Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1-19)
DR MARTIN
GAINSBOROUGH AND
MR RAMESH
SINGH
19 JUNE 2007
Q1 Chairman: Good morning, gentlemen,
and thank you for coming. As I think you probably understand,
we are at the closing stages of an inquiry on the Department of
International Development's Country Programme in Vietnam. About
four weeks ago, we had a fascinating visit when we spent time
not only in Hanoi but up in the North-West Highlands and also
down around Hue paddling in the rain and the mud. Obviously we
had an interesting picture. Although we have it in a note here,
it would be helpful if you would introduce yourselves so that
we know who you are and then let us have a conversation.
Dr Gainsborough: I am Dr Martin
Gainsborough. I am an academic at Bristol University. I direct
the Bristol-Mekong Project, which also includes the Bristol-Vietnam
Project, which is about bringing research and consultancy together
and the impact of research into the policy and business environment.
This is my eighteenth year working on Vietnam. I lived there for
four years, three in the south in Ho Chi Minh City and one in
Hanoi.
Mr Singh: I am Ramesh Singh. I
am from Nepal. I am currently the Chief Executive of ActionAid
International. I have direct working experience in Vietnam, and
lived there as the country director of ActionAid Vietnam and was
subsequently the Asia director, living in Bangkok close to Vietnam,
and that was my direct work. Currently, I am Chief Executive of
ActionAid International, based in Johannesburg. I am still closely
connected, both directly as well as indirectly, with the work
in Vietnam.
Q2 Chairman: Thank you. At this stage,
we obviously have talked with the Department. We have been on
a visit with a programme very well-organised by DFID staff in
Vietnam. In a sense, you are independent witnesses. I hope you
will not feel inhibited if you consider that there are either
constructive criticisms or otherwise of what DFID is doing or
not doing or suggestions about what it can do differently or better.
That is essentially what we will be interested to hear about.
What we gleaned, both before and during our visit, is that on
the success side clearly there are some dramatic figures on poverty
reduction and the distribution of that poverty reduction; in other
words, the number of people in poverty has been sharply reduced,
although we did get pictures of vulnerability—that there
are particularly vulnerable groups. Although poverty has been
reduced, it has not been reduced so dramatically that people are
not still on the edge. There were issues of corruption and human
rights and so forth. I wonder if you could give us an indication,
from your point of view, of why you think Vietnam has been so
successful in reducing poverty. The figures we have had are that
58% of people living in poverty as usually defined in 1993 have
reduced to 19.5% in 2004. If you accept that those figures are
broadly right, how do you think that has been achieved and what
do you think are the risks in terms of maintaining that progress?
We did hear some of the issues but we would be pleased to hear
your point of view.
Dr Gainsborough: That is a complex
question but I will try to give some nuggets and some simple answers.
I accept the figures in terms of reduction of poverty with some
caveats, as you have alluded to. The state and the government
in Vietnam has to a greater or lesser extent, but to a significant
extent, embraced opening up the economy, attracting external investment,
trading and so on. I think that has contributed substantially
to the turnaround of the economy. Vietnam is in a favourable location
and in a dynamic region with dynamic countries around it and obvious
markets for its goods, which was very significant when the Soviet
Union collapsed and in a hurry it had to find alternative markets.
I think also I would want to put the emphasis on the nature of
the state in Vietnam. Someone referred to it being dysfunctional
on a day-to-day basis but basically, as states go, it is very
capable. One of the manifestations of that is that of course corruption
is a widespread problem, as I think you have heard, but it is
in my book kept within limits. So, whilst corruption occurs, there
is not the wholesale theft of state assets. They have had this
equitisation/privatisation programme. It is absolutely not on
the Soviet national model. It has been a controlled process and,
yes, there is corruption surrounding it but there has not been
a wholesale loss of state assets. I think that is significant.
Q3 Chairman: Do you mean people have
taken their percentage but it has continued to function?
Dr Gainsborough: Yes.
