Structures

After the initial workshop in January 2009, the city-wide process in Vinh started. It consisted largely of meetings in which the experiences with housing projects were discussed and opinions collected. Those attending were representatives of communities in which housing projects (not in the framework of ACCA) had taken place, representatives of the communities selected for ACCA projects, as well as Community Architects and volunteers of the Women’s Union. A report on the city-wide process lists 28 people as having been involved, with no mention of participants who were not directly involved in the management of ACCA in Vinh, members of the city’s administration or community representatives (ACCA, 20.4.2009: p.9).

The city-wide process was largely dominated and organized by the Women’s Union and People’s Committees.

The same report gives an account of the structures that were established to run the CDF in Vinh. It mentions that CDF activities were consolidated and the role of the authorities and Mass Organisations strengthened, while the autonomy of individual saving groups was increased. The saving groups were represented by a management board of two members.

On the level of the neighbourhood, a management committee was composed of three to five members. The ward CDF Steering Committee consisted of one member of the People’s Committee’s leadership, a member of the Women’s Union and an accountant (ACCA, 20.4.2009: p.18). Vinh’s City CDF Steering Committee consisted of a Vice-President of Vinh’s People’s Committee, the head of the People’s Committee Office, the respective Heads of the Offices for Natural Resources and Finance, the Head of the City’s Tax Department, and the Vice-Head of the Office for Urban Management, as well as four members of the city’s Women’s Union, among them the Union’s president and one member serving as the Committee’s secretary.²¹⁰ Thus, the CDF Steering Committees on all levels were composed of members of the respective People’s Committee’s and the Women’s Union.

Communication did usually not take place horizontally between different saving groups, but was channelled through and coordinated by the neighbourhood Steering Committee, which would in turn deal with the ward level. Communication on higher levels is also described as mainly following established vertical administrative hierarchies. According to the report,

210 Interview 30.6.2011

173 4.2.3.4 The Cua Nam Model (2009 to 2012): Structures

communication between the different institutions of the ACCA program took place as part of the regular monthly working sessions between hierarchically connected administrative bodies (ACCA 20.4.2009: pp.18-19). Decision making on the CDF loans and activities thus exactly mirrored the hierarchical structures of administration and authority (see Figure 30).

The usage of the terms “community leader” and “communities” obscures another aspect that furthers the prevalence of “old structures” of authority through which the ACCA program in Vinh is implemented. The groups referred to as “communities” are resident groups (in urban wards) or villages (in rural communes). While these are not formal units of state administration, as they have no People’s Committee and are no legal entities, they serve as the lowest level of officially recognized organisation and form the basis for groups of Mass Organisations (Parenteau, Nguyen Quoc Thong, 2010: p.175; Koh, 2004: p.203). The success of the Cua Nam Model has been attributed to the fact that Hữu Nghị’s residents were a community and not just a resident group. The application of the Cua Nam Model in other areas, however, has faced problems exactly because communal ties between members of resident groups were low (Lê Như Ngà, 4.5.2011).²¹¹

According to “communities” being resident groups or villages, those referred to as community leaders in the case of Vinh were usually village heads or resident group heads. As stipulated by Circular 03/1998/TT-TCCP they are the “representatives of the people in a residential group, under the administration and guidance of the ward’s or town’s People’s Committee, they are directly elected by the members of the groups and recognized by the President of the ward’s People’s Committee” (see page 158). This position thus forms the officially formalized link between the residential group and the neighbourhood leadership. The second member of the saving group’s management board is usually a representative of the Women’s Union (Xã Hưng Hòa, 5.5.2011).²¹² In ACCA publications these are referred to as community representatives. When delegates from Vinh participated in ACCA activities in Vietnam or abroad, “community representatives” were thus often members of the Women’s Union or officially recognized village/resident group heads (Lê Quang Thông; May 2012: p.26; Xã Hưng Hòa, 5.5.2011; ACHR, April 2010).²¹³

211 Interview 3.7.2011

212 Interview 30.6.2011

213 This point is not raised to discuss if village/resident group heads of the Women’s Union can claim to truly represent the interests of “communities”, or if they are part of civil society. It does show, however, that the ACCA program is implemented relying on the established structures of authority. For discussions of this topic see (Wells-Dang, 2012; Parenteau, Nguyen Quoc Thong, 2010; Thayer, 2009; Hannah, 2007; Wischermann, Nguyen Quang Vinh, 2003; Gray, 1999).

174 4.2.3.4 The Cua Nam Model (2009 to 2012): Structures

Figure 30

The Community Development Fund structures in Vinh mirrored the hierarchical structures of state authority.

On all levels they were dominated by members of existing administrative bodies and the Women’s Union (VWU).

Both ACVN and ACHR were aware of this situation. ACVN, in its role as an advisor to participating cities, promoted structures for the implementation of CDFs mirroring those of the city administration (Vũ Thị Vinh, 4.5.2011; ACVN, n.d.). However, ACVN also acknowledged the assessment of an external evaluator who criticized the dominant role of the administration and the Women’s Union in many of the participating cities. Critique was also levelled at the issue of saving groups remaining unconnected to city CDFs, as this was regarded as hindering the creation of a city-wide process (Lê Quang Thông, May 2010:

p.58).

ACHR saw the need to work closer with authorities in Vietnam than in other countries. The organisation was, however, also aware that this might pose problems:

“Viet Nam is still a bit centralized, with a proper unified system. When we work in any city in Viet Nam, there is a system in the city where the communities have to link to the ward authority, the ward to the district, the district to the city,

175 4.2.3.5 The Cua Nam Model (2009 to 2012): Results

the city to the province, etc. It's a system with many tiers and it works very well in Viet Nam.” (ACHR, October 2009: p.31)

The following quote also shows ACHR’s perception of the relationship between authorities, the Women’s Union, and communities: “Verticals and horizontals: We can talk about city-wide saving and community-driven development, but it’s not so easy to change the relationships in a city to make that possible, especially in Vietnam, where the relationships between the people and the city authorities and the Women’s Union are still overwhelmingly vertical” (ACHR, December 2009: p.67). The approach taken to overcome these restrictions was to implement a large number of projects in Vietnam to create city-wide processes:

“The reason that so many cities are being brought into the national savings and ACCA process is that there is a need for a platform of people-to-people – both within cities and between cities in Viet Nam. If these platforms are there and have a stronger dynamism, the city-to-city dynamic, which is being supported by ACVN, can make this country's stiff, vertical systems softer and more relaxed. So all these cities are going to use the small ACCA projects in order to make this dynamic link between communities – within the city and between cities - stronger and more active. They will start the savings activities at the same time. This new community-to-community platform at local and national levels will probably make the vertical systems in the cities and in the country soften and relax. That's the strategy, and that kind of strategic thinking is the [reason the] Vietnamese won wars with both the French and the Americans!” (ACHR, October 2009: p.34)

4.2.3.5 Results

Working closely with authorities and replicating the existing structures of the state has stripped the ACCA program in Vinh of much of its ambitions for structural change. As will be shown below, city authorities presented the ACCA program largely as a tool to achieve pre-defined goals and agendas such, as the “destruction of collective housing areas” policy as part of the creation of a Modern and Civilised City or the construction of infrastructure. The dominance of infrastructure projects, especially roads, is seen by ACHR as a sign that ACCA projects can mobilize additional contributions by the state (ACHR, December 2010: p.38).

“Local governments often want to show they are doing something for poor communities in their cities, and roads are something that is visible to everybody. That's why they contribute so much more to the road projects.

Also, in most Vietnamese cities, rural areas surrounding the city have been

176 4.2.3.5 The Cua Nam Model (2009 to 2012): Results

brought into the municipal boundaries, but these areas (which comprise a large portion of the urban territory) are still mostly rural, without much infrastructure. So in many cities, the government's action plans put infrastructure development in these rural communes on top of the priority list.

In these projects, the money from the city comes to the community directly, and they manage the budgets themselves. There is a long history of this kind of small, local joint ventures between local governments and communities like this in Vietnamese cities - it's not something new. But it used to be that the local government managed the money and the projects and the people would contribute - here in ACCA we're turning this equation around!” (ACHR, October 2009: p.34)

However, due to the reliance on vertical structures and the involvement of authorities and the Women’s Union it is not surprising that conventional projects of public service delivery where chosen, to which the ACCA budget was added. Furthermore, the reliance on vertical structures has hampered the city-wide approach of ACCA, promoted as the major factor for overcoming “project-based thinking” and contributing to structural change. While arguably a city-wide process took place in Vinh, it remained in the hands of the People’s Committee and the Women’s Union. Funds of saving groups did not contribute to the city CDF (ACHR, November 2012: p.8). Leaving individual saving groups unconnected to each other, the structures of ACCA in Vinh fell even short of the Grassroots Democracy process that allows for participation on the ward level. On the other hand, events and activities organized by ACVN indeed introduced new forms of interaction between community representatives and members of the authorities, for example a community leader bitterly complained about the behaviour of the People’s Committee of Hải Dương City, confronting its present Vice-President in front of the audience of the National CDF Conference.

The achievements of the ACCA program as a modern project are mixed. While claims such as “having altered all the rules” are exaggerated, participation of residents in the upgrading of the Hữu Nghị housing area went further than in the originally proposed approach of authorities. Additionally, the experiences of the Cua Nam Model have been applied in other housing areas in Vinh. However, the number of other areas in which the model was applied remained very low in comparison to the overall number of housing areas to be redeveloped in Vinh. Thus, city-wide impact of the program has been limited. Impact on institutions and resulting change has been limited especially because implementation of the program relied on already existing structures of power and authority. Depending on these vertical hierarchies, the program was unable to establish horizontal connections and communication between different groups.

177 4.2.3.5 The Cua Nam Model (2009 to 2012): Results

Additionally, reliance on existing structures also opened up possibilities for co-optation of the program’s achievements by local authorities. When the resident group leader found that after upgrading of his housing area some funds were left, he decided to buy a red flag with a yellow star in the middle for each household in his residential group. When the project was officially inaugurated on World Habitat Day in October 2010, the national flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam flew on the new houses (see Figure 31).²¹⁴ This symbolism is indicative of the complex interplay of actors and the application of their modern projects in the institutional setting of Vietnam as it marks a modern project aimed at participation and empowerment as an achievement of the state. The next part will conclude this chapter on modern projects introduced to Vinh by recapturing this interplay.

Figure 31

Like on Habitat Day in October 2010, the national flag of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam decorates new buildings in the Hữu Nghị housing area as international and national attendees of the National CDF Workshop in May 2011 visit the project (picture taken by author, 4.5.2011; for a similar picture taken on World Habitat Day 2010 see Vũ Thị Vinh, 2010: p. 38).

214 Personal conversation 4.5.2011

178 4.3 Multiple Modern Projects in Vinh: The Enabling De-Politisation of Modern Projects