks extending across the realms of international development agencies, government ministries and the National Assembly, NGOs and other CSOs, academia and think tanks, and media outlets in Vietnam. The programme has also drawn strength from the identification and enlistment of very dedicated coalition coordinators and partners with real knowledge, experience, expertise, and access in their policy arenas. The component parts of coalitions include some very energetic and impressive individuals and organizations, among the advocacy groups and NGOs at the core of these coalitions, and in the ranks of the government officials, academics, journalists, and others serving as key coalition partners.

Against the backdrop of these internal strengths of the programme, and in the context of the specific circumstances and constraints operating in the policy environment in Vietnam, this review has also identified three forms of impact and achievement by the Coalitions Support Programme since its inception in 2012. First of all, the six coalitions supported by CSP have contributed advice, information, and other input, and otherwise exerted influence in ways which have impacted on specific government policies. These concrete contributions to policy change can been seen in terms of legislation in the National Assembly, decrees and

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circulars in the ministries, as well other government decisions, whether at the national or local levels.

In terms of legislation, over the past three years, CSP-backed coalitions have been playing active roles in public consultations by the National Assembly’s in connection with the revision of major laws. These laws include:

the Land Law (LANDA, 2013);

the Environmental Protection Law (Mining and Clean Water, 2014);

the Forest Protection and Development Law (FORLAND 2014 to the present);

the Health Insurance Law (Health, 2014);

and

the Law on the Protection, Care, and Education of Children (Health, 2015).

In most of these cases, there is evidence that the advocacy work of CSP-supported coalitions played a role in the drafting of specific revisions to these laws and specific new amendments.

In addition, the six coalitions supported by CSP have also exerted various forms of influence in support of other government policy decisions. Examples include:

FORLAND’s role in the promulgation of government decrees and circulars as well as CPV Politburo resolutions related to forest lands and state forestry enterprises (SFEs);

FORLAND’s inclusion on an independent team conducting an audit of State Forestry Enterprises (SFEs) in 18 provinces for the National Assembly;

FORLAND’s role in securing the retrocession of hundreds of hectares of forest land for ethnic minorities in various upland localities;

The Health Coalition’s role in the Deputy Prime Minister’s decision to restrict the continued inclusion of asbestos among approved construction materials to 2020, rather than extending to 2030;

The Clean Water Coalition’s role in stimulating interest in a Clean Water Act within the Ministry Of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) and the National Assembly;

The Mining Coalition’s role in the drafting of decrees by the Ministry Of National Resources and the Environment (MONRE) and the Ministry of Finance;

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and

The Agriculture Coalition’s role in broadening and deepening policy discussions and debates, and in the drafting of new decrees and circulars by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) addressing rigidities and other problems in rice and livestock markets.

Secondly, beyond these concrete contributions to specific changes in government policy, the Coalitions Support Programme has enhanced the capacities of the six advocacy coalitions it has been supporting in terms of their longer-term ability to engage in effective advocacy work in their respective arenas of public policy concern. The six advocacy coalitions have been strengthened and rendered more self-driven and sustainable in a number of ways, including:

Enhanced coordination among advocacy groups working in and across specific policy arenas;

Enhanced access to and openness of government ministries for advocacy groups;

Enhanced access to and openness of the National Assembly for advocacy groups;

Enhanced collaboration between advocacy groups and the media, including print journalism, television, online media outlets, and social media;

Enhanced skill and sophistication of advocacy groups in using media and social media in support of advocacy campaigns;

Enhanced communication and collaboration between policy advocates and economists, scientists, and other academics and technical experts on specific areas of public policy concern;

Enhanced knowledge and understanding of complex policy issues by advocacy groups;

Enhanced access of advocacy groups to scientific evidence and empirical data of relevance to specific public policy issues;

Enhanced linkages between NGOs and other CSOs, government ministries/agencies, the National Assembly, the media, academic and other research institutions, and the private sector, as sustained ‘advocacy coalitions’;

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Enhanced linkages between national-level advocacy work on policy formation in Hà Nội, on the one hand, and sub-national advocacy focused on policy implementation across Vietnam;

Enhanced experience in the waging of advocacy campaigns in the media and the public realm;

and

Enhanced experience in the policy process in government ministries, the National Assembly, and other sites of policy formation and implementation.

Thirdly and finally, beyond its contributions to specific policy changes and to the strengths and sustainability of the six coalitions it has been supporting, the Coalitions Support Programme has also made important contributions to the broader environment for public policy-making, and to policy-making institutions, practices, and processes in Vietnam. These contributions include:

Encouraging and enabling government ministries to be more open and accessible to advocacy groups in terms of policy formation and implementation;

Encouraging and enabling the National Assembly to be more open and accessible to advocacy groups in consultations and debates over legislation;

Encouraging and enabling advocacy groups to establish linkages and lines of communication with partners in government ministries, in the National Assembly, and in local government;

Encouraging and enabling broader and deeper coverage of public policy issues in the media, including television, print journalism, online media outlets, and social media;

Encouraging and enabling greater communication and coordination between advocacy groups and the media;

Encouraging and enabling more effective public dissemination of policy-related information and stronger public awareness of, and interest in, policy issues;

Encouraging and enabling more use of empirical evidence, scientific knowledge, academic research, and technical expertise in the formation and implementation of public policies;

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Encouraging and enabling a broadening and deepening of policy debates and discussions, in terms of participation, sophistication, transparency, and accountability;

and

Encouraging and enabling the establishment of multi-sectoral advocacy coalitions and advocacy campaigns among the participants, practices, and processes accepted and incorporated in the formation and implementation of public policies in Vietnam.

