Formulation mission – Public Administration Reform and the Roll out of CPRGS in the province of Hau Giang

Detailed description of project Back

Belgium supported the local government reform process in Vietnam as early as the mid-1990s when it formulated its first PAR support program for the province of Can Tho. Officially operated between 2002 and 2005, the “Support for Public Administration Reform in Can Tho Project” (SPAR) contributed to both local and national PAR implementation programs. In December 2003, the Joint Commission on Development Cooperation between Vietnam and Belgium decided that Belgium would continue to support Vietnam after the end of the project in Can Tho. The focus would be on a project to support Public Administration Reform in combination with the roll-outofthe CPRGS in Hau Giang Province. Such a program will aim at:

• Sustainable poverty reduction by means of administrative reform and capacity building for planning and management at province, district and municipality level;
• Introducing participatory planning approaches;
• Provision of local development funds.

In October 2005, a team was formed to both evaluate SPAR and to identify areas of support in Hau Giang within the framework outlined by the Joint Commission on Development Cooperation. The identification has made out a proposal for the project to support the strengthening of participatory development planning and public service delivery in Hau Giang Province through Public Administration Reform, with the three specific objectives of:

• Improving the performance of the planning system at the provincial, district and municipality levels;
• Improving the public service delivery system;
• Improving the capacity of training institutions in providing PAR-related training.

The main objective of the Formulation mission is to appraise the said project proposal and to detail its implementation, specifically in terms of targets for the indicators and costing of the project inputs. The outputs of the Formulation mission wil be:

• A detailed “Technical and Financial File” (TFF);
• A draft Specific Agreement related to the project implementation between the Government of Belgium and the Government of Viet Nam;
• A draft Implementation Contract to be signed between BTC and the State of Belgium before the beginning of the project implementation.

Type of services provided

PROMAN is providing the services of a senior consultant with expertise in PAR with the issues related to local planning, budgeting and public service delivery, in evaluation methodology and logical framework, and in design, implementation, management, monitoring and evaluation of programs in developing countries.

The expert closely cooperates with a BTC Governance advisor, a local consultant and a MOHA representative.