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Students in Ha Tinh city joined drawing contest: “Ha Tinh –My city”
Huong TRANTHANH | 10/07/2017
On 21 May 2017, The Project Coordination Unit of SRDP-IWMC Ha Tinh collaborated with the Bureau of Education &Training (BOET) and The Youth Union of Ha Tinh city organized a drawing contest named “Ha Tinh – My city”. The contest attracted more than 500 students from primary and secondary schools in Ha Tinh city, covering multiple topics such as “Green homes, green schools”, “Water saving”, “Ha Tinh city in the future”, and "Climate change effects resilience" Completed paintings were exhibited at Ly Tu Trong park right in the city center, attracting thousands of parents, students and local residents. The event hope to raise the awareness among the children on Climate changes and how to contribute to a modern and green city.
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BIPP PASS MIDTERM REVIEW
Huong TRANTHANH | 28/06/2017
On June 23rd, 2017 the BIPP MTR was completed with the restitution workshop where the MTR consultant presented their findings and recommendations. The workshop was attended by senior representatives of MoST, BTC Resident Representative as well as some key project stakeholders. The Development Cooperation Counselor of the Belgian Embassy presented as well. The MTR consultant delivered a concise presentation on BIPP overall implementation performance since project inception. In conclusion, despite BIPP’s difficult start-up phase, the project is on course to meet most of its objectives. BIPP is highly aligned to national strategies and policies of the Government of Vietnam and MoST for private sector development. More concretely, the project has made important achievements in determining best practices and lessons learnt to support incubator policy development, piloting of a grant seed fund and two TBIs with 38 tenants. The main challenges rest with management for results. There is insufficient evidence at this stage to conclude that the observed dynamic of the intervention and the piloting of Innofund and one TBI are sustainable. However, discussions with the stakeholders suggest that they can be successfully addressed. In addition, the MTR consultant highlighted few important recommendations for BIPP to consider centering on: Activation of the inter-ministerial and inter-agency cooperation to strengthen the network and communication of the valuable policy support tools developed by BIPP to a much wider public and private sector audience; Complementing the existing M&E system by additional impact assessments and surveys of final beneficiaries. This should help to assess more precisely impact, cost effectiveness and lessons learned from the project; Increase of the likelihood of sustainability of the supported Technology Business Incubators and development of a realistic survival strategy for them; BIPP will closely look into the MTR recommendations and will instigate appropriate implementation actions respectively.
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Edu2Review – the first website for education quality rating in Vietnam
Huong TRANTHANH | 22/06/2017
edu2review.com is the first website where the quality of educational institutions such as language teaching centers, schools and universities are publicly rated. The site matches learners with prestigious institutions and helps learners make decisions on the most suitable learning options.The webpage was launched in 2016 by EBrand Index Value Joint Stock Company (EBIV JSC), a pioneering technology company in Vietnam specialized in providing solutions to build individual and institutional credit index. Joining the Technology Business Incubation Centre at Ho Chi Minh University of Technology in January 2017, EBIV JSC is now among the most promising clients there.The business incubator center is a partner of the Business Incubator Policy Project (BIPP), established as a science-technology organization directly under Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology. The center now provides incubatees with support for infrastructure, mentoring and business development services such as market survey and marketing, business planning, information on product ideas and technologies, etc. The incubatees also receive advice on legal subjects and procedures, intellectual property rights, technical training courses on business plan development, market development and expansion, business development strategy, financial management and other soft skill trainings for its employees.Aside from such fundamental support, the incubator center provides EBIV with information on disparate funding for Science & Technology product research and development, developing and expanding relationships with communities, organizations and enterprises, making networks, finding cooperation opportunities with domestic and international enterprises. All support offered by the incubation center is critical to the company's development trajectory, especially in the initial stage when EBIV is still a fledgling enterprise. Given the current situation in Vietnam when start-ups mushroom at an incredible rate, many succeed while the others fail, EBIV chooses to rely on the center's support and assistance while continuously enhancing its capacity. EBIV is striving to become the number one education review website with millions of visitors per month by July 2017. Hopefully, after graduating from the incubation center, EBIV can gain further momentum to become self-sustainable. More detailed information can be found on the website http://bipp.vn/en/news-and-events/83-ebiv-jsc-potential-incubatee-of-hcmut-tbi
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Call for proposals 2017 - short training and capacity building innitiatives
Huong TRANTHANH | 12/06/2017
The project Facility for Capacity Building (FCB) is inviting public institutions at provincial level and higher education institutions to submit concept notes on capacity building initiatives to compete for FCB grants. This is the second call for proposals from the project, which aims for supporting public institutions to implement short trainings, workshop, study tours, coaching and mentoring activities to enhance the capacity of their staffs. The full call for proposal and guidelines for applicants can be obtained by contacting the PMU at minhtam@moet.edu.vn or ha.daothingan@btcctb.org. The deadline for applications is 30th June 2017.The PMU has selected 6 proposals from the call in 2016. Organizational assessment are underway before finalizing grant agreements by mid August 2017.
