Evaluation of the Norwegian Mission Alliance Vietnam Development Program

Methodology:
Three main sources of data are utilized in this evaluation, namely project and program documents as well as other reference material, interviews with key informants and observations. Qualitative data from interviews with key informants and observations supplemented by quantitative data and information from project documents are the main data.

III EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

In 2010 the Norwegian Mission Alliance (NMA) commissioned an evaluation of its program in Vietnam. The program consists of the three components of Micro Finance (MF), Inclusive Education (IE) and Community Development (CD) in line with NMA’s global priorities.  The evaluation, however, does not include MF. The purpose of the evaluation is to assess results and document lessons learned in order to prepare the ground for the next program phase which starts in 2013.

Currently NMA supports two IE projects and two CD projects in the Mekong delta. The IE project in Vinh Long, which started in 2005, just completed its second phase. In 2009 NMA started an IE project in Tien Giang province which is still in its first phase. In 2009 planning started for a CD project in Ben Tre province and another one in Tan Thanh commune, Tien Giang province. The total budget the past three years has fluctuated between 5-6 million NOK (900 000 – 1 million USD), the large majority coming from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad). (Norad finances one IE project and one CD project, with matching fund from Mission Alliance, the other two are funded by a private foundation.)

The overall goal of the country program is “to empower the poor and marginalized in Vietnam through poverty reduction and inclusion.”  The program objectives are:
- to empower rural poor communities and local authorities for sustainable poverty reduction (CD)
- to financially empower the poor and disadvantaged in the target areas (MF)
- to ensure the inclusive participation of children and youth with disabilities and their families in the society (IE)
According to the plan, NMA targets poor and disadvantaged groups, in particular children, youth, women, people with disabilities and ethnic minorities. Within the selected provinces, the poorest communes and villages are selected.

Findings
A whole range of important results have been achieved by NMAV at both output and outcome levels despite short project life-spans of three of the projects. Activities have largely been implemented as planned but with some delays and postponements. A majority of the activities has involved training and capacity-building and it is therefore important to monitor whether and to which extent these activities will lead to outcomes and impacts. Some important outcomes have been observed in the case of Inclusive Education: increased number of children are attending early intervention and school; parents have changed behavior towards their disabled children; teachers have changed behavior in relation to teaching classes with disabled children. However, there is still stigma both at schools and in the communities towards disabled children and adults, and this needs to be focused on. Including more children, both disabled and not disabled, in peer group and life-skills activities is important. In Tan Thanh there have been outcomes in terms of applying new farming techniques and planning procedures. However, it is not clear that people have changed behavior related to use of latrines and waste-bins, and this needs to be monitored in the coming period. Another crucial question is whether the training and application of new farming techniques actually will lead to increased income? This needs to be monitored and reported on in the future. In Ben Tre participatory needs assessment and planning has been implemented. In relation to both CD projects, NMAV should focus on getting deeper into the participatory approach and making sure that all villagers are being empowered not just through participation in activities but also being involved in decision-making. Furthermore, focus should be on making sure that new farming, livelihood, environmental techniques and skills are being applied in practice.

Long-term impact of NMAV support could be observed in the establishment of Resource Centers for Inclusive Education in two provinces, a general increased awareness and knowledge among education personnel at the Resource Centers, and not the least, in schools where disabled children have learned literacy, numeracy and other skills. However, impact cannot be observed yet in the other three project areas.
 
Clearly, the four NMAV projects evaluated here are highly relevant to national, provincial and district Government policies. With regards to the CD projects, they are based on participatory needs assessments and hence reflect the needs of the villagers. However, to which extent the priorities of the people are reflected at village/hamlet level is less obvious, and should be a focus in the continuation of these projects. The IE projects have not been based on participatory needs assessments and planning processes in the same way and can therefore not be said to reflect the needs of local people as a result of a systematic bottom-up approach. However, as the projects have progressed and people have become familiar with them, they do nevertheless reflect the needs of parents and communities to a certain extent. It should also be pointed out that this is an activity initially driven more by human rights norms; namely the right to education for every child and countering discrimination against disabled children. In the future, though, NMAV should promote participatory planning and reporting in relation to the IE projects, that is including teachers, parents and children in planning and implementation, to the extent possible.

NMAV has working approaches and strategies that promote sustainability. Good and close partnership relations have been built across the board and efforts to promote local ownership are being made. The IE in Vinh Long is sustainable by all accounts, and the IE in Tien Giang being modeled on the Vinh Long project, shows good potential for becoming sustainable as well, although Government budgets for the IE will be smaller than NMAV has provided. In the case of the CD projects good partnership relations and participatory planning and implementation promotes local ownership.

NMAV has progressed considerably on the three main strategies of local participation and ownership; gender equality and including disabled children the past 5 years. NMAV has integrated participatory methodology into the project planning process and has come closer to the grassroots level. More focus needs to be put on prioritization of needs and decision-making, as well as ensuring that participatory methods are used in implementing, monitoring and reporting on activities. The NMA tool to promote gender awareness and assessment, the GEA, should be utilized with assistance from a gender expert who is familiar with the Vietnamese context. Disabled children are included, but to what extent? Total numbers of girls and boys in IE and early intervention are not readily available and focus should be on these data in order to closely and constantly monitor progress in this regard. Work to include more children in early intervention and primary schools should continue. Community awareness-raising, addressing stigmatization and involving all children, not only disabled, within a child rights framework should be in focus in the coming period.

NMAV has a solid and good basis for project and financial management, but needs to make sure that all office guidelines and routines are followed through consistently. Work needs to be done on distinguishing indicators on outputs and outcomes and plans should be made for impact assessment/evaluations. At the organizational level, NMAV’s main strengths is competent and highly motivated staff members as well as good partner relationships. Work needs to be put into team-building and leadership to address the recent turbulence created by high staff turnover and corruption cases as well as ensuring that field-based staff are fully integrated in the NMAV team. Consolidation and stability – of the projects, the staff and management - should be main concerns in the next program period. Lessons learned and making a contingency plan for how to deal with corruption cases should be made for future reference.

Synergies between MF and CD have been observed but there could also be synergies between IE and CD; and perhaps between MF and IE. This should be explored in the coming period.

Compared with the main findings of the 2005 evaluation NMAV has progressed significantly.  Bottom-up planning and participatory approaches, which were identified as main weaknesses, are now being applied, at least in the CD projects, while the IE projects could improve more in this respect. Focus has moved from supporting large government infrastructure activities to small-scale community development, and from supporting government bodies at higher levels to supporting project management boards at commune and district level as well as community workers and target groups at community level. NMAV plays an important role in supporting and facilitating transfer of knowledge and technical expertise as well as building project management capacity. These important shifts have been made, but so far only the preparatory steps could be observed, except for the IE project in Vinh Long. The coming period thus needs to focus on consolidation and stability both in terms of NMAV organization and programming in order to ensure the planned outcomes and impacts. At the same time it is important for NMAV to remain flexible and open in a country like Vietnam which is characterized by extremely rapid changes taking place socially, economically and politically.
 
Comments from the organisation, if any:
The evaluation report mentions “corruption cases”. These cases are known and investigated by the Mission Alliance and Digni. In one case the conclusion was that, the suspicion of corruption was unfounded. In the other case, the embezzled money was paid back to the partner. It is also worth wile mentioning that the evaluation team did not discover these cases nor investigate them. They just refer to them as staff mentioned them during interviews.