65281 SEPTEMBER 2011 ABOUT THE AUTHOR Pathways to Development Empowering Local Women PHUONG THI MINH TRAN is a Senior Transport Specialist to Build a More Equitable Future in Vietnam and Task Team Leader with the World Bank’s Third Rural Transport Project. Vietnam’s economic emergence is perhaps best experienced along its rural roads: over 175,000 kilometers of pavement, rubble, and dirt track extend to APPROVING MANAGER two-thirds of the country’s population, including nearly all of the poorest Jennifer J. Sara, Vietnam people, who live among its productive farms, lush forests, and meandering Sustainable Development river valleys. In recent years, road investments in Vietnam’s rural areas have improved socioeconomic development and have promoted gender equity, social participation, improved school attendance, and more inclusive health services to impoverished regions. However, all but a few hundred communes remain off-grid, and infrastructural roadblocks and bureaucratic potholes have delayed the goal of a fully integrated road system. The World Bank’s Third Rural Transport Project (RTP3) supported a win-win solution: employing ethnic minority women to sustainably manage road maintenance through an innovative participatory approach to local development. This SmartLesson describes the experience of improving the roads—and women’s lives—in rural Vietnam. Background The RTP3 identified missing links that excluded costs per kilometer across crumbling rural many rural Vietnamese communities from the roads. Project staff identified barriers along country’s remarkable development successes the route to more accessible road networks, (See Box 1). The project prioritized road including a lack of incentives for local maintenance and local infrastructure bureaucracies to regularly maintain rural roads management ahead of new construction in remote areas—leading to deteriorating projects, and it collaborated with government roads in places that are desperate for improved institutions to address steep increases in travel access to goods, services, and social networks. Box 1: Stated Objective of the Third Rural Transport Program This program directly contributes to the poverty reduction and economic growth objectives set out in the 2002 Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy and the government’s last five-year Socio-Economic Development Plan (SEDP) for 2001–2005. It is also consistent with the draft SEDP for 2006–2010, which states the priorities of the rural transport sector to be: the completion of basic access, the upgrading of access quality, and an increase in maintenance budgets. The program will continue the task of completing access to all communes in Vietnam, and as such will contribute directly to the Country Assistance Strategy objective of ensuring equitable growth in Vietnam. The project also recognizes that the nature of the rural transport sector is shifting from new construction to upgrading, maintenance, and management of the network. The focus on governance of the sector—in particular the role of the decentralized provincial governments, is a reflection of this shift. Work to support provincial planning and implementation capacity will directly contribute to the CAS objective of governance and administrative reform in Vietnam. SMARTLESSONS — SEPTEMBER 2011 1 The situation appeared intractable—the political and economic realities insurmountable. But a solution was at hand: in speaking with the project team, many women from ethnic minority communities across Vietnam expressed their interest in volunteering to participate as stewards of their local roads! The World Bank’s task team soon promoted the idea of having ethnic women work as road maintenance crews. Consequently the Bank sent out calls for just-in-time proposals under the Gender Action Plan to address gender gaps to achieve effective, inclusive development. The team secured funds to pilot an initiative across four A construction crew upgrades the road between Lai Chau and communes in Bac Ha District in Lao Cai Province. The project Lao Cai towns, northern Vietnam. sought to: 1) increase awareness of the need for rural-road Photo by Tran Thi Hoa, 2002 maintenance among the ethnic groups; 2) promote a sustainable road-maintenance culture within the community; 3) improve local livelihoods by providing Lessons Learned additional off-season jobs for the ethnic minority women in Vietnam; and 4) provide training to ethnic groups in road Lesson 1: Government support, adequate financing, maintenance skills. and community participation are among the most critical components for success. A construction crew upgrades the road between Lai Chau and Lao Cai towns, northern Vietnam. (Photo by Tran Thi Local interest in overseeing road maintenance is necessary, Hoa, 2002) but not sufficient, to ensuring lasting transportation links from urban to rural areas. It is also important to have support from governmental institutions, such as the Box 2: Learning by Doing Provincial Department of Finance, to effectively Staff from the Provincial Department of Transport administer road maintenance. Inadequate finance spearheaded the critically important road maintenance remains a challenge: the department’s funding makes up training programs to build capacity of their new employees. less than 5 percent of the total provincial expenditure on Resources for this innovative program included handbooks roads, which is not sufficient to cover the entire road and onsite experiential modules. network. The course followed a demand-driven approach built on the As a result, the