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Responsive and accountable local government in Vietnam
Jean-christophe CHARLIER | 02/05/2017
IntroductionVietnam’s move from a highly centralized hierarchical state, designed for central planning, towards a more nimble set of arrangements suited for markets, has included the decentralization of responsibilities and power to lower levels of government.With about 55% of the overall state expenditures and 75% of capital expenditures done at the sub-national level (World Bank, 2014), Vietnam is comparatively ahighly decentralized country. While devolving responsibilities and autonomy to local actors has been crucial in unleashing economic development, it also poses a fundamental problem: how can accountability be assured after devolution? These two fundamental elements of any effective decentralization cannot be separated, but accountability does not automatically come with more devolution. On the contrary, accountability needs to be carefully and consciously created, both upwards and downwards. While upward accountability has always been part of the traditional governance model of Vietnam, downward accountability is also needed for the system to work effectively. The defining features of upward accountability are hierarchy and administrative rewards and sanctions, and the defining features of downward accountability are feedback from citizens, information for citizens and participation in decision-making (World Bank, 2010).The legal and organizational system for citizens’ consultation exists…Participation and citizens’ involvement has been part of the Vietnamese government system for a long time. This participation can be summarized in the two familiar slogans of‘People know, people discuss, people do, and people monitor’, and ‘Government of the people, by the people, and for the people’. These two sentences probably best describe what is commonly understood as democracy in the Vietnamese context. According to Article 6of the 2013 Constitution, ‘the people shall exercise state power through direct democracy and through representative democracy in the National Assembly, People's Councils and other state agencies’ (Oxfam-UNDP, 2015). The main channels for citizens’ consultations are the People’s Councils and mass organizations. Article 119 of the Vietnam Constitution states that ‘the People’s Council is the local organ of State power; it represents the will, aspirations, and mastery of the people; it is elected by the local people and is accountable to them and to the superior State organs.’ People’s Councils at all levels are legally obliged to regularly meet their constituencies. The Communist Party and the Government of Vietnam have also been promoting consultation, dialogue, and other interaction with a range of civil society organizations (CSOs). But the main channel of communication and consultation between the government and the citizens are the mass organisations. In article 9 of the Constitution, the function of ‘social supervision and criticism’ is assigned to the Viet Nam Fatherland Front (umbrella organisations of mass organisations).Mass organisations maintain large memberships (Women’s Union - 12 million; Farmers’ association – 8 million; General Federation of Trade Union – 4.2 million; Youth Union – 5.1 million; Veterans’ Association – 1.92 million) operating through extensive bureaucratic structures at central, provincial, district and local levels and continue to play a dominant role in civic life in Vietnam. In addition, Vietnam also has a wider range of legal documents pertaining to consultations of citizens ranging from the 2013 Constitution to the Grassroots Democracy Ordinance through the new Law on Local Government of 2015.… but requires adequate and efficient implementation and enforcementDespite a large legal and organizational framework for consultations with citizens, the implementation of legal rights to participation often lags behind the letter of the law (Oxfam-UNDP, 2015).Citizens’ consultations are very often formalistic, bureaucratic and one-way communication (from State to citizens). Mass organisations often ‘do not contact the people before they go and represent them’ (UNDP, 2006). Citizens are perceived not to be interested and/or able to participate.Local authorities sometimes feel trapped between the legal obligation of consultations and the lack of interests of citizens. Citizens are said to be interested only in issues directly impacting their life, but not in policy or governance issues (Dak Ha district chairmen, Kon Tum province).The law prescribes that citizen should monitor local government