Mr Singh: For me, the main driver
behind the so-called reduction in poverty within the system has
been allowing the potential of poor people themselves to be unleashed,
the ability to invest and own land. And production has grown significantly
in Vietnam from less than 20 years ago being a net importer of
food to being the second largest rice exporter from their production.
The important thing is to recognise how poor people themselves
have been able to unleash their potential. Obviously, there have
been investments in infrastructure, whether it is irrigation or
allowing infrastructure in savings and credits in the rural areas
as well as larger industrial infrastructure for exports. Quite
clearly, it is also because of opening the space for international
development that has not only brought in money but know-how and
technology. That has helped to target the development and reduce
poverty significantly.
Q4 Chairman: What are the risks to
maintaining that? People look at a few years of steady growth,
that is 10 years of steady progress, and say that is fine and
it is going to continue. Is it going to continue? What would stop
it?
Dr Gainsborough: There is always
a danger of overheating with macroeconomic stability issues, managing
a more complex economy, those types of things. Inevitably, rapid
economic change leads to social change, which leads to a more
assertive society. Citizens want something else; they want something
more. The relationship with the state begins to change. Is the
state able to respond to that and manage that societal change
and create a more responsive form of government, whatever description
that takes? Those are real risks. There are some social consequences
of rapid economic development in terms of a rush to get rich quick,
which in a sense is an understandable reaction to years of poverty,
but someone needs to look out for those who fall behind and so
developing social security systems is very important. Is the state
doing enough in that area? Can it be helped to do more? Business
becoming more powerful as a political actor: you want a dynamic
business class but that has implications for governance. Is there
a danger that the business elite will begin to sway the political
process so that weaker members of society lose out? Again, what
role does the state play in that and how can the state be helped
to deal with that? Management of relations between labour and
capital are becoming more problematic. Is the state well-placed
to arbitrate between capital and labour under the current institutional
structure? I would say there are some real problems there. Again,
what can be done?
Q5 Chairman: We might come back to
that because obviously you have made a number of recommendations
in that direction, which I would like to explore.
Mr Singh: There are two things.
The first is those people who could come out of poverty have already
come out and there is a chronic level of poverty left. Leaving
those people behind is not going to be helpful for the stability
of the country, social stability and harmony. Clearly, here is
inequality. The number of people who have become landless is quite
phenomenal. We need to watch that. As you know, with regard to
ethnic minorities, the majority of the poor people used to be
and still are in the minority ethnic groups in the Northern Highlands
and the Central Highlands. Lots of those people had land, particularly
in the southern part of the country more than in the north; we
have new poor coming into the urban area from migration and in
the formal labour sector. The danger is not being able to distribute
some of the growth and the fruits of the growth which will leave
those ethnic groups and minority groups really poor and the gap
will continuously enlarge. Politically, that is going to be quite
dangerous in my opinion in the long run as the systems grow and
the middle class and the elite emerge. There is a real danger
there. The important thing is to make sure that we have a targeted
and clear approach to addressing this chronic poverty, ensuring
that the new poor who are coming in are not threatened and therefore
address them directly. I feel that inequality and the new poor
are going to be the real dangers.
Q6 Ann McKechin: Both the Government
of Vietnam and donors are clearly concerned about this growing
gap between particularly the ethnic communities and the new population
and they have devoted quite a lot of time and attention to it.
Do you think they are doing the right thing or should they be
doing things differently if they are going to try to close this
gap over the next, say, five to 10 years?
Mr Singh: At a broader, untargeted
level, I think it is. It relates not only to hard intervention
in terms of infrastructure or regional allocation, but it is also
about how much space there is for them politically, what is happening
to the informal sector, a hugely increasing labour force. Where
is the targeted work? I feel at face value or at a more blanket
level it is a concern that the Vietnamese Government and international
development community have recognised. It seems that there is
a general response to it but we need a much more targeted response.
Even with things like HIV/AIDS we need to go beyond rhetoric and
have more targeted treatments and care. I feel the answer is:
yes, but not enough.