Alongside the strengths and substantive achievements of the Coalitions Support Programme as a whole, the review has also identified some possible drawbacks and dangers in the design and management of the programme, as well as some shortcomings and weaknesses in the work of individual coalitions operating with CSP support. It is perhaps inevitable that the very same strengths of programme design may generate commensurate weaknesses. It is perhaps likewise inevitable that there will be some unevenness in the actual performance of coalitions, given the diversity of coalition partners and participating organizations as well as the differences between the very policy arenas in which they are engaged in advocacy work.

Nevertheless, this review has provided the basis for four recommendations for the Coalitions Support Programme and its constituent coalitions, and for DFID, Oxfam, and other agencies interested in the program and its implications for similar programs in Vietnam, other countries in the Mekong region, and across the developing world. First of all, it is strongly recommended that the Coalitions Support Programme be extended and if possible expanded, with Oxfam enabled to continue its work on a similar basis to that established with DFID. As illustrated and emphasized in the pages above, CSP is a very impressive and in some ways important program, both for what it has already been achieving and promises to achieve in Vietnam, and for what it has demonstrated to be possible in terms of advocacy work in a such a circumscribed time-frame and in such a relatively constrained context as found in Vietnam in 2012-2015. As highlighted above CSP has many strengths, is making a substantial impact, and is highly sustainable in the years ahead.

Secondly, in terms of the coalitions operating with support from CSP, it is recommended that the program’s support and strategy should be reconsidered in the light of some of the specific concerns flagged above, especially with regard to the shortcomings and weaknesses of individual coalitions and the organizations which comprise them. Thirdly, in terms of CSP management practices and the strategies of individual coalitions, it is recommended that a change or rebalancing of emphasis and incentive structures be considered. On the one hand, it is recommended that the coalitions continue to devote their energies and resources to the revision or passage of major pieces of legislation and to the accession of Vietnam to various international agreements (e.g. EITI, the Rotterdam

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Convention). On the other hand, it is also recommended that more energy and effort be focused on monitoring and advocacy work with regard to the implementation of existing laws and regulations, and that opportunities for work on government decrees and circulars be further explored insofar as possible.

Fourthly and finally, there is an additional recommendation with regard to the management structures and modalities of ‘programming’ for CSP, a potential successor programme, and/or other similar programmes in Vietnam and/or elsewhere. Here it is suggested that DFID, Oxfam, the Australian Embassy, and other interested international development agencies should consider the potential merits of supplementing and complementing sustained support for established coalitions in defined policy arenas with other kinds of arrangements for supporting advocacy coalitions in Vietnam and elsewhere. In particular, there may be arrangements which would more fully and effectively incentivize ‘coalitional’ work in terms of modus operandi rather than standing coalitions as semi-formal consortia of NGOs, by recognizing the cyclical nature of advocacy campaigns alongside the imperative of longer-term support and strengthening of civil society.

In this vein, supplementary funding beyond the established coalitions could be directed in a more focused but flexible fashion, perhaps with separate streams of support made available for:

a) advocacy campaigns focused on the cycle of review and revision of legislation by the National Assembly and then the subsequent drafting of supporting decrees and circulars;

b) individuals and institutions engaged in investigative journalism on issues of public policy concern;

and

c) national-level and subnational efforts to strengthen monitoring and dissemination of information with regard to existing laws and regulations.

Here, in concrete and context-specific terms, it is possible to envisage a scenario in which a piece of legislation is due for review and revision in the National Assembly, and advocacy groups can apply for short-term funding to assist in a campaign in support of broader, more open, and more evidence-based discussion, debate, and substantive changes in the law, involving participation by NGOs and other CSOs, academia and other sources of expert knowledge, the media, and the public, alongside government ministries and agencies. Such short-term funding could be sustained beyond the enactment of revised legislation by the National Assembly and extended into the processes of drafting implementing rules and regulations and other related decrees and circulars in the relevant government ministries.

At the same time, short-term funding could simultaneously be available for media investigations on specific issues of policy and public concern, timed in response to i) the

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cycle of legislative review and revision in the National Assembly, ii) one or another episodic public controversy, scandal, or natural disaster, or iii) the opening of one or another important opportunity to focus and deepen public awareness and understanding of complex policy problems and issues of public concern in Vietnam. Finally, yet another stream of funding could also be available for campaigns and other concerted efforts to use public awareness and monitoring of the implementation and enforcement of specific laws and regulations by the government, not only at the national level, but also on a more local basis as well. Through these separate supplementary streams of funding, sustained support for established advocacy coalitions in key policy arenas would thus be complemented by additional mechanisms for more opportunistic, iterative, problem-driven, and flexible initiatives to promote more open, participatory, informed, and evidence-based public policy-making in Vietnam.

These recommendations are offered on the basis of preceding analysis of the Coalitions Support Programme as a whole and a comparative analysis of the six advocacy coalitions operating with its support in Vietnam since 2012. These recommendations are offered in the spirit of suggestions for consideration, in full awareness that they may be based on incomplete information and imperfect understanding of the dynamics of CSP and of the context in which it has been operating. Nonetheless, it is hoped that the analysis and recommendations provided in this review will be of some interest and use to DFID, Oxfam, the Australian Embassy and other parties interested in the work of CSP as they consider the future direction of CSP and other related work in Vietnam in the years ahead.