performance through vertical accountability structures, forming the lowest level of direct participation, with People’s Inspection Boards (PIBs) and Community Investment Supervision Boards (CISBs). In practice, those boards are often not functioning as designed and their members lack the necessary basic skills to be in a position to efficiently fulfill their mandates.The law also prescribes that citizens should be involved in the budget process and that the local budget should be published and made available for citizens’ information and comments. In practice, the communal budget is at best stapled at the door of the people’s committee in a hardly understandable and accessible format, complicating possible valuable feedback.The Grassroots Democracy Ordinance mentions that citizens’ consultation meetings should take place regularly. People’s Councils also organize regular meetings with their constituencies. However, it appears that those meetings are usually a one-way communication channel from the authorities to the citizens, but hardly organized in a way to facilitate citizens’ involvement. In addition, much participation in meetings is seen as superficial and nominal.While participation in decision-making does exist, it often focuses more on implementing what has already been decided, thereby removing the impact but also with time, the interests of the citizens to take part in such exercises.In Vietnam, like in many countries, citizens’ demand for participation, but also transparency and accountability from local government is growing. As Vietnam and its citizens become wealthier, it is clear that the pressure to further improve public services will not ease. People want better services, more transparent government, less corruption, and more service-oriented public administration. Accordingly, Vietnam has been piloting many different mechanisms of downward accountability and citizens’ participation, mainly at the grassroots and commune level, while most of the devolution has gone to the province (World Bank, 2010). Bridging those misalignments is therefore important.Citizens’ feedbackIn 2009, UNDP, CECODES (a Vietnamese research center on policy impact assessment) and the Vietnam Fatherland Front started the first Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI). PAPI is the largest national governance and public administration performance monitoring tool in Viet Nam exclusively based on citizens’ experiences.PAPI assesses three mutually reinforcing processes: policy making, policy implementation and the monitoring of public service delivery. The dimensions are specifically tailored to Viet Nam’s national and local contexts. The philosophy behind PAPI’s innovative policy monitoring approach is that citizens are seen as ‘end-users of public administrative services’ capable of assessing governance and public administration in their localities. The end result is Viet Nam’s first publically available dataset providing an objective evaluation of governance from the perspective of citizens. Based on this citizen input, PAPI provides a set of objective indicators that help assess the performance in governance and public administration, while at the same time providing an incentive for provinces to improve their performance over the long term (PAPI, 2015).PAPI is a powerful tool indeed to provide local authorities both with information and incentives to improve their performance. But for many provinces, this is just the beginning of a journey to improve services and move from being an authority to being a service provider to citizens. For many civil servants of Vietnam, this requires a Copernican mind shift that cannot happen overnight. Indeed, while such surveys provide useful information to local government on the perception of the citizens, they are not workable enough to be able to act on it directly and automatically.Belgium’ supportThis is where Belgium comes in. Belgium will support the provinces of Nghe An, Ha Tinh and Kon Tum to improve their responses to citizens’ feedbacks and assessments of their performance. The pressure to improve their PAPI score and quality of services to citizens has made 19 out of 63 provinces of Vietnam to take initiatives to improve their performance based on citizens’ feedback (PAPI, 2015). Kon Tum province, scoring quite low, was one of the first provinces in Vietnam to develop an action plan in 2012. A Belgian cooperation project will take it from those initial plans and support the three provinces in implementing their priorities to improve citizens’ satisfaction. Subsequently, the deeper causes of citizens’lack of satisfaction will be analysed with