専修大学社会科学研究所 月報

No.6242015年 6月

doi.org/10.34360/00009318

Civicness in Question:
The Case of Women’s Activities in Rural Vietnam
Takeko Iinuma
1.

Introduction
Since the 1980s, there has been growing interest in the roles that civil society and civic activities

play in social and economic endeavor across the world.

Studies with a greater focus on citizens andtheir initiatives came to cover a wide range of practical and theoretical themes, such as participatory
approaches, social/community networks, community involvement and social capital. In the 1990s,
such perspectives were extended to the studies of the post-Soviet societies with much attention to how
the civic sphere would take shape after the democratization of the one-party regimes.

Althoughdemocratization is yet to be seen, Vietnam was not an exception in attracting such scholarly interest at
the time of these dynamic changes of the former Eastern Bloc. In the period after the introduction of
Doi Moi (Renovation) in 1986, as a result of the shift from a centrally-planned economy to amarket-oriented economy, Vietnam experienced a rapid economic growth with the growth rate of 5.1-7.1
percent between 1990 and 2015 (World Bank Development Indicators).

While the economic opening

has been the central purpose of Doi Moi, new attention has been directed to understanