final report on sep 2014

FINAL REPORT WWF VIETNAM CSO CAPACITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT –VPA/FLEGT

JULY 2014

WWF VIETNAM D13, Làng Quốc tế Thăng Long Cầu Giấy, Hà Nội, Việt Nam

SEP 2014

REPORT CAPACITY NEEDS ASSESSMENT FOR EFFECTIVE CSO PARTICIPATION IN VIETNAM’S VPA PROCESS FINAL REPORT


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CONTENTS --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................................................................ 4 1.1. THE VPA/FLEGTY NEGOTIATION PROCESS ......................................................................................................... 4 1.2. INVOLVEMENT OF VIETNAMESE NGOS ................................................................................................................. 5 1.3. PROJECT “COMMON ACCESS TO THE VPA PROCESS IN LAOS AND VIETNAM” ............................................. 5

2. THE ASSESSMENT .......................................................................................................................................................... 6 2.1. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSESSMENT ...................................................................................................................... 6 2.2. SCOPE OF THE ASSESSMENT ............................................................................................................................... 6 2.3. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY ......................................................................................................................... 6 2.4. LIMITATIONS OF THE ASSESSMENT ..................................................................................................................... 8

3. VIETNAMESE CSO’S MISIONS IN THE VPA/FLEGT PROCESS .................................................................................. 9 3.1. PARTICIPATION OF VIETNAMESE CSOS IN VPA/FLEGTY ................................................................................... 9 3.2. PRIORITISED FUNCTIONS AND MANDATES OF CSOS IN VPA/FLEGT PROCESS ......................................... 10

4. CHALLENGES FACED BY KEY NATIONAL ACTORS OF VPA/FLEGTY PROCESS ................................................ 12 4.1. KEY NATIONAL ACTORS OF VPA/FLEGT PROCESS .......................................................................................... 12 4.2. MAJOR CHALLENGES ........................................................................................................................................... 13

5. TYPES OF CAPACITY REQUIRED FOR CSO EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTION TO VPA/FLEGT PROCESS ............... 14

6. GENERAL OBSERVATION ............................................................................................................................................ 17 6.1. ABOUT THE ADAPTED CSO CAPACITY ASSESSMENT TOOL .......................................................................... 17 6.2. OVERAL EVALUATION ........................................................................................................................................... 18

7. VPA/FLEGT SPECIFIC CAPACITY ................................................................................................................................ 19 7.1. EXPERIENCE, HUMAN RESOURCE AND EXPERTISE ........................................................................................ 19 7.2. COMMITMENT TO VPA/FLECT .............................................................................................................................. 22 7.3. TOOLS AND SKILLS ............................................................................................................................................... 23 7.4. EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND NETWORKING FOR VPA/FLEGT INTERVENTIONS ........................................... 23 7.5. COMMUNICATION, AWARENESS RAISING, EDUCATION .................................................................................. 24 7.6. POLICY ADVOCACY ............................................................................................................................................... 24 7.7. GENDER, POVERTY AND INCLUSION ................................................................................................................. 26

8. OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN VPA/FLEGT CAPACITY BUILDING FOR CSO ........................................ 27

9. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING THE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ................................................... 29 9.1. TARGET GROUPS OF THE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ........................................................................... 29 9.2. GUIDING PRINCIPLES ........................................................................................................................................... 29

10. PRIORITISED CAPACITY .............................................................................................................................................. 31 10.1. PRIORITISED INFORMATION AND KNOWLEDGE ............................................................................................. 31 10.2. REQUIRED TOOLS AND SKILLS ......................................................................................................................... 32 10.3. CAPACITY BUILDING NEEDS OF VNGO-FLEGT NETWORK ............................................................................ 33

11. MODE OF TRAINING ...................................................................................................................................................... 34

12. CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM ................................................................................................................................ 34 12.1. ESTABLISH A CAPACITY BUILDING TASKFORCE: ........................................................................................... 34 12.2. CAPACITY BUILDING NEEDS ............................................................................................................................. 34

13. M&E SYSTEM FOR VPA/FLEGT CAPACITY BUILDING ............................................................................................. 38

14. MEASURING THE RESULTS OF WWF’S CAPACITY BUILDING SUPPORT ............................................................. 39

15. MEASURING THE IMPROVEMENT OF ORGANISATIONAL CAPACITY .................................................................... 39


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LIST OF ABREVIATIONS CED Center for Education and Development

CORENARM Consultative and Research Center on Natural Resource Management Hue city

CRD Centre for Rural Development in Central Vietnam

CSOs Civil Society Organisations

DFID The Department for International Development – UK

FLEGT The EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade

GoV Government of Vietnam

MARD Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development

PanNature Center for People and Nature Reconciliation

SMEs Small and Medium Enterprises

SFMI Institute for Sustainable Forest Management and Forest Certification

SRD Centre for Sustainable Rural Development

TLAS Timber Legality Assurance System

VNGO-FLEGT Network Network of Vietnamese NGOs participating in VPA/FLEGT process

VNFOREST Vietnam Forestry Administration

VPAs Voluntary Partnership Agreements

WWF World Wide Fund for Nature

LIST OF BOXES, FIGURES AND TABLES Diagram 1: Approach and steps of the assignment ....................................................................................................... 7 Diagram 2: Order of priority of CSO’s functions and tasks by stages of VPA process ................................................ 11 Diagram 3: Knowledge, information and issue areas related to VPA/FLEGT .............................................................. 15 Diagram 4: Strengths and limitations of SFMI in implementing VPA/FLEGT interventions ......................................... 21 Diagram 5: Channels of Communication, Awareness Raising, Education and Advocacy ........................................... 25 Diagram 6: Quick SWOT analysis of CSOs’ capacity in implementing VPA/FLEGT ................................................... 27 Diagram 7: M&E – comparison the expected and actual achievements ...................................................................... 38

Figure 1: External relation capacity of target CSOs ..................................................................................................... 24 Figure 2: Self-evaluation scores for Gender, Poverty, Inclusion and M&E, Reporting ................................................. 26

Table 1: Methods applied in the assignment .................................................................................................................. 8 Table 2: Average scores of the CSOs participating in the assessment ........................................................................ 18 Table 3: Primary target groups and thematic working areas of CSOs under assessment ........................................... 20 Table 4: Experts in the CSOs ....................................................................................................................................... 22 Table 5: Priorities target groups of WWF’s capacity building program ......................................................................... 30 Table 6: Information and knowledge on VPA/FLEGT prioritised by target CSOs ........................................................ 32 Table 7: Tools and skills prioritised by target CSOs ..................................................................................................... 33 Table 8: Summary of CSOs’ capacity building needs .................................................................................................. 37


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PART 1: INTRODUCTION --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. BACKGROUND 1.1. THE VPA/FLEGTY NEGOTIATION PROCESS The VPA/FLEGT negotiation between Vietnam and the EU has accelerated to reach the deadline of October 2014 when the two sides expect to sign the agreement and implement it.

There are 3 key elements in a VPA agreement: 1) Defining product scope and legality, e.g defining the laws and regulations to be enforced for the purpose of the agreement; 2) The Timber Legality Assurance System (TLAS) (timber tracking, government legality controls, and systems to verify the legality of the timber); and 3) Independent audits of the whole system to ensure credibility of the export licenses. These elements are reflected and

detailed in a set of 11 Annexes attached to the agreement as binding commitments of EU and the timber exporting country (Box 2). Negotiation delegations of Vietnam and the EU are now working on Annex 1, 2, 3 and 4.

When coming into force, the VPA/FLEGT process would affect the assurance of legality of many stages of the timber supply chain which are managed by different ministries and agencies and involve up over 3,500 Vietnamese medium and small enterprises (SMEs) as well as millions of forestry households and farmers.

The Government of Vietnam will need to establish and operate an effective and reliable FLEGT verifying, licensing and monitoring system that meets the requirements of EU on the one hand and not to create remarkable burden as well as remarkable additional costs to enterprises on the other hand.

The Government involved ministries and agencies, enterprises and timber producing households are under great pressure of preparation for implementing VPA/FLEGT.

VPA/FLEGT

The EU Forest Law Enforcement Governance and Trade (FLEGT) is the European Union’s response to the global problem of illegal logging and the trade in timber products.

VPAs are Voluntary Partnership Agreements - the legally binding bilateral trade agreements that set out the commitments and action that the EU and timber exporting countries will take to tackle illegal logging.

The VPAs requires active participations of all rights- and stakeholders, especially NGOs and non-state actors, for greater environmental and social justice, with a focus on forests and forest people’s rights.

Box 1: What is VPA/FLEGT?

Main Annexes

• Annex 1: Product scope (which timber products are covered by the agreement)

• Annex 2: Legality definition (the set of laws whose enforcement will be monitored prior to awarding a FLEGT license)

• Annex 3 Description of the Timber Legal Assurance System (TLAS) • Annex 4 Conditions for the import of timber products into the EU

from the FLEGT partner country • Annex 5 FLEGT License (demand, delivery, validity and other

conditions) • Annex 6 Terms of reference for the Independent Auditor of the

system • Annex 7 TLAS Assessment Criteria (criteria to determine the

functioning of the system) • Annex 8 Implementation Schedule • Annex 9 Accompanying Measures (list of measures needed to

ensure a good implementation of the agreement)

Other:

• Annex 10 Information (list of documents that will be placed on the public domain)

• Annex 11 Functions of the EU-FLEGT country Joint Implementation Committee

Box 2: Annexes of the VPA/FLEGT Agreement


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1.2. INVOLVEMENT OF VIETNAMESE NGOs

VPA/FLEGT is new for all national rights-holders and stakeholders. In term of contents, the agreement is comprehensive and the issues it covers would range from the right for land use to business liscence and import-export regulations. In terms of negotiation and implementation process, the VPA encourages and requires active participation of all rights-holders and stakeholders, which are not limited in the government sector and forestry industry. The VPA Agreement gives special attention to non-state actors, including CSOs, and the marginalised groups, rural communities, indigenous peoples who have their livelihood dependent on forest and forest resources. It creates favourable conditions for these groups to express their views and contribute to the process of FLEGT policy-making, implementation and monitoring. Improving transparency/accountability of forest management and trade of forest productions is another important aim and demand of the VPA. FLEGT process must be well monitored, audited independently, reported and give the public greater access to information.

For the Government, the task of negotiation itself is already complicated, needless to mention the review and revision of laws and policies after the agreement is signed and ratified. The forestry enterprises and the timber-producing households have little information and knowledge of the process. Key players in Vietnam are not ready. They need support from those who have information, knowledge and experience on VPA/FLEGT.

Generally speaking, Vietnamese CSOs have a number of striking advantages when participating in VPA/FLEGT process. Firstly, CSOs are familiar with principles which are keys to VPA/FLEGT process: conveying voice of the marginalised to policy makers, participation, education and awareness raising, transparency/accountability, social monitoring and supervision, policy advocacy etc. Secondly, some CSOs are members of several national, regional and international networks, from which they can obtain information, share knowledge and experience and mobilise expertise. The EU’s demand of CSOs participation in VPA/FLEGT process would be great opportunities for CSOs to apply these advantages.

However, it is observed that Vietnamese CSOs themselves have not been well prepared to join the VPA process. Most of the CSOs show little or no interest and commitments to VPA process, partly because of their inadequate knowledge and experience on the issue. Those who are currently involved in the VPA/FLEGT are also in the process of “learning by doing” themselves and their contributions to the negotiation process remains limitted: sharing publications developed by international NGOs such as EFI, FERN; conducting a few surveys and studies on possible impacts of VPA/FLEGT on the forest communities and enterprises, providing comments to the drafts of VPA Annexes … These contributions are made through the efforts of individual NGOs as well as collective effort of the VNGO-FLEGT network, which was established in 2012, two years after the VPA negotiation between Vietnam and the EU started.

It is increasingly clear that in order to make effective contributions to VPA/FLEGT process, Vietnamese CSOs need to strengthen their own capacity, e.g. improve their knowledge, skills, tools and organisational arrangements, to fulfill their mandates and meet expectation of key actors. Otherwise, they would miss the train and lose the one opportunity of being involved in the VPA/FLEGT policy making and implementation process.

1.3. PROJECT “COMMON ACCESS TO THE VPA PROCESS IN LAOS AND VIETNAM”

In order to boost the effective process of negotiation, signing and implementation of VPAs, WWF-Greater Mekong has developed the project “Common Access to the VPA Process in Laos and Vietnam”. The project - co-funded by the EU as primary donor and Sida as secondary donor through its civil society support project managed by WWF-Greater Mekong - will be implemented over four years from 2014 to 2018 with the aims of supporting capacity building and awareness raising for more informed and inclusive participation in the VPA processes in Vietnam and Laos.

The specific objective of the project is that the VPAs in Laos and Vietnam explicitly and adequately account for the needs and interests of civil society, forest-dependent communities and forest sector


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companies, and that the VPAs distinctively address trans-boundary issues in timber trade, including impacts on forest services and the needs of these target groups.

As a response to the training needs of key stakeholders of the VPA process, the project will provide technical and capacity building support to several target groups. Notable ones include civil society organisations (CSOs), forest-dependent communities in 7 key provinces in Vietnam, private sector actors, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), and government agencies involved in the VPA process.

2. THE ASSESSMENT

2.1. OBJECTIVES OF THE ASSESSMENT

As the first step towards strengthening the target groups’ capacity to participate more effectively in all phases of the VPA process, the project will undertake a participatory capacity needs assessment, starting with the assessment of VNGOs’ capacity building needs. The objective of the assessment is to identify areas of strength and areas of weakness within selected Vietnamese CSOs engaged in the VPA/FLEGT process to: a) enable the development of tailored capacity building activities for enhancing participation in the national VPA process; b) establish a baseline for monitoring the impact of capacity building efforts supported by WWF on the target CSOs.

2.2. SCOPE OF THE ASSESSMENT

• Time: July 2014 – August 2014

• Target groups: The assessment is conducted for 6 selected CSOs engaged in Vietnam’s FLEGT/VPA process. Selection criteria include:

o the selected organisations operate at both central and provincial levels, and within the project location;

o the selected organisations have already involved in VPA/FLEGT process; and

o has shown commitment to VPA/FLEGT process.

They are the Center for People and Nature Reconciliation (PanNature), Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD), Center for Education and Development (CED), Institute for Sustainable Forest Management and Forest Certification (SFMI) in Hanoi and Centre for Rural Development in Central Vietnam (CRD), Consultative and Research Center on Natural Resource Management (CORENARM) in Hue city.

2.3. APPROACH AND METHODOLOGY

1.1.1. APPROACH AND STEPS OF THE ASSESSMENT

The assessment itself is conducted through a process of “guided self-assessment”, where a consultant works with one or more CSO manager(s) and staff in charge of VPA-FLEGT to complete the tool in a participatory manner.

The assessment is conducted in 5 steps, focusing on three main levels: 1) capacity of the CSO under assessment in supporting the VPA/FLEGT process in relation to its missions and mandates; 2) individual capacity building needs with focus on the needs of staff who are assigning to VPA/FLEGT activities; and 3) Needs for technical support of the VNGO-FLEGT network (Diagram 1).


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1.1.2. METHODOLOGY

• Assessment tools:

The CSO Capacity Assessment Tool developed under the WWF-UK/DFID Programme Agreement (PPA) will form the basis of the assessment. This is the most recent iteration of a capacity monitoring tool that has been in use by PPA teams for several years. Besides providing a snapshot of the existing capacity of an organisation, it is also detailed enough to identify areas of weakness and areas of strength in both the organisation’s internal structure and its external activities. However, to be applicable to the local context, the tool was modified to ensure the reflection of particular capacity requirements of FLEGT/VPA participation in Vietnam. The adapted version of the tool is being made available to the target CSOs for their pre-study before the assessment.

Diagram 1: Approach and steps of the assignment

Individual questionnaire is developed to explore the specific training needs of individual staff, who are assigned with VPA/FLEGT related activities. This questionnaire compensates the limitation of the CSO Capacity Assessment Tool, which focuses on the capacity at organisational level.

In-depth interview questions is used to explore further the strengths, weaknesses and opportunities of CSOs under assessment in capacity building for effective participation in VPA/FLEGT process (as WWF project is not the only capacity building project in the field of VPA/FLEGT). They are also used for consulting the CSOs experience and suggestions on the design of WWF future capacity building plan.

Objectives of CSO when supporting

VPA/FLEGT process

Objectives of VNGO-FLEGT

network

Mandates of VNGOs/CSOs

Identification of MUST-HAVE CAPACITY: Knowledge

Skills Tools

Organisational arrangements

Elements of VPA/FLEGT

Principles of VPA/FLEGT

Expectation of key players on support

of VNGOs

Development of the

assessment tools:

Adapted CSO Capacity

Assessment Tool; Individual questionnaires;

In-depth interview questions

Information -data

collection: Current

status/capacity of VNGOs

Analysis: Compare the

current capacity and the expected

capacity

Identification of capacity gaps and capacity building needs:

Organisational level: Arrangements, human resources, tools

Individual level: Knowledge, skills Network level: Joint efforts, networking

3 4 5

1 2


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• Methods applied:

# Tasks Methods applied

1 Identification of prioritised tasks and MUST-HAVE CAPACITY (Knowledge, Skills, Tools, Organisational capacity)

Consultation meeting – group discussion In-depth interviews Desk study - Literature review

3 Development of assessment tools Desk work Consultation with program officers in charge of WWF and selected CSOs.

3 Information/Data collection

Desk study - Literature review Guided discussion for self-assessment (organisational capacity) Individual questionnaire In-depth interviews

4 Identification of capacity gaps and capacity building needs Desk work

5 Planning for capacity building program Desk work Consultation meeting

Table 1: Methods applied in the assignment

2.4. LIMITATIONS OF THE ASSESSMENT

• The term Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in Vietnam can be larger than that in other countries. Civil society in Vietnam has a dynamic character and CSOs may range from NGOs to government-organised NGOs or state-sponsored mass organisations such as the Youth Union and Women’s Union. This assessment, however, aims at the NGOs that are not funded by the Government, though by law most of them are registered under a government-organised and -funded organisation – the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (national or provincial levels). The reason is that in order to play active roles in the VPA/FLEGT process, CSOs must have a certain level of background, experience and expertise, which Vietnamese mass and propaganda organisations fail to meet.

• The assessment is conducted on a comparatively small number of CSOs and the representation of such a small sample size may be criticised. One of the reasons comes from the limitation of time and budget. However, one would agree that the number of CSOs who are actively participating in VPA/FLEGT process at this moment remains small.

• The application of the adjusted WWF-UK/DFID’s CSO Capacity Assessment Tool requires longer internal discussion as part of the self-evaluation process. The time limitation of this assignment, however, does not allow such discussion and therefore constraint the amount of information obtained. This shortage, fortunately, is compensated by the existing OCA reports that have previously been developed by the CSOs under assessment.

• The assessment team does not have opportunity to work and conduct consultation with the communities, timber producing households and forestry enterprises. Instead, the team consolidates opinions of these groups from reports provided by the CSOs under assessment and the VNGO-FLEGT network.


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PART 2: CAPACITY REQUIRED FOR EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTION IN VPA/FLEGT PROCESS

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3. VIETNAMESE CSO’s MISIONS IN THE VPA/FLEGT PROCESS

3.1. PARTICIPATION OF VIETNAMESE CSOs IN VPA/FLEGTY

The world is suffering from the negative impacts of climate change and it is now clear that deforestation and forest degradation contribute greatly to such impacts. Effective forest governance is now referred to as one of the measures to reduce and response to the impacts of climate change. When it comes to the term “governance”, the tasks of forest management and protection are no longer the government’s exclusive right and obligation. Rather, “it requires the inclusion and active participation of different actors in various modes of governance, including those of civil society” (Bui Hai Thiem, 2011)1.

VPA/FLEGT is a great challenge, but also opportunity for CSOs and NGOs to play an increasingly active and influencing roles in forest governance in general and in control of illegal logging in particular. The VPA requires measures to increase participation of rights-holders and non-state stakeholders, including CSOs, local communities, indigenous peoples, and the timber industry

Vietnamese CSOs have participated quite actively in the governance of forest and forest resources for many years and their roles have gradually been recognised by the local communities, then the government at central and local levels. Since the Vietnam-EU VPA/FLEGT negotiation process started in 2010, a handful number of Vietnamese NGOs have joined the process. A VNGO-FLEGT network was established in the begin of 2012 to support the negotiation process by providing comments to draft of annexes on timber legal definition (LD) and timber legality assurance system (TLAS). Some CSOs have conducted community consultation activities to collect opinions of affected groups and convey them to the policy makers (e.g. the Vietnamese Negotiation Taskforce, the Vietnam Forestry Administration (VNFOREST) and the EU Commission in Vietnam). A number of awareness raising communication activities have been organised.

VNGO-FLEGT NETWORK

VNGO-FLEGT network was initiated in December 2011 with the objective: “participate and make effective contribution to the VPA/FLEGT negotiation process between the GoV and EU, through that contribute to the implementation of Vietnam’s forest management and protection plan, promote policies that allow forest communities to access, utilise, managge and develop the forests in a fair and sustainable way”.

By July 2014, the network has 41 member CSOs stationed in 3 regions of Vietnam. These CSOs have years of experience in forestry, agriculture, rural development, community development, environment protection and natural resource management. The Steering Committee of the network include 4 CSOs namely: SRD, PanNature, ForWet and CRD. SRD is coordinating organisation for the network.

The network has designed and implemented a number of VPA/FLEGT supporting activities:

• Project “Promoting the participation of communities and CSOs in the VPA/FLEGT negotiation and implementation process”. The project is funded by DFID through FERN.

• Participate in the consultation process on the definition of legal timber and TLAS of Vietnam.

• Share experience with CSOs/NGOs in countries implementing VPA/FLEGT;

• Participate in the dialogues with the EU and EC on FLEGT;

• Participate in training workshops in the UK, Indonesia, Malaysia;

• Conduct awareness raising communication activities, update and share FLEGT information relularly with the

1 Bui Hai Thiem, 2011. Civil society and environmental policy in Vietnam: A new source of governance? Vietnam Update 2011, ANU, Canberra.


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network members by emails and websites (www.logging-off.info; www.vngo-cc.vn; www.srd.org.vn; www.nature.org.vn; www.thiennhien.net);

• Organise capacity building activities for CSOs focusing on VPA/FLEGT roadmap, REDD and forest governance;

• Organise community consultation activities about legal timber in 35 villages of 14 communes in 6 districts and 6 provinces (Yên Bái, Bắc Kạn, Thanh Hóa, Thừa Thiên Huế, Lâm Đồng và Bà Rịa-Vũng Tàu);

• In cooperation with Forest Trend and Mandala, conduct the Livelihood impact asessment of the VPA;

• Organise seminars, workshops with concerned ministries, agencies and the EU

• Design and start implementing 3 VPA/FLEGT capacity building project for the network members.

Box 3: VNGO-FLEGT Network: Objectives, members and activities2

As of the time of assessment, VNGO-FLEGT network and its most active members continue to provide support to the negotiation process on the one hand and start preparing for guiding rightsholders and stakeholders in implementing the Agreement once it is signed and ratified by the EU and the Government of Vietnam.

3.2. PRIORITISED FUNCTIONS AND MANDATES OF CSOS IN VPA/FLEGT PROCESS

Despite the differences in their visions, missions and development objectives, CSOs share common legally regulated functions, mandates and rights3, through which they make effective contribution to forest governance and VPA/FLEGT processes. A brainstorming session and discussion with representatives of core members of the VNGO-FLEGT identified the following key functions and tasks:

• Representation: The main focus of Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) in the VPA process is to increase transparency and accountability in the forestry sector as well as ensuring that the rights of local communities are well respected and recognised in the VPAs. To do so, a focus on legal reforms which takes into account existing customary, statutory and international law is often required. It is thus clear that local communities’ stakes and rights are at the heart of CSO’s advocacy in the VPA process and thus these stakeholders or rights holders must be effectively represented4. CSOs must represent the communities, especially those whose livelihood is dependent on forest and forest resources, and timber producing households. The representation takes place: i) During VPA negotiation; and ii) In VPA implementation. It is also important that a feedback mechanism between communities and CSOs is established and operated.

Since by law CSOs are not legal representatives of communities or small-scaled timber producing households, the representation can be done through:

o Collect and consolidate evidence through consultation, studies, survey and researches as inputs for policy counter-arguments, advocacy, education, capacity building and designing appropriate interventions.

o Sharing and disseminating information, education and awareness raising on VPA/FLEGT, environment protection, forest governance etc … with the policy makers, communities, timber producing actors, forestry enterprises (including timber producers, processing and trading ones) and with the large public.

• Social counter-argument5 on Laws, policies, programmes and plans related to environment protection, natural resource management, forest governance, FLEGT …

2 Presentation at the workshop of VNGO-FLEGT Network in Hanoi on 20 Aug 2014. 3 Such as Decree 45/2010/ND-CP dated 21 April 2010; Decree 88/2003/ND-CP dated 30 July 2003 4 Claudine Léger. 2014. Community representation and participation in the VPA process. FERN. Belgium. 5 The term “social counter-argument” can also be used alternatively as “social criticism”. In this report, we choose to use the former term since it can be more tollerent by all actors, especially the government/policy making actors.


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• Policy advocacy, advisory support and recommendations to the policy makers/policy making agencies and those who are affected by the VPA/FLEGT policies.

As there are up to ten ministries and agencies will need to review and revise their policies to meet with VPA/FLEGT requirements, the advisory role of CSOs will applied not only to the leading ministry (MARD) and its agency in charge (Vietnam Administration of Forestry) but also to the National Assembly and other state organisations involved. Policy areas are not limited within the forestry policies but extend to the fields of socio-economic development, poverty reduction etc …

• Monitoring and supervising the implementation of Laws, policies and regulations on VPA/FLEGT, environment protection, forest governance

• Provide technical support and capacity building to the actors of forestry industry, focusing on timber producers and forestry SMEs.

• Promoting and strengthening the quality of participation of CSOs in VPA/FLEGT process. This includes the sharing of information, knowledge, experience among CSOs; strengthened VPA/FLEGT network, partnerships; and capacity building for CSOs themselves.

• Continue to provide supports to the communities, especially forest communities, in sustainable livelihood, climate change adaptation and mitigation etc.

It is underlined that the order of priority of these functions and tasks are changeable according to stages of the VPA process, e.g. the negotiation period, the transitional period and the implementation period:

Diagram 2: Order of priority of CSO’s functions and tasks by stages of VPA process6

6 The EU and Vietnamese Government expect to have the Agreement signed in October 2014. The current situation shows that such deadline is hard to meet.

IMPLEMENTATION PERIOD 1. Monitoring and supervision 2. Consultation, collect and

consolidate evidence 3. Representation 4. Social counter-argument 5. Policy advocacy & advisory

support 6. Education and awareness

raising 7. Strengthening the quality of

participation of CSOs 8. Capacity building 9. Direct supports to communities

2010

Negotia-tion

started

2011

Studies conduc-

ted

2012

VNGO-FLEGT

2013 2014

Participation in the VPA/FLEGT

negotiation process

Oct 2014

VPA signed

Beyond

Transitio-nal period

2015

Implementation period

NEGOTIATION PERIOD 1. Consultation, collect and

consolidate evidence 2. Social counter-argument 3. Representation 4. Policy advocacy & advisory

support 5. Education and awareness

raising 6. Capacity building (for

communities, timber producing households and SMEs)

7. Strengthening the quality of participation of CSOs

8. Direct supports to communities

TRANSITIONAL PERIOD 1. Capacity building 2. Education and awareness

raising 3. Representation 4. Strengthening the quality of

participation of CSOs 5. Consultation, collect and

consolidate evidence 6. Social counter-argument 7. Policy advocacy & advisory

support 8. Monitoring and supervision 9. Direct supports to

communities


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It is noticed that the functions of 1) Consultation, collect and consolidate evidence; 2) Social counter-argument; 3) Representation; 4) Policy advocacy & advisory support; and 5) Education and awareness raising are always high in the list of priority. Changes are observed in the movement of Capacity building and Monitoring when they are moving to the top of the list in the transitional period and implementation period respectively.

It is also observed that the list of priority of the Vietnam Administration of Forestry is not much different from that of the CSOs. It means that evidence from the fields and recommendations of CSOs are welcome and appreciated by the state management agency in charge of VPA/FLEGT. This agency is actually more concerned of when the information is given, how it is given and by what mean. We’ll discuss this in the coming parts of this report.

The list of prioritised functions and tasks of CSOs in VPA/FLEGT process by each and every stages of the process (Diagram 2) forms the foundation for the design of capacity building plan and design of training contents.

4. CHALLENGES FACED BY KEY NATIONAL ACTORS OF VPA/FLEGTY PROCESS

4.1. KEY NATIONAL ACTORS OF VPA/FLEGT PROCESS

National key actors of VPA/FLEGT process include:

• Government actors:

o The policy makers and authorities at national and local levels. In the center of the policy making circle is MARD and its concerned agencies such as the Vietnam Forest Administration and the Forest Protection Administration. However, as its was discussed earlier, sectors involved in this VPA process would go up to a dozen and CSOs will have to choose which ones they wish to work with.

o Association of timber industry - VIFORES

• Timber producing actors:

o Timber producing households (local farmer) with and without land-use certificates (red books)

o Forest owners – private and state-owned companies

• Timber processing actors: small-scaled sawmills and SMEs – timber manufacturers.

• Timber traders: – private and state-owned companies

• Forest communities and households how have their livelihood strongly dependent on forest resources. These normally include the indigenous/ethnic minority people, the poor and marginalised.

VIFORES and forestry enterprises expects that the value of exported timber and timber products from Vietnam to the EU market would reach the level of USD 1 billion per year when VPA/FLEGT is ratified7. The road to success, however, is not flat and easy and key national actors of VPA/FLEGT in Vietnam are facing underlying challenges. Without addressing these challenges in a proper way, social impacts on a number of groups would be severe.

The identification of these challenges is another foundation for the signing CSOs’ interventions and capacity building program for CSOs accordingly.

7 Vietnam Economic News. VPA/FLEGT ngotiation: speeding-up stage. 23rd April 2014.


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4.2. MAJOR CHALLENGES8

Lack of VPA/FLEGT specific information and knowledge:

This problem is faced by all stakeholders of VPA/FLEGT process, ranging from the government agencies to SMEs and small-scaled timber producing and processing households, not mentioning the poor forest communities who have tiny or no access to such information.

It is noticed that Vietnam has been implementing a number of forest governance and timber management practices, which are close to VPA/FLEGT. Typical examples may include REDD+, CITES, FSC Forest Certification etc. However, these practices, including different types of existing certificates, cannot be used for VPA/FLEGT alternatively. While most of the existing mechanisms and voluntary systems are based on current understanding of best practices for sustainable forest management worldwide and not strictly legally-binding, VPA/FLEGT requires far higher level of timber legality compliance. Consequently, laws and regulations must be revised to meet such requirements. The involvement of the Government is therefore central to the implementation of VPA/FLEGT. In other words, not all existing knowledge and experience are applicable in this VPA process. New set of knowledge, information, experience, best practice will need to be consolidated and disseminated.

The range of new information and knowledge is wide. For the policy-making agencies, especially MARD and the Vietnam Forestry Administration and the negotiation taskforces, who are in-experienced in participatory policy impact assessment, evidence of impacts of new policies on different stakeholders is on the top of their priority list. In addition, policy reviews and recommendations to policy revisions are also important (which policy/regulations must be revised and how, who will lead the revision of which policies …).

For SMEs, priority is given to VPA/FLEGT trading requirements (domestically and cross-border), procedures and taxation. For the small-scaled timber producing and processing households and the forest communities, it would be a challenge to list out what they wish to know about VPA/FLEGT due to their limited background of the issue. “How do I make my timber legal” may be the most important question that they want to ask.

The large public may also need to know the basic information of VPA/FLEGT. To the end, the public is entitled for monitoring the implementation of policies, including those related to forest governance and VPA/FLEGT.

Lack of legal evidence:

The problem is normally faced by small-scaled timber producing and processing households. These households are in serious lack of awareness of legality and knowledge on legal requirements of doing business with timber, timber products and forest resources. Considering the business as traditional family business, they have not been enthusiastic in getting business licenses and registrations. In other cases, complicated procedures and corruption discourage them to get proper legal evidence of their ownership of land, timber and other kinds of production materials.

What this groups of stakeholders required is clear guidance in getting legal evidence for their business. It is expected that CSOs may provide support in this area.

Alternative livelihood:

Once the VPA/FLEGT agreement comes into force, land use changes and lack of capital would force the economically-disadvantaged timber producers to sell their lands to private companies, who are capable of

8 Information used in this part of the report is consolidated from i) the existing reports of the VNGO-FLEGT network, especially the Livelihood Impact Assessment of the VPA; and ii) indepth interviews with representatives of CSOs under assessment, notably CED, SRD and CORENARM.


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fulfilling all VPA requirements. Similarly, small scaled sawmills, due to their insufficient capacity for land management and utilisation, would find the additional costs generated by new administrative procedures unaffordable. In both cases, a certain proportion of forest-dependent households will need to seek for alternative livelihood.

In order to sustain their livelihood and incomes from forestland, forest communities must be equipped with land management and utilisation skills. In addition, forest communities may also need a mechanism to ensure the equality in sharing forest resources.

5. TYPES OF CAPACITY REQUIRED FOR CSO EFFECTIVE CONTRIBUTION TO VPA/FLEGT PROCESS As it was described in Diagram 1, the identification of capacity required for CSOs to participate effectively in VPA/FLEGT process is brainstormed and discussed by representatives of the 6 CSOs participating in this assessment on the bases of: i) Prioritised functions and tasks of CSOs in VPA/FLEGT process; ii) Challenges that key national actors of VPA/FLEGT are facing and their needs for support; iii) Objectives of the VNGO-FLEGT network; and iv) Requirements of VPA agreement. The discussion on specific needs of individual CSO also takes into account the mission, vision, mandate and development objectives of the CSO under assessment.

Capacity, in this report, is understood as Information and Knowledge, Tools, Skills and Organisational / Institutional Arrangement. The list of required capacity – e.g. the capacity that a CSO must have for effective contribution of CSO in VPA/FLEGT process - is consolidated from discussion with CSOs and presented bellow.

Knowledge and information needed

VPA/FLEGT is by no mean a stand-alone issue. It is inter-connected with many other issues and knowledge, ranging from forest governance to livelihood and social security as well as legitimate rights such as participation, equality etc. In order to understand well VPA/FLEGT and identify what a CSO can do in this process, managers and staff of CSOs needs to have under standing on these issues.

Diagram 3 lists out and categorises these sets of knowledge, information and issue areas into 3 groups:

• The “transitional zone” which includes issues related to VPA/FLEGT

• The “buffer zone” which includes issues directly linked to VPA/FLEGT; and

• The “core zone” which includes the core issues of VPA/FLEGT

This classification will later be used to: i) explore the priority of information of CSOs and their staff in charge of VPA/FLEGT; and ii) to assess the experience of CSOs in the field of VPA/FLEGT, e.g. the CSO working only on the “transitional zone” would have less experience with VPA/FLEGT than the one who has been working in the “buffer zone” or “core zone” for several years.

It is important to know that CSO staffs do not need to be experts in VPA/FLEGT. However, they must have adequate background knowledge on VPA/FLEGT in order to participate in discussions on the issue and to mobilise and manage external experts when required.

Tools and Skills

Representatives of 6 CSOs list out 11 different types of tools and 12 types of skills and those they would need to manage VPA/FLEGT activities.

The lists are presented in Box 4 and Box 5. These are the consolidated lists. Priorities of individual CSOs are discussed later.


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Diagram 3: Knowledge, information and issue areas related to VPA/FLEGT

Topics/Issues related to VPA/FLEGT

Topics/Isues Directly linked to VPA/FLEGT

Core issues of VPA/FLEGT

“Transitional zone”

“Buffer zone”

“Core zone”

1. Basic VPA/FLEGT mechanisms

2. Conditions for the import of timber products into the EU from the FLEGT partner country

3. Laws, regulations, policies of Vietnam related to the definition of legal timber

4. Laws, regulations, policies of Vietnam related to TLAS

5. [Potential] social, economic and environmental impacts of VPA/FLEGT on different groups of rightsholders and stakeholders

6. Specific regulations on certifying legal timber

7. Regulations on transporting, trading, export – importing timber

8. Regulations on taxation, fee on timber and timber products

9. Regulations on timber confiscation

10. FLEGT License (demand, delivery, validity and other conditions)

11. Basic international practice and principles/regulations on exploitation, trade, transportation of timber and timber products; Lacey …

12. Monitoring mechanism (3rd party monotoring, community monitoring, auditing system)

• Policies on forestry management and development

• Legal rights of stakeholders in land-use, access to forests, exploitation of timber and forest products

• Links between FLEGT and the conservation of natural resources, biodiversity, CITES …

• Links between FLEGT and sustainable forest management

• Participatory forest governance

• Rights and benefits of forest rightsholders and stakeholders

• Value chains of timber and forest products

• Timber-efficiency production/pocessing models

• Models of timber production management

• Similar/Other

• Climate change adaptation

• Sustainable livelihood for forest communities

• Agriculture and forestry production models for forest communities

• Gender, ethnic minorities, poverty in forest governence and sustainable development

• Similar/Other


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TOOLS

1. VPA/FLEGT Communication Strategy & Plan 2. Q&A on VPA/FLEGT

3. Policy advocacy strategy of the organisation in general and for VPA/FLEGT in particular

4. VPA/FLEGT Monitoring Manual for CSOs and Communities

5. Toolkit for VPA/FLEGT implementation 6. Participatory decision making mechanism for VPA/FLEGT

7. Toolkit for VPA/FLEGT implementation specifically designed for SMEs

8. Guidance for partnership and network development for VPA/FLEGT

9. M&E manual for VPA/FLEGT (to measure the results of VPA/FLEGT interventions carried out by the CSO)

10. Independent evaluation reports on good practice of VPA/FLEGT

11. Guidance/Manual for Gender mainstreaming in forest management and VPA/FLEGT

Box 4: List of tools needed for the management of VPA/FLEGT activities

SKILLS

1. Research skills (for CSO staff to conduct researches on VPA/FLEGT by themselves)

2. Methods and skill for identifying research issues, developing TOR and management/coordination of research activities (by independent consultants/experts).

3. Skills for M&E and data analysis

4. Skills for consolidating research results/findings into policy brief on VPA/FLEGT

5. Methods and skill for developing, collecting information and analysing sets of M&E indicators for evaluating the results of VPA/FLEGT interventions

6. Skills for coordinating VPA?FLEGT activities within CSO and in the VNGO-FLEGT

7. Consultation skills to consult rightsholders and stakeholders on issues related to VPA-FLEGT

8. Skills for gender analysis and gender mainstreaming in VPA/FLEGT, forest governance and natural resource management

9. VPA/FLEGT budgeting

10. Monitoring skills, including skills for organising monitoring activities for VPA/FLEGT

11. Skills for identifying problems/gaps and writing project proposal to mobilise resources for the implementation of VPA/FLEGT interventions

12. Negotiation and lobbying skills – applied for policy making bodies

Box 5: List of tools needed for the management of VPA/FLEGT activities


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PART 3: CURRENT CAPACITY OF CSOs PARTICIPATING IN THE ASSESSMENT

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. GENERAL OBSERVATION

6.1. ABOUT THE ADAPTED CSO CAPACITY ASSESSMENT TOOL

The original WWF-UK/DFID Programme Agreement (PPA) CSO Capacity Assessment Tool

The WWF-UK/DFID Programme Agreement (PPA) CSO Capacity Assessment Tool is applied compulsorily in this assessment. At the foundation of the tool is a set of pillars that are common characteristics of successful CSOs. There are 7 key pillars and 30 assessment criteria in this tool (Box 6).

1. Vision, Strategy and Management 4. Engagement, Inclusion and Impact

• Vision, Mission and Purpose • Community Engagement

• Organisational Strategy • Beneficiary Consultation

• Strategic Review • Gender, Poverty and Inclusion • Leadership development • Beneficiary Impact • Governance and Management

• Conflict resolution 2. Financial Planning 5. Programme Planning and Sustainability

• Financial Planning and Accountability Programme Planning

• Financial Budgeting Programme Implementation

• Financial Sustainability Programme Resources Programme Sustainability 3. External Relations 6. Advocacy Strategy

• CSO Networks and Links • Advocacy Strategy Development

• Donor Relations • Advocacy and Constituency Building

• External Communications • Private Sector Engagement • Funding Proposals/Proposal Writing • Engagement with Local Government • Engagement with National Government 7. Monitoring, Evaluating and Reflecting

• Monitoring and Evaluation • Learning from Practice • Expertise and Good Practice

• Reporting

Box 6: Pillars and assessment criteria of the CSO Capacity Assessment Tool

The adapted CSO Capacity Assessment Tool

The tool was adapted by adding from minimum 3 to maximum 6 assessment questions under each and every assessment criteria. Of these questions, the first 2 to 4 questions (#67% of the total number of questions under each criteria) are normally about the capacity of the CSO in relation with its vision, mission and development objectives. The rest (#33% of the questions) focuses on the organisation’s performance in the field related to VPA/FLEGT.

Scores (weakest = 1 and strongest = 5) is given to each of the assessment questions. The assessment score for a criteria is the average score of the assessment questions. This scoring system allows the


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assessment of the general capacity of a CSO in its traditional working areas and at the same time measuring the CSO’s performance and experience in areas related VPA/FLEGT, which can be new to the CSO. The argument is that a CSO may be very strong in its traditional but is not necessarily strong in implementing VPA/FLEGT activities.

Furthermore, it is expected that the adapted tools can also measure the level of commitment of a CSO when participating in VPA/FLEGT process: how does the organisation prepare for VPA/FLEGT? How many staffs are assigned for this new area of intervention? How much resource – time, budget, human resource – is made ready for VPA/FLEGT assignments …

6.2. OVERAL EVALUATION

Six CSOs selected for the assessment are generally speaking strong, even probably among the strongest in the community of CSOs working in their similar areas. All are highly active in VNGO-FLEGT network. In a sense, the selection is bias since it does not include the “average” and the “weak” CSOs. However, from the point of view that target groups of WWF’s capacity building program should focus on those who already have background on and committed to VPA/FLEGT rather than those who join the movement only because it is in fashion, this selection is acceptable.

Table 2 bellow summarises the average self-evaluation scores of the CSOs participating in the assessment. Since the scores are self-given, they do not imply that the CSO with higher score is stronger than the one with lower score. They only reflect the perception of CSOs about where they are in the course of their own organisational development and in relation to the requirements of VPA/FLEGT activities.

Capacity areas SRD PanNature CED SFMI CORENARM CRD

1: Embryonic; 2: Developing; 3: Moderately developed; 4: Well-developed; 5: Exemplary

1. Vision, Strategy and Management 4.0 3.0 3.8 2.8 2.5 2.8

2. Financial Planning 4.2 3.3 3.4 3.3 2.6 3.4

3. External Relations 3.8 2.8 4.1 2.0 2.7 3.2

4. Engagement, Inclusion and Impact 3.6 2.8 3.4 2.1 3.3 3.2

5. Programme Planning and Sustainability 3.7 3.3 4.4 3.0 2.7 3.3

6. Advocacy Strategy 3.1 2.9 4.1 1.5 2.4 2.8

7. Monitoring, Evaluating and Reflecting 3.5 3.5 4.2 2.7 2.5 3.1

TOTAL AVERAGE 3.7 3.09 3.9 2.5 2.67 3.11

Table 2: Average scores of the CSOs participating in the assessment

The overall scores suggest that the CSOs under assessment have already been comparatively strong in their organisational management and development. Support to organisational capacity development may

Criteria Assessment questions Question score

Criteria score

Expertise and

Good Practice

Question 1: Expertise and Good Practice in traditional working area Score for Q1

Q1 + Q2 + Q3 + Q4

________

4

Question 2: Expertise and Good Practice in traditional working area Score for Q1

Question 3: Expertise and Good Practice in areas related to VPA/FLEGT (buffer zone)

Score for Q1

Question 4: Expertise and Good Practice in VPA/FLEGT activities (core zone) Score for Q1


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be needed but not much and not high in the priority list. Instead, priority is given to VPA/FLEGT specific knowledge, tools and skills. We will discuss this in the coming part of the report.

7. VPA/FLEGT SPECIFIC CAPACITY

7.1. EXPERIENCE, HUMAN RESOURCE AND EXPERTISE

Experience of the target CSOs

The six CSOs have profound experiences in the areas they are working on and these experiences are essential for VPA/FLEGT concepts, which are participation, right-based, equality, pro-poor and support to the marginalised and forest communities, representation, education and awareness raising, support to livelihood, technical support to forest management and governance …

Most of the CSOs have 8 -9 years of experience working with the target groups and areas, which are closely related to VPA/FLEGT – mostly in the “buffer zone”.

The most common target groups of these CSOs are: i) rural and forest communities; ii) other CSOs. Among the six, SRD seems to work more closely with the communities, PanNature with policy making bodies at the national and provincial levels, CORENARM and CRD with local government – policy implementing bodies at local level. Target groups of CED and SFMI are a little bit more specific. CED has solid experience working with SMEs and SFMI with forest management agencies and forest owners (Table 3). It is underlined that few CSOs have good connections and working experience with timber SMEs.

With regards to the thematic interventions, all CSOs are experienced in providing capacity building and technical support to their respective target groups in the forms of training, consultation, providing guidance and management tools so that the target groups can put policies into practice.

However, each CSO has their own strengths and limitations in the experience of working with target groups. While SRD has established very strong links with the poor communities by providing hands-on-the-field support through sustainable rural livelihood projects, PanNature tends to focus more on policy analysis, policy counter-argument/advocacy and environment education/awareness raising.

# CSOs

Year of establishment Year starting VPA/FLEGT

Type of CSO Primary target groups Themes

1 SRD 2006

2012

NGO

Community development

Communities

Local government

Other CSOs

Community development & sustainable livelihood

Agriculture and rural development

Climate change adaptation in agriculture

2 PanNature 2006

2010

NGO

Community development

Policy advocacy

Capacity building

Communities

State management agencies in the fields of agriculture, forestry, environment protection, natural resource management

Other CSOs

Sustainable management and protection of natural resources

Agriculture and forestry policies

Community development and sustainable livelihood


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# CSOs

Year of establishment Year starting VPA/FLEGT

Type of CSO Primary target groups Themes

3 CED 2011

2014

NGO

Education and training; Capacity building

Forestry industry

SMEs

Mass organisations

Education solutions for socio-economic issues

4 SFMI 2006

2012

NGO

Research and consultancy

Capacity building

Forest owners/management boards

Government policy making bodies

Mass organisations




5 CORENARM 2005

2010

NGO

Research and consultancy

Capacity building

Communities

Local governments

CSOs and mass organisations




6 CRD …..

2010 Research center

Communities

Local governments

CSOs and mass organisations

Forestry policies



Table 3: Primary target groups and thematic working areas of CSOs under assessment

Also dealing with policies and capacity building but CRD and CORENARM channel their effort to local government and local communities in the form of consultation and advisory services. Their direct connection with the communities is remarkably weaker than that of SRD and PanNature. The “representation function” 9of CRD and CORENARM is therefore limited.

In another instance, SFMI is regarded to as having strong expertise in FLEGT-related fields such as forest management, forestry institution and policy, forest certification, markets of forest products and forestry technology. The organisation is now cooperating with an international consulting organisation – NepCon – to develop a toolkit of VPA/FLEGT and training materials on implementing VPA/FLEGT for SMEs. However, when it comes to the task of VPA/FLEGT policy advocacy, SFMI has little choice but channels its knowledge through the VNGO-FLEGT network instead of approaching the policy-making bodies directly.

The observations listed above suggest that:

• Each CSO can be strong in only one or several aspects of VPA/FLEGT process. For effective contribution to the VPA/FLEGT process, CSOs should not act alone. The networking capacity and skills are therefore of vital importance in the future capacity building program of WWF.

9 As mentioned earlier, CSOs are not legal representatives of either communities nor enterprises. The term “representation function” in this case means “connecting and bridging communities, SMEs with concerned government agencies” and “conveying messeges, opinion, expectation of these groups to responsible government agencies”


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Diagram 4: Strengths and limitations of SFMI in implementing VPA/FLEGT interventions

NEPCon SFMI

National experts; Studies & researches;

Training, national experience

----------------------------- • Sustainable management

of forest and natural resources

• Forestry institution, policies

• Forest certification • Forest products: Markets,

processing and trade • Forestry technology

Int’l Expert & int’l experience; Good

practice ----------------------------

VPA/FLEGT Legal Source; Traceability

Forest certification & forestry products

Verification of legal sources Forest governance,

Natural resource management

Timber Legality Project in Vietnam

• Awareness raising for SMEs on VPA/FLEGTY

• Identify legal risks

• Develop toolkits to reduce legal risks

Training experts

Vie

tnam

ese

Pro

fess

iona

l A

ssoc

iatio

n

CSOs Select

ed SMEs

Pilot at 20-25 SMEs 300-500 SMEs, timber producing

and processing households

To 2017

After 2017

Technically sustainable? Sustainability of human resources?

Financially sustainable? Institutionally sustainable?

VNGO-FLEGT network

VN Foresty Admin.

Policy advocacy Advisory service (policy) for GoV agencies

Develop tools; Capacity building


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• As all CSOs in the assessment are experienced in providing capacity building support to their respective target groups, they can act as TOT trainers in the capacity building program of WWF.

• As there are several VPA/FLEGT project being implemented and most of them have capacity building components, it is suggested that WWF keep cooperating with the project implementers to exchange expertise and save resources.

Expertise of the target CSOs

Key areas of expertise of the six CSOs are listed in Table 3 (in the column named “Themes”). The list includes themes related to VPA/FLEGT, basically in the categories of “transitional zone” and “buffer zone”. The situation suggests that CSOs do not have many in-house VPA/FLEGT specific expertise, which is explainable since VPA/FLEGT is new to every one. However, experience and expertise of the CSOs in the areas related to VPA/FLEGT are their great advantage to approach the process and provide support to rightsholders and stakeholders of the process.

# CSOs

Experts (general) Including program

officers if they act as experts

VPA/FLEGT Experts10 Staff assigned with VPA/FLEGT activities

CSO leaders in charge of VPA

In house Out-sourced

Part time In house

Out-sourced

Part time Full time Part time

1 SRD 15 2 0 1 4 1 1

2 PanNature 8 1 0 4 0 1

3 CED 7 17 1 4 2 0 2

4 SFMI 18 26 1 3 1 0 1

5 CORENARM 8 20 1 1 1 1 2

6 CRD 15 40 1 1 2 0 1

Table 4: Experts in the CSOs

7.2. COMMITMENT TO VPA/FLECT

Commitment of the CSO community

It was recalled that shortly after the negotiation process started, FERN approached Vietnamese NGOs to make introduction and invite VNGOs to participate in the process and exercise the representation function, conveying voice from the field to the negotiation table. VNGOs working in the fields of forestry, natural resource conservation and community development were encouraged to establish a network to take advantage of the unified action and voices. Only 4 VNGOs showed interests. These include CERDA, CSDM, PanNature and SRD. Two (PanNature and SRD) of the four remain in the network today and act as the core members and coordinators of the network.

As of today, the number of 31 CSOs participating in the VNGO-FLEGT network, to a certain extent, reflects the low level of interest and commitment of CSO community to the issue. Reasons may include:

• The issue of VPA/FLEGT is not only new but also complicated enough to discourage the CSOs with little knowledge and expertise in areas related to VPA/FLEGT.

10 We understand that “VPA/FLEGT experts” are the experts or program managers/officers with good experience and expertise in the fields related to VPA/FLEGT.


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• Many Vietnamese CSOs are small and do not have human and financial resources to “invest” in this new area.

• Inefficient level of awareness: many CSOs have not been aware of the importance of the issue. • Limited sources of funding

As CSOs would play very important roles in the VPA process as the representatives of affected communities, as the monitor of the implementation process and as technical-support service providers, it is important to include in the WWF’s capacity building program a component on awareness raising targeting CSO community in Vietnam.

Commitment of 6 target CSOs

The 6 CSOs under this assessment, on the other hand, are highly committed to VPA/FLEGT. Commitments of these CSOs are reflected in:

• Of the six CSOs, three are members of the VNGO-FLEGT Operating Committee (SRD, PanNature, CRD). The other 3 are active members of the network.

• Most of the CSOs are running VPA/FLEGT projects and/or VPA/FLEGT activities: SFMI with Timber Legality Project in Vietnam (in cooperation with NepCon); CRD with Supporting participation of national civil society organisations and private sector federations/ entities in FLEGT VPA related activities; SRD with the FLEGT project funded by FERN and Forest Trend; and PanNature with WWF Vietnam under the 4-year project on Common Access to VPA Process in Vietnam and Lao.

• The CSOs have invested resources, including human resources and financial resource, to the preparation/design and implementation of VPA/FLEGT interventions (Table 4).

7.3. TOOLS AND SKILLS

As being experienced in management and organisational development, the six target CSOs have developed and applied most of the key tools required for the management, operation and development of their organisation. However, it was discussed and agreed that in order to participate effectively in the VPA/FLEGT process, a number of VPA-specific tools will need to be further revised and/or newly developed. Skills must be improved and strengthened accordingly.

The prioritisation of these skills and tools by each CSO is presented in Session 10 – Prioritised Capacity.

7.4. EXTERNAL RELATIONS AND NETWORKING FOR VPA/FLEGT INTERVENTIONS

The external relation capacity of a CSO is reflected in the following criteria: i) Networks and Links; ii) Donor relations; iii) External communication; iii) Community engagement; and iv) Beneficiary consultation. Self-evaluation scores of these criteria are presented in Figure 1.

It is noticed that the capacity of the target CSOs varied from criteria to criteria. CRD is comparatively strong in all criteria. This organisation is especially more advanced in networking and community engagement. The “research CSO” such as CRD and SFMI find themselves less advantaged in community engagement. Similar level of self-assessment is applied to PanNature, may be because this CSO tends to work more with policy-making bodies.

While all target CSOs appear to be strong in community consultation, which is an advantage for their participation in VPA/FLEGT process, external communication may be an issue to be considered when up to 3 out of 6 target CSOs find themselves in effective. Observation also shows that international cooperation, e.g. cooperation with international and regional CSO networks and with donor communities who are interested in and promoting VPA/FLEGT process is weak in a number of CSOs. The current situation is that one or several CSOs keep exclusive contacts with the international partners, then mobilising resources and sub-contract other CSOs to implement VPA/FLEGT activities.


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This will be one of the focus of WWF’s intervention in the future.

7.5. COMMUNICATION, AWARENESS RAISING, EDUCATION

As it was mentioned earlier, the target CSOs are all recognising the importance of communication, awareness raising, education and policy advocacy. Target audience of these CSOs, however, are different and this affect their approaches and strategies of delivering messages.

It is observed that SRD, PanNature and CED are comparatively more experienced in communication, awareness raising and education for those who would be affected by VPA/FLEGT process; SFMI, CORENARM, CRD in technical solutions and PanNature, SRD in advocacy.

Figure 1: External relation capacity of target CSOs

7.6. POLICY ADVOCACY

Policy advocacy is an important task that takes place throughout the whole process, including 3 stages of negotiation, preparation and implementation of VPA/FLEGT.

Suppose the major targets of CSOs in the VPA/FLEGT process are policy making bodies, e.g. MARD, Vietnam Forestry Administration, VPA/FLEGT Negotiation Taskforces and concerned ministries, then advocacy can be

made: i) directly from an CSO or VNGO/FLEGT network as representatives of their “clients” to the targets; and ii) through influencing rightsholders and stakeholders such as the Vietnam Timber and Forest Products Association

(VietFores) and national law enforces. Another powerful channel of advocacy is the EU/Negotiation Delegation, who would accept information and recommendation directly from the VNGO-FLEGT network or from the European

NGOs (

Diagram 5).

0

0.5

1

1.5

2

2.5

3

3.5

4

4.5 SRD

PanNature

CED

SFMI

CORENARM

CRD

CSO Networks and Links Donor Relations External Communications Community Engagement Beneficiary Consultation


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To utilise such channels to deliver messages, effective VPA/FLEGT advocacy would require a number of qualification:

• Sufficient and adequate knowledge of VPA/FLEGT and issues related to VPA/FLEGT: This requirement is of utmost important since one cannot persuade the policy makers without having equal or better knowledge and understanding of the advocacy issues than the policy makers.

While many of the staff assigned for VPA/FLEGT have been working on issues related to VPA/FLEGT for years, there are still representatives of CSOs participating in VNGO-FLEGT network meetings and meetings with policy makers without sufficient knowledge of forestry and forestry industry.