a view to improve the local government processes and procedures. Belgium’ support could include issues such as disseminating citizen-friendly information to facilitate transparency and accountability (budgets, plans...), support the People’s Council and mass organizations collaboration to facilitate citizen-government interaction, improve citizens’ input into public management on both policy and performance, support innovations and attitudinal changes within local governments, support local government to develop and adopt enabling reforms and procedures in responses to citizens’ feedback etc. The Belgian project will closely collaborate with OXFAM, which will complementarily develop a mobile application for citizens to provide feedback on district-based performance on targeted services (M-Score). This will be used to further refine the assessments and actions plans for government’s response.Through this modest project, Belgium aims to suggest and promote possible changes within the existing political system that would increase voice, transparency and accountability, thereby contributing to improve the quality of the services provided by the government to the citizens.ReferencesVietnam Development Report, 2010. Building Institutions. World BankAndrew Wells-Dang, Le Kim Thai and Nguyen Tran Lam (2015). Between Trust and Structure: Citizen Participation and Local Elections in Viet Nam. A Joint Policy Research Paper on Governance and Participation commissioned by Oxfam and UNDP in Viet Nam. Ha Noi, Viet Nam: August 2015Deepening Democracy and Increasing Popular Participation in Viet Nam, commissioned by UNDP and researched by a pair of specialists (McElwee and Ha 2006)Public Governance and Administration Performance Index. papi.vn/enMaking The Whole Greater Than The Sum Of The Parts: A Review of Fiscal Decentralization in Vietnam, World Bank Vietnam, 2014
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Nguyen Kien, Cuong, a Vietnamese scholarship holder explains what he does for his country
Els DEHANTSCHUTTER | 11/04/2017
Published: 10-04-2017 Managing the monitoring of dairy cattle reproduction in VietnamNguyen Kien, Cuong is a Professor at the Faculty of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine at the Nong Lam Agriculture and Forestry University of Ho Chi Minh City, which falls under the Ministry of Education and Training. He worked at his PhD from 2011 to 2017 at the Université de Liège (ULG) in Belgium. The title of his thesis: “Descriptive study of risk factors of sterility and infertility in dairy cows in Vietnam”. Kien chose the topic because domestic dairy production only covers 25% of Vietnam’s needs. His objective is, on one hand, to study the dairy production characteristics of family farms in Vietnam, and on the other hand, to analyse the effects of risk factors to which they are exposed. He defended his thesis on 27 March 2017 at the ULG in view of obtaining a PhD in Veterinary Sciences. Through his PhD he expanded his knowledge on theriogenologic (reproductive veterinary medicine) aspects of dairy cows and gathered learning and research experience as he dispensed theoretical and practical courses to local veterinaries, farm technicians and dairy cattle breeders in southern Vietnam. Summary of his thesis 1- Which is your institution of origin? (Which ministry do you depend from)? The Faculty of Animal Sciences and Veterinary Medicine at the Nong Lam Agriculture and Forestry University of Ho Chi Minh City, which falls under the Ministry of Education and Training. 2- What is your job in Vietnam? I am a university professor. 3- What objective did you pursue through your PhD? - Further develop a system to monitor reproduction in family-size dairy breeding farms in Vietnam and help improve the quality of dairy stock reproduction and diary production. - Further teach stock breeding to students at my university but also at other universities in Vietnam. Disseminate the results and experiences acquired through my thesis research among students and researchers. - Further train local veterinaries, farm technicians and dairy stock breeders (stock breeding technique, managing the reproduction of herds, nutrition, improved dairy quality, reproduction pathologies, issues with metabolism…). - Look for funding to put in place research prospects indicated in my thesis, such as research into how to implement measures to improve the quality of reproduction and dairy production, into improving the quality of milk in family farms, into the effects of limping, malnutrition, thermal stress… on the quality of reproduction and dairy production, or into mastitis on family farms. 