government’s infrastructure strategy has willingness and commitment of ethnic minority women to be often been directed to major highways and transshipment guardians of their local community’s transportation networks. routes at the expense of rural roads. These policy issues Representatives from the following wide range of must be addressed before an integrated rural transport organizations and institutions participated in the training: system can move ahead. • Office of Urban and Infrastructure Management At present, the rural roads network is largely managed by • District Women’s Union Vietnam’s provincial districts and communes; they receive a • Provincial Women’s Union small allocation from the provincial budget, which is often • Project steering committees from each of four communes supplemented through district and commune revenue (commune leaders, chairwomen of women’s union, generation. Commune-arranged “labor days� are an cadastral staff) intermediary way to ensure that byways are marginally • Village heads, heads of village women’s union (which is a open to traffic—a pretty novel solution to inadequate sub-unit of the women’s union at the village level), deputy maintenance. But, clearly, more can be done. village heads, and traditional leaders Lesson 2: Solutions can come from unexpected sources. An important challenge was language: Vietnam’s richly diverse linguistic tapestry often prevented effective The RTP3 task team’s investigation showed that up to a communication. Many, if not most, rural women did not third of the population in the Northern Uplands speak the Vietnamese language. The Women’s Union provinces would be expected to contribute up to 10 cooperated with the Transportation Department to provide percent of their total annual household expenditure to training, combined with on-the-job practice, for rural women ensure safe passage along local roads—too much for whose previous work experience was mainly related to most to afford. Furthermore, even when adequate shifting cultivation and swidden agriculture. In addition to an resources are made available for maintenance, overview of the project’s goals and approaches, hands-on contractors have sometimes been unwilling to work in engagement provided an effective way to transfer knowledge. inaccessible regions for fear of mudslides during the rainy season. 2 SMARTLESSONS — SEPTEMBER 2011 “Women like to do this work; they are competing to join. They Box 3: A Woman’s Day on the Job think that maintaining the road makes the roads nicer and more “At 7:00 a.m., I am eating, with my team, a tasty breakfast— convenient for transporting commodities to develop the house- Pho, a Vietnamese noodle soup. The World Bank team is ably hold economy. During this time of the year, it often rains, so led by our TTL, Phuong Thi Minh Tran, who, having been on maintaining the roads during this time is good.� the sleeper many times before, wisely turned in the earliest of — Phung Pha Sui, an ethnic woman trainee us. We are assisted by Sombath Southivong, the Senior Transport Specialist from the World Bank office in [Lao People’s Democratic Republic], who brings with him the [Lao] Lesson 3: Take advantage of all the resources available. innovation and experience. Breakfast finished, we leave to meet with the provincial transport department to learn more A novel Rural Transport Project soon began to take shape. about their innovative program, hiring women’s groups to A pilot effort trained local ethnic minority women in manage and maintain select road lengths. engineering and road-building practices and provided formal employment opportunities for those with “In no time it is 7 p.m. and we return to the station, exchanging responsibility for specific sections near their communities. each other’s learning experiences, talking about the day’s The Lao Cai Provincial Women’s Union—with its deep roots events, the field visits, and the transport department’s meetings in the community and solid reputation at the district, in those reinforced concrete buildings that always take on a commune, and village levels—acted as a key implementing sense of anonymity. . . . We will put it into practice tomorrow agency for the project. The Women’s Union managed and at our next regional transport department meeting.� monitored the recruitment of women in Ban Lien, Nam Mon, Nam Tri, and Hoang Thu Pho villages, and provided Mission Diary—Tour of Rural Road Innovations in Vietnam them with training and equipment (See Box 2). Submitted by Peter O’Neill April 22, 2010 More than 1,500 ethnic minority women from four communes were trained as rural transportation managers, and many more eagerly await the opportunity. Following the training person who participates in daily maintenance is guaranteed D courses, women became road maintenance workers for the 100,000. A typical time frame for maintenance includes 5–10 Provincial Women’s Union, and each earned a salary of about days per month of active work, depending on the maintenance 100,000 Vietnamese dong (D) a day (about $4.80) for each workload and requirements for different road sections. section of road completed. To ensure high-quality work, the Bac Ha District Office of Urban and Infrastructure Management Beginning at sunrise, women from Hmong, Tay, and Dao supervised and monitored work along the road sections. ethnic communities walk 10 kilometers, carrying shovels Community supervisors assisted, and Provincial Department and hoes to their workplace—for many, the first formal of Transport staff provided technical guidance. employment opportunity of