Diagram 5: Channels of Communication, Awareness Raising, Education and Advocacy

National Policy Makers MARD

Vietnam Forestry Administration

VNGO-FLEGT

CSO CSO

CSO CSO

CSO

CSO

EU The Negotation

Delegation

EU INGOs

LoggingOff

Community Rights Network (CRN)

Vifores and Timber Companies

Timber producing/processing

households

Communities

Local Policy Enforcers

Communication Awareness

raising Education

Advocacy

Advocacy

Sharing information

Advocacy

Advocacy


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• Consultation, research and research management skills to collect, analyse and consolidate information from rightsholders and stakeholders: Many of the CSOs have profound experience working with communities and small timber producing and processing households. Few, however, have sufficient experience working with the SMEs, and even fewer have experience working with both SMEs and policy makers.

• If timber SMEs are identified as one of the advocacy channels and education target group - and they should be – then working with SMEs would become a qualification that need to be strenghthened. CSOs remains weak in this fields.

• Policy brief and negotiation skills to present the messages from rightsholders and stakeholders to target audience/policy makers in an appropriate way and at the right time. In the negotiation process, the Vietnam Forestry Administration is asking for more precise and timely information from CSOs.

In addition, it is suggested that “softer” engagement strategy should be applied: “policy counter-argument” and sharing information instead of “policy criticism”. Coming in to hard and fast would easily cause reverse effects.

• Strengthened networking within the VNGO-FLEGT network so that all network members must agree upon an issue the issues they want to advocate before “selling” it to the policy makers. Further improvement in the VNGO-FLEGT network is required.

• Networking with European CSOs and international, regional networks of CSOs working on VPA/FLEGT. More members of VNGO-FLEGT network should established direct connections with these European CSOs to exchange information, experience and to deliver messages to them, and through them to the EU and the GoV. At this moment, the connection with international and regional networks is made through representative(s) of VNGO-FLEGT network.

It is observed that the skills listed above are not unfamiliar to the CSO managers and staff. However, using these skills in combination with VPA/FLEGT issues and target audience may required further study and practice.


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7.7. GENDER, POVERTY AND INCLUSION

Figure 2: Self-evaluation scores for Gender, Poverty, Inclusion and M&E, Reporting

Gender, Poverty and Inclusion scores high with SRD and CED and quite modest with the rest of the target CSOs. Further discussion show that it is the aspect of gender that pulls down the overall score for this assessment criteria (Figure 2). Most of the six target CSOs find it confused when trying to make analysis to identify effective gender interventions for VPA/FLEGT.

It can be reasoning that once these 6 CSOs have problems with gender mainstreaming in VPA/FLEGT, so would other CSOs in the VNGO-FLEGT network.

Poverty and Inclusion can be considered as strengths of these organisation.

7.1. MONITORING, EVALUATION AND REPORTING

Once committed to VPA/FLEGT, it is expected that CSOs established and integrated a sub-system of M&E for VPA/FLEGT interventions in their existing overall M&E system. This part of the M&E system allows a CSO to evaluate the effectiveness of its interventions in connection with the VPA/FLEGT requirements and with the development objectives of the CSO. The recorded information can also be used for the purposes of planning, education and advocacy.

Some of the six target CSOs, namely SRD, PanNature, CED, have already established M&E system for their respective organisations. Organisational M&E system of CRD, CORENARM and SFMI remains embryonic and developing. None, however, have integrated the VPA/FLEGT indicators into their M&E system. This can be considered as an issue that needs further attention and improvement.

0.0

1.0

2.0

3.0

4.0

5.0 SRD

PanNature

CED

SFMI

CORENARM

CRD

GENDER,POVERTY, M&E, REPORTING Gender,Poverty, Inclusion Monitoring, Evaluating and Reflecting


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8. OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES IN VPA/FLEGT CAPACITY BUILDING FOR CSO A quick SWOT analysis of the current status of CSOs’ capacity in implementing VPA/FLEGT (Diagram 6) shows that:

• As participation of the civil society is a requirement of VPA/FLEGT process, CSOs are standing before a great opportunity to be involved in all stages of the Agreement, ranging from negotiation process to the implementation and monitoring stages. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, CSOs must prepare themselves first to meet with the demands of the process.

Diagram 6: Quick SWOT analysis of CSOs’ capacity in implementing VPA/FLEGT

• Each of the target CSOs have profound experience in a number of areas related to VPA/FLEGT and this gives them a good start to implement VPA/FLEGT activities. It is advisable that CSOs must cooperate to support each other in this process since experience and expertise of a single CSO do not fully cover the requirements of VPA/FLEGT process. The cooperation includes sharing of information, knowledge, tools developed and contacts with international CSOs and donor communities. In this process, a CSO can play the role of trainer in one area and learner in other areas.

• International support is available and CSOs can take advantage of such support to strengthen their capacity and to deliver support to other organisations through consultation, education and advocacy process.

• Although CSOs have already developed and practice most of the organisational management tools required for the development of their organisations, there are shortages of VPA/FLEGT specific tools. Few have developed or documented and integrated VPA/FLEGT issues into their existing management and operation tools.

• Target CSOs show high level of commitment in implementing VPA/FLEGT interventions. However, the wider CSO community remains ignorant. It is important to raise awareness of these CSOs for reaching wider range of rightsholders and stakeholders.

S TRENGTHS W EAKNESSES

O PPORTUNITIES T HREATS

•  Experienced and knowledgeable in forestry and fields related to VPA/FLEGT

•  Experienced in working with the stakeholders.

•  Organizational development tools available

•  Ability of mobilizing national experts

•  Inadequate VPA/FLEGT specific knowledge and experience

•  Insufficient ability in applying the existing tools and skills specifically in VPA/FLEGT process.

•  Lack of tools specifically designed for VPA/FLEGT

•  Inexperienced in working with timber SMEs

•  The inclusion mechanism of VPA requires participation of CSOs

•  Government is aware of the contribution of CSO in the VPA process

•  VNGO-FLEGT Network •  International and regional

networks •  Technical and financial support

from donor-funded projects •  Commitment of CSOs

•  Ignorance of policy making agencies

•  Too few CSOs show commitments in VPA/FLEGT

•  Access to information for independent monitoring

Nega%ve'

Internal''factors'

External'factors'

Posi%ve'


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PART 4: PROPOSED PLAN FOR VPA/FLEGT CAPACITY BUILDING FOR VIETNAMESE CSOs

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9. GUIDING PRINCIPLES FOR DESIGNING THE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM

9.1. TARGET GROUPS OF THE CAPACITY BUILDING PROGRAM

WWF needs to identify and priorities target groups of its technical support in capacity building for VPA/FLEGT capacity building interventions targeting CSOs according to its available resources, including time and budget available. Criteria for prioritisation may include:

• The current level of commitment to VPA/FLEGT • Background experience, knowledge and skills in areas related to VPA/FLEGT • Potential future roles in VPA/FLEGT process

Core members of the VNGO-FLEGT network are on the top of the priority list. These will be the TOT trainers and/or keynote speakers in WWF training in the future. The list may include the six target CSOs of this assessment, Wetland in the south and a small number of selected and qualified CSOs. This


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group required advanced knowledge, tools, skills and international experience in implementing VPA/FLEGT.

The second group in the priority list includes the active members of the VNGO-FLEGT network. These organisations are currently making contribution to a number of the network’s activities, including consultation with communities and local governments.

Other members of the VPA/FLEGT occupy the 3rd place in the priority list. They are participating in some activities of the network. These organisation may make more active contribution to the consultation process and sharing information on VPA/FLEGT among their clients.

The training and capacity building program of WWF may reach out to the CSOs working in areas related to VPA/FLEGT, e.g. natural resources conservation, environment protection with the objective of raising awareness of these organisations and equipped them with basic knowledge on VPA/FLEGT.

See Table 5 for more information.

9.2. GUIDING PRINCIPLES

Cross learning and sharing experience: It is advisable that experience and expertise of CSOs in the VNGO-FLEGT network is mobilised. Outside national and international experts will be mobilised, but only when it is needed. Experts from the Vietnam Administration of Forestry can be mobilised as keynote speakers and/or trainers at the training activities.

Learning by doing: WWF may consider assigning/inviting a group of qualified CSOs to develop a number of tools and materials needed for VPA/FLEGT process with technical support from expert(s) recruited by WWF or its implementing partner PanNature. The assignments can range from updating management tools of selected CSOs (M&E system, communication strategies …) to meet with new requirements of VPA/FLEGT process to developing new tools, materials, curriculums that can be used by other CSOs.

In this case, WWF and/or PanNature are responsible for designing the assignment, developing the TOR, supervising the implementation process and quality control.

final report on sep 2014

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