Dr Gainsborough: It is not my
primary focus but my understanding is that there is a sense in
which, while recording the achievements in terms of poverty reduction,
there should be a shift to focusing on those particular groups
that have not been lifted out of poverty or who are on the very
edge of poverty, so a more targeted approach to select groups,
and particularly ethnic minorities feature in that. That sounds
right to me.
Q7 Sir Robert Smith: Following up
on that, in a sense, the ethnic minorities are the more challenging
group to tackle. In part, is that the geography issue as well
in the sense that we went to Hoa Binh and obviously there are
limited activities you can do to make a dramatic difference in
a mountainous farming region in terms of embracing a new economy.
There will have to be migration or a change in culture.
Dr Gainsborough: How do you deal
with poverty in remote mountainous areas? There are people much
better qualified than me on this. Vietnam is industrialising,
so there is an assumption, often unstated, and it is an issue
that the Vietnam Government has trouble with, that large numbers
of people are going to leave the land to work in urban areas,
in factories and so on, and that brings its own problems, clearly.
Aside from the difficulties of dealing with the problem of poverty
in remote mountainous areas, when you talk about ethnic minorities,
you also have to look at their position within Vietnamese society
and discrimination towards minorities and the extent to which,
for instance, there are underlying structural reasons why lifting
these groups out of poverty is harder.
Mr Singh: We probably need to
recognise that there are lots of minority groups also along the
Mekong Delta. Those in the Mekong Delta are probably more desperate
and the numbers there are higher than in the Northern Highlands
and the Central Highlands. I do feel that it is possible to invest
much more and allow that political space and the kind of development
that would be suitable for that minority ethnic group. There is
scope to invest further in the Northern Highlands area as well,
but I would also like to draw attention to the Mekong Delta. It
is important to recognise the increasing number of displaced people
in broad terms in the urban areas and peri-urban areas. Vietnam
has not traditionally taken kindly to people moving from one place
to another without a particular official reason. The migrants
move about and urban migrants do not have the same recognition
and rights. It is important to understand that. There is large
body of informal migrants that have come in. Many of them are
from minority ethnic groups but not all of them. In looking into
this in the fringes of industrialisation, a very large population
is now displaced. To be honest, they are probably the engines
of growth as well because this labour serves the informal sector.
They need to be understood and analysed and investment needs to
be made for them.
Q8 Sir Robert Smith: Some of them
are repatriating money back to the rest of their families.
Mr Singh: Of course, and that
relationship between migration and the highland areas will be
established more strongly.
Q9 Sir Robert Smith: One of the other
challenges underneath the group statistics is that down to 20%
of the people are on less than $1 a day but a further quarter
of the population are on more than $1 a day but on less than $2
a day, so that is 45% of the population still under $2 a day.
What are the risks with such a large group hovering just above
or possibly dropping back?
Dr Gainsborough: I suppose the
common point to make would be that those groups are very vulnerable
to economic shocks. As the economy becomes more open, the government
is very cautious about opening up certain aspects of the economy,
particularly on the financial capital accounts, but, yes, that
raises an important point. There are, as you say, these groups
that are still existing on between $1 and $2 a day. As the economy
liberalises, there is greater risk of economic shock, big fluctuations
in growth rates potentially. Is there some way in which policies
could be targeted and anticipate this?
Mr Singh: We can see that those
people are just on the borderline or have just come up. Some of
them have come down as well. To a certain extent, this goes not
just with the economic aspects but with the political angle—political
in the sense of: what is the space for those people to be heard?
Are they recognised? It has to be a lot more targeted. My fear
is that lot of those people are in the informal sector and marginal
land owners. The moment they sell land, they will come down again
below the poverty line and be in acute poverty. The real danger
is that if a targeted approach is not taken and there is not space
for discussion and a recognition of the identity of these people
side-by-side, there will be political ramifications in future.
Q10 Sir Robert Smith: How exposed
is Vietnam to a natural disaster? It is quite low-lying.
Dr Gainsborough: Typhoons, floods
and so on happen fairly frequently and that causes devastation
in the low-lying areas and in coastal areas. That poses real problems
for those affected communities, again, people who are on relatively
low income levels. The sense in which a systemic shock would undermine
the growth trajectory in its entirety is rather unlikely.
Q11 Sir Robert Smith: It is more
the economic, external shock?
Dr Gainsborough: I think it is,
but if Vietnam suffered serious labour unrest of South Korean
proportions for some years—and you can never say never—or
if there was serious political instability, again I think those
sorts of things can trigger serious economic shocks. There is
a great debate about what impact a big crash in the stock market,
which is still small but growing, would have on the overall macro-economy.
Q12 Sir Robert Smith: Do you think
enough is being done by donors and the Government of Vietnam at
least to be prepared to cope with the consequences of some of
these shocks, or dealing with the group that is hovering just
above vulnerability?
Dr Gainsborough: I do not have
a really good picture of all the work that is being done specific
to that particular group. It is important not to lose sight of
that issue.
Mr Singh: I believe that probably
not enough attention has been given to supporting growth. Obviously,
education and health have been prioritised but they are still
less targeted and there needs to be a much more broad-based support
given by international development. Personally, I feel that the
international development community's attention and outreach deeper
into Vietnam has probably been eroded from 10 years ago when everybody
who went there had closer contact with the communities than there
currently is.
Q13 Sir Robert Smith: Do you think
this is a short-term problem? In 10 to 15 years, with rapid growth,
who will be the people at risk?
Dr Gainsborough: I would tend
to focus on the minorities again. Vietnam is developing from a
low base. There have been dramatic changes but, as I highlight,
there are clearly people who are subsisting on very low incomes.
It is important to remember that.
Mr Singh: I would add that the
informal sector in the urban and peri-urban areas is really the
invisible poor.
Q14 Joan Ruddock: Wherever people
are poor, women are poorest. Unfortunately, I could not go on
the visit but I understand that in Vietnam women have done quite
well in terms of the parliament, the national assembly representation,
that the proportion of girls vis-a"-vis boys in schools
is going to be achieved, but there are other indicators that women
are not valued, that women are working much longer hours than
men, they are sex selected for abortion and that domestic violence
is increasing. I wonder what your judgment is as to the claim
made by the government that they have mainstreamed gender into
their development and economic policies.
Mr Singh: Gender is a problem
for us. Gender requires both vertical women's rights issues on
its own and mainstreaming. I think Vietnam has taken a mainstreaming
approach. It had a good base with girls going to schools and women
in the labour force and in politics. This is all good, but it
has not addressed the specific vertical women's rights issues,
such as sex selection, issues of trafficking to China in particular
and, in urban areas, the marginalising of women in the informal
labour sector. These issues are still less talked about and there
is less attention paid to them. Compared with many other countries
where we work, we have to applaud what Vietnam has achieved in
relation to gender and women's rights but there are blank spots
and they need to be addressed. They will not be addressed by mainstreaming
alone.
Q15 Joan Ruddock: Do you think that
they are going to be addressed? Do you have a sense that these
underlying inequalities as compared with high profile achievements
are recognised?
Mr Singh: They are not openly
recognised. Because at face value there is such good mainstreaming
and gain as well, these discussions have not happened. We have
found the government quite willing to talk, for example, now after
a long time about trafficking, but certainly sex selection is
less discussed. It needs to be incentivised or promoted. It is
not normally talked about. I think it has to be more focused.
Because there is such a gain, I think it is masked. It is possible
to talk about it but it is not talked about. Some incentive and
promotion of it is required.
Dr Gainsborough: I recognise the
particular problems that you highlight: sex selective abortion,
domestic violence. These are very sensitive issues in Vietnam.
The state is very nervous about the terms under which outsiders
might be involved in addressing those issues. In so far as one
of the achievements of the revolution was that women in a sense
achieved a status, and it is hard to be absolutely sure but it
is what is passed down as the folklore if you like, is some of
that being lost? Possibly; it is hard to know. There are issues
in that area, as you have highlighted. It is not my main area
of expertise.