4- Why did you choose this topic for your thesis? Population growth and economic development explain the considerable growth of dairy product demand in Vietnam. Yet, domestic dairy production only covers 25% of needs. So, for Vietnam improved dairy production offers prospects and is a real challenge. It implies controlling directly and indirectly contributing factors. Such factors include genetics, food, the environment and the quality of reproduction. Identifying and controlling individual and collective factors that affect the quality of reproduction therefore constitute an important step towards improving dairy production. Our work aims, on one hand, to study the dairy production characteristics of family farms in Vietnam, and on the other hand, to analyse the effects of risk factors to which they are exposed. 5- How does Vietnam benefit from this research? First, this study has defined the dairy production and stock reproduction characteristics of family farms in Vietnam as well as the risk factors to which they are exposed. The research has also identified limitations of family farm dairy stock breeding in Vietnam. Next, the monitoring system of reproduction put in place by the study had a positive effect on the quality of reproduction among the cows observed. Finally, this research helped me go deeper into aspects of theriogenology (reproductive veterinary medicine) of the dairy cow and to gather teaching and research experience. That way, I dispensed some fifteen (theoretical and practical) training sessions to local veterinaries, farm technicians and dairy cattle breeders in southern Vietnam.
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Workshop Community Oriented Approaches to Flood Early Warning and Risk Reduction – Experiences from Quy Nhon, Binh Dinh Province
Huong TRANTHANH | 24/02/2017
Thursday, 26 May 2016. QUY NHON– a Workshop was held with the stakeholders of the Belgian-supported program for Integrated Water Management and Urban Development in Relation to Climate Change on Community Oriented Approaches to Flood Early Warning and Risk Reduction. Representatives from the Project Coordination Units (PCUs) and relevant government departments from the three program provinces (Ha Tinh, Ninh Thuan and Binh Thuan), as well as experts from the Hanoi-based Technical Support Unit (TSU) listened to the shared experiences from the recently completed project on Community Engagement in Flood Early Warning and Risk Reduction of Quy Nhon City. This project, implemented by Institute for Social and Environmental Transition-International (ISET) and the Climate Change Coordination Office of Binh Dinh Province (CCCO Binh Dinh), was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation under The Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN)[1]. At the workshop, ISET project officer Ms. Nghiem Phuong Tuyen delivered presentations as well as project beneficiaries from the local level in the flood affected communities in Nhon Binh and Nhon Phu wards of Quy Nhon city. The workshop provided the unique opportunity for stakeholders from the Belgian-supported climate change program to learn from the recent experiences in Quy Nhon and consider how these lessons-learned can be applied in their own provinces. In addition to flood early warning and community response, the Belgian climate change program focuses on developing capacity at provincial and central levels for assessing existing and future climate related risk and designing and implementing response measures such as a revised climate change action plan and climate-sensitive approaches in urban planning. The key lesson learned from the workshop was that in order to provide a comprehensive solution for disaster risk management it is necessary to integrate systems for forecasting, warning, preparedness and response. The Quy Nhon project demonstrated that an effective system for risk reduction consists of not only equipment for rainfall and river level monitoring, but also a computer based system for forecasting river levels, flood maps to interpret the meaning of expected flood levels, and an organized system for disseminating the flood warning and conducting flood response activities. The Quy Nhon experience highlighted the importance of engaging with local government and local communities to prepare procedures for sharing warning messages and initiating response activities such as evacuation. By using the very accessible technology of SMS messages, it was shown how the time to receive the forecast, communicate with leadership, and initiate flood response actions could be reduced just 15 minutes. Coordinated as part of the workshop, the delegates conducted a site visit to inspect of river level monitoring equipment and a newly constructed multi-purpose flood shelter. The event concluded with reflection by delegates on what they had seen and how these lessons could be transferred for application in their own province. More information can be found at http://bdkh.mpi.gov.vn/
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InnoFund supports 10 S&T Incubation Projects
Huong TRANTHANH | 22/02/2017
The BIPP Innovation Fund (InnoFund) is to increase the competitiveness of the Vietnamese economy through improved commercialization of national research and development. In this context it assists the Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) in testing a functional tool through which valuable implementation feedback and lessons learnt that can be drawn for future policy formulation as well as future upscaling of such important support instrument. The InnoFund specifically aims to support two target groups: (i) Improved transfer of innovative concept of Vietnamese researchers and inventors into viable commercial products and enterprises; and (i) Strengthened capacity of technology business incubators in Vietnam thus enabling to deliver the full range of incubation support services. The BIPP InnoFund is implemented by the State Agency ‘Designing, Pilot Manufacturing and Testing Center (SATI-TECH)’, an agency under MoSTand technically supported by BIPP. Early 2017, a total of 10 Science and Technology projects were selected through anagreed/approved transparent selection mechanism. 5 R&D projects received funding to assist in prototyping and commercializing their research/invention products. The innovations are in the field of Food Production Nano-Technology, Spine-related diseases prevention, improved Fabrication Technologies and improved Waste Water treatment. Additional 5 S&T business incubators received funding with the aim to strengthen their incubation support services. The supported projects are based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The average project amount is approx. EURO 30,000. The supporting period is for 12 months. All projects received the full endorsement of the Ministry of Science and Technology.
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".be Belgium Day" in Vietnam 13th Nov 2016
Huong TRANTHANH | 15/11/2016
BTC's booth in the ".be Belgium Day", representing BTC's activities to assist Vietnamese government and people to confront with climate change effects. The booth attracted many families and children with various materials illustrating the climate change effects and BTC's interventions in the three provinces of Ha Tinh, Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan. Family members can participate in a quiz game to test their understanding on climate change effects and/or explore some of the solutions for energy savings. Children enjoy drawing the city of their dreams and special gifts from the drawing contest. The event attracted nearly three thousand local people to explore the Belgian culture and Belgian activities in Vietnam.
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BTC recognized for supporting the science and technology start-up ecosystem in Vietnam
Huong TRANTHANH | 15/11/2016
BTC is one of the main supporters for science and technology business incubators and related policy development support in Vietnam. On 12th Nov 2016, the BTC Regional Representative - Mr. Alain Devaux - received public recognition from the Minister of Science and Technology Mr. Chu Ngoc Anh for BTC’s strong commitment in supporting the science and technology start-up ecosystem in Vietnam. The BTC funded project - BIPP - actively participated in the TECHFEST Vietnam 2016, which was staged, in Hanoi during 12 - 13 Nov 2016. Noticeably, the TECHFEST is one of the largest national start-up ecosystem event endorsed by MoST and co-organized by many Ministries, agencies and start-up supporting organizations in Vietnam. The TECHFEST was attended by close to 1,000 start-up ecosystem stakeholders nationally and internationally. Vice Prime Minister Mr. Vu Duc Dam delivered the keynote speech underlining the importance of further accelerating the start-up ecosystems for Vietnam’s economic development process. TECHFEST is a superb platform for BIPP project to present the project objectives, networking with many start-up ecosystem players such as venture capital and start-up angel specialists, other technology incubators and accelerators, young tech-entrepreneurs as well as to dialogue with many professionals from the S&T entrepreneurship network in Vietnam and abroad.
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Three grant agreements signed for science & technology incubators in Vietnam
Huong TRANTHANH | 03/10/2016
The signing on 22 September 2016 of the Grant Agreements is a milestone facilitating Belgian financial support to three key project stakeholders in the Science & Technology incubation sector in Vietnam. The following institutions are receiving a financial grant:Designing, Pilot Manufacturing and Testing Center (SATI-TECH), represented by Mr. Pham Viet Hong, receiving €495,000 to implement the InnoFund for further acceleration of entrepreneurial science and technology innovation and support structures;Technology Business Incubator Center - National Center for Technological Progress (NTBIC), represented by Mr.Tran Vu Tuan Phan, receiving €170,000 to implement S&T entrepreneurial incubation activities in Hanoi;Technology Business Incubation Center - Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology (HCMUT-TBI), represented by Mr. Mai Thanh Phong, receiving €100,000 to implement S&T entrepreneurial incubation activities in Ho Chi Minh City. The signing of the Grant Agreements with the three institutions was conducted by Mr Alain Devaux, resident representative of the Belgian Development Cooperation (BTC) in Vietnam, and Mr Tran Dac Hien, BIPP Project Director representing the Ministry of Science and Technology.The signing ceremony was attended by the honorable Vice Minister Tran Van Tung – Ministry of Science and Technology. In his speech he highlighted that S&T enterprises are playing an important role in the development of Vietnam. Last year, 87 new S&T enterprises were established, and 160 applications were reviewed for certification. S&T enterprises do not only convert applied science into practical reality and production, but also create products with high added value. According to the national science development strategy approved by the Prime Minister, Vietnam is aiming to establish approximately 5,000 S&T enterprises by 2020. The Vice Minister strongly believes that, with the support from Belgium, Vietnamese S&T entrepreneurs have better opportunities to finalize their prototypes and capture existing market potential. Through the grants he expects scientists and entrepreneurs to further incubate their scientific innovation and bring promising ideas to the market. In the near future, Vietnam will possess more high-tech brands. This will not be simple, but the Vietnamese Government jointly with the private sector will do their best to achieve this noble objective. The Vice Minister concluded that enthusiasm for science and technology is fostered in the public and will mobilize more creative resources for the modernization of Vietnam.Mr. Alain Devaux, resident representative of the Belgian Development Cooperation (BTC), thanked the honorable Vice Minister Tran Van Tung for his full-hearted project support and wise development vision. He express his sincere hope that the Belgian support will improve awareness of international best practice in technology transfer, innovation and the incubation of S&T enterprises. Belgium assists the Ministry in accelerating new initiatives in technology business incubation with the objective of identifying best practices and learning experiences which can feed back into policy and regulatory development. Mr. Alain Devaux expressed hopes that the subsequent improvements in the policy and regulatory framework in Vietnam will encourage the further establishment and operation of technology business incubators and S&T enterprises, thus improving Vietnam’s competitiveness in the regional and global market.
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Agreements signed to start 6 Green Growth pilot projects in 3 provinces of Viet Nam
Jérome MEESSEN | 06/07/2016
On May 12th in Ninh Thuan and July 1st in Ha Noi, 3 important grants agreements have been signed between BTC, the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the provincial authorities of Ninh Thuan, Binh Thuan and Ha Tinh. These agreements form an important milestone of the Green Growth Strategy Facility. It acknowledges the successful selection of 6 pilot green growth investments in those provinces and launch their implementation. The selection process demonstrates the foundations of the facility as it involved its intern-ministerial technical committee and was based on the Facility Operation Manual (FOM). The technical committee is a core component of the Facility structure and the FOM elaboration is one of the key results of the project for the last year. The FOM contains all the governance and operation procedures of the facility and is inspired from international best practices and the accreditation requirements of the Green Climatte Fund.The selected pilots reflect the priorities of the provinces and are representative of several priorities of the Viet Nam National Green Growth strategy such as: Renewable and efficient energy with solar-LED public lighting, water resources preservation and boosting green jobs in the field of organic agriculture.
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Launch study on the evaluation of teacher performance in Vietnam
Hans LAMBRECHT | 26/02/2016
On January 22nd 2016, the Department of Teachers and Educational Administrators (DTEM) of the Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) in Vietnam launched the report of a study about the performance evaluation of teachers, which was supported by Belgium. The study was initiated as a result of the work done by the School Education Quality Assurance Programme (SEQAP) on the development of a lesson observation tool to assess effectiveness of training of teachers. The work on this tool attracted the interest of the leadership of the Ministry because they needed to establish a new procedure and a set of tools that can be used for independent evaluation of teachers. For that reason, MOET requested Belgium to support conducting a study that could link international experience in teacher evaluation with the current practice in Vietnam and the plans for teacher evaluation and development in the context of the ongoing education reform in Vietnam.The result of the study is a set of recommendations for an improved procedure to evaluate teachers in Vietnam based on an evaluation of the current practice and some international examples. The report includes the following sections:Section 1: Overview of teacher evaluation in VietnamSection 2: Overview of international practices in teacher evaluation (Singapore, UK (England), Canada (Ontario), Finland and Belgium (Flanders))Section 3: Recommendations for Vietnam based on international experienceThe study was conducted by Dr. Patrick Vander Weyden (Free University of Brussels & FocusUP, currently Country Programme Manager of VVOB in Cambodia) and Prof. Pham Van Hoan (dean at the Hanoi College of Education).The launching event was opened by Mr. Hoang Duc Minh, the director of DTEM, and Mr. Geert Vansintjan, the development counselor at the Embassy of Belgium in Hanoi. Mr. Vansintjan emphasized in his opening speech that by supporting this study, Belgium wants to contribute to strengthening systems that provide support to teachers, teacher development and teacher management so the sustainable development goal of inclusive and equitable quality education can be achieved. On the short term, he hopes that the study will contribute to the evaluation and revision of the teacher standards that are currently used, in response to the demands of the education reform and the new curriculum.The results of the study have already been taken onboard in the formulation of the Enhancing Teacher Effectiveness Programme (ETEP), the Government programme supported by a loan of World Bank that will address the reform of the teacher training and development system in Vietnam.
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Where do we stand after 20 months of activity ?
Jean-christophe CHARLIER | 28/01/2016
After 20 months of operations (out of 48), the CDPR has achieved the following (intermediary) results: 1. The first Law on Public Investment of Vietnam was prepared with the support of the CDPR. The Public Investment Law (PIL) became effective in January 2015. The CDPR supported many consultation workshops for the finalization of the law as well as training for its implementation. The Law creates a completely new legal framework for the management of the entire public investment process, from investment decision, capital source verification to project implementation, monitoring and evaluation. The 2015 Law on Public Investment is referred to as a revolution in the management of public investment in Vietnam. 2. The project provided support to the preparation of the decree 77/2015/ND-CP providing instructions for the Medium Term Investment Plan (MTIP).This provided the framework for managing public investment in a multiyear perspective rather than through annual budget. 3. The project provided support to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) in the formulation of a decree providing instruction on the implementation of the Law on Public Investment. 4. The CDPR supported MPI in drafting a directive for the preparation of the Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) 2016-2020 and for MTIP for 2016-2020 5. The project organized training workshops for the 64 provinces of Vietnam in the preparation of the MTIP 2016-2020. 6. The project also supported the preparation of Decision no. 40/2015/QD-TTg defining the principles and criterias for allocating State capital budget for the 2016-2020 period. This is a crucial document which defied the way capital budget will be allocated to different provinces of Vietnam. 7. The project initiated the capacity assessment of the 64 provinces on PIL and MTIP implementation. This was done through questionnaire sent to all the provinces of Vietnam. A capacity assessment of the five pilot provinces of the project was initiated.8. A website containing all information’s related to the PIL and MTIP for local authorities and line ministries was also launched: http://www.cdpr.org.vn/index.php/vi/ The project overall expenditures as of 31/12/2015 amount to 1,312,185 EUR which gives an execution rate of 33 %.