their lives. They work all day clearing debris, repairing broken sections, filling potholes, Across the road networks, 10–30 women are responsible for grading the surface, improving drainage systems, and maintaining a 1–2-kilometer section for three months. Each cleaning side ditches. Together, they share the work— enlivened by stories and a common bond (See Box 3). Approximately 51 kilometers of roads were maintained Table 1: Roads Maintained under the Project under the pilot initiative, as shown in Table 1. Lesson 4: It is important to solidify the project’s benefits. The pilot project has achieved significant development successes, while promoting employment and improving conditions for the women and their families. Stakeholder consultations undertaken by the task team also identified several specific advantages relating to the initiative: • Road maintenance is more efficiently managed by local people, who have clear incentives to promote quality and limit corruption. • Project funds provide direct benefits to communities and “Dig soil . . . Take out the grass . . . Trim the bushes . . . Clear rural women, rather than being spent on leisure activi- sewers . . . [this] is a new job for us who previously only knew ties, including alcohol consumption or gambling. how to cultivate. Although we are sometimes tired, the work is more satisfying than working in the fields alone. After mainte- • Improved awareness of the critical importance of road nance, the road will be much safer for villagers heading to the maintenance among local communities creates trust and market, and more convenient for teachers going to schools.� accountability across villages and builds capacity for co- — an ethnic female road worker operation. SMARTLESSONS — SEPTEMBER 2011 3 • As a result of increased economic power Conclusion and social status, women have achieved a greater voice in community decision mak- Innovation is key to the program’s success. For ing and a more visible role in managing af- instance, RTP3 demonstrates that productivi- fairs at the household level. ty, profitability, and accountability in rural networks management in Vietnam can be en- • Participation of women in road mainte- hanced using an innovative approach to edu- nance contributes to enhanced social cohe- cating and collaborating with rural ethnic sion among members of local women’s women—creating social benefits and increas- unions and neighborhoods, which in turn ing the stock of social capital that can be ben- strengthens mutual cooperation and social eficial to other development projects. The pi- capital endowments in rural areas. lot training program also established an innovative platform for quantitatively moni- toring tangible outcomes of road mainte- “Regarding efficiency, I think—for the first nance at the household level among diverse time—women have started to realize that ethnic minority groups. maintenance is necessary for commuting, and serves the local communities that they The World Bank’s task team recently ap- live in� proached Vietnam’s Project Management Unit to incorporate a cooperative co-manage- — Tran Thi Khanh, Vice President of Lao Cai ment approach into RTP3 to address remain- Women’s Union ing logistical problems to scale up current ef- forts to local infrastructure development. With the closing of RTP3, we hope the govern- Lesson 5: Be open to local solutions to ment will adopt a number of lessons learned local problems. from this experience and promote participa- tion of ethnic minorities in general and wom- The D 100,000 a day per person that local en in particular into future road-development maintenance groups received for each section projects. Connecting everyone through better of road completed presented a challenge: the maintained road networks will pave the way supply of willing workers outweighed de- to a smoother future. mand. Fortunately, citizens from Nam Mon, Nam Det, Hoang Thu Pho, and Ban Lien pro- vided an organic solution: steering commit- tees rotated available positions among all women living in targeted communes. This ro- tation allowed everyone to participate, result- ed in greater buy-in from the communities, and created an environment of trust and mu- tual support. Lesson 6: Benefits can come in surprising combinations! People don’t necessarily associate rural road maintenance with gender-based social inclu- DISCLAIMER sion! Yet this project brought those two con- SmartLessons is an awards cepts together—with outstanding results. We program to share lessons learned in development-oriented advisory learned that involving local ethnic women in services and investment rural road maintenance can: operations. The findings, interpretations, and conclusions • Enhance the role of women in communi- expressed in this paper are those ties where husbands’ decision making is of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of IFC still dominant, and where income-generat- or its partner organizations, the ing opportunities are limited to the off- Executive Directors of The World farm season. Bank or the governments they represent. IFC does not assume any responsibility for the • Improve awareness of value added by completeness or accuracy of the maintaining rural roads, which in turn indi- information contained in this rectly supports gender equity through ac- document. Please see the terms cess to human development resources that and conditions at www.ifc.org/ often are not available in remote and rela- smartlessons or contact the program at smartlessons@ifc.org. tively inaccessible areas. 4 SMARTLESSONS — SEPTEMBER 2011