Chairman: It is in what you might call
the mainstream area, and I am thinking it was particularly marked
in Hang Kia where first of all we met commune leaders. When I
think Ann asked "where are the women", they said, "Well,
the Chair of the Women's Union is consulted". I do not think
she was a member of the committee.
Q16 Ann McKechin: She was on a training
course on the day that we arrived but no one had actually thought
of having one of the other members of the Women's Steering Committee
come in her place and in fact several members of the Women's Union
Committee were inevitably serving the tables and arranging the
food. Following on from what Joan Ruddock has said, I wonder if
there is a lack of analysis by the government or by international
donors, particularly within an ethnic community where obviously
much more concern about social values apply. Is this sensitivity
inhibiting proper analysis of how development aid is happening
in terms of the gender perspective?
Dr Gainsborough: Clearly, as someone
has said, it does not look so bad in terms of women's representation
in, for example, parliament, the national assembly. New figures
show improvements.
Q17 Joan Ruddock: It is better than
ours?
Dr Gainsborough: Yes, indeed.
That is positive. The anecdote you have just given rings true
with my own experience. I have encountered a tendency to say,
"What you foreigners talk about as gender is not a problem".
We should not forget that the Women's Union, which has been mentioned,
is a significant political force in Vietnam. Whether that means
that women are habitually integrated into local government people's
committees and so on, and I suspect they are in the minority.
But, there is an institution called the Women's Union which is
a significant institution politically and socially.
Q18 Chairman: We came across it in
a number of different areas. We would accept that. It seems to
me that the point is that they are put in that box: the Women's
Union deals with women's issues, therefore they are not mainstream.
Yet, when we went round a school, for example, the figures we
have here are that in the upper secondary school, there were two
girls out of 46 pupils. When we talked to members of the Women's
Union in the village, they said, "Well, we would quite like
to develop a range of other skills but we are required to spend
all our time doing embroidery", which happened to be the
particular tradition. I am not saying that does not have a commercial
value but they did not have a choice. They might have preferred
to breed pigs, or whatever.
Dr Gainsborough: That is a fair
point. I would not dispute that.
Mr Singh: I agree. It is similar,
overall, to what can be done over a period of time after what
has been done immediately. Women's rights issues are difficult
within ethnic minorities, and even the relationship of how the
Women's Union deals with women in general. These issues need to
be addressed. It is true that it is not always easy for the international
development community to bring that to the fore, but the next
generation of work will really be about dealing with those chronic
deeper needs. That requires a different strategy than just growth
and infrastructure.
Q19 Joan Ruddock: If I may say so,
Mr Singh, there is a way that donors and NGOs can contribute,
and that is of course through their own programmes and by making
an example. I have frequently criticised DFID about the lack of
gender mainstreaming in DFID programmes. I have certainly met
many NGOs who may say, "We do lots of women's programmes"
but they may not employ as many women as they employ men. There
are all sorts of disparities in the way in which the international
community itself presents its own face in terms of gender. I ask
the question in terms of in Vietnam are DFID and NGOs setting
an example or not?
Mr Singh: In Vietnam it is relatively
easy to employ women in an organisation. Practically all the time
that I was working there up until last year, and I do not know
last year's figure, we always had more women on our staff than
men. That is just one hurdle. It is relatively easy in Vietnam
because in urban Vietnam it is relatively easy to employ. I have
a feeling that many international organisations there would have
a substantial number of women, senior and general staff. We need
to go beyond that. We know that when we wanted to work on issues
of trafficking six years ago, it was very difficult to bring it
up because the normal official line was that there was no trafficking.
It is the same with HIV/AIDS. I feel that it is possible to do
it and we are doing it but it requires a lot more focused attention.
Civil society can do that a lot more easily than broad-based international
projects. It is important to emphasise that continually. There
is a slight glossing or lack of attention to it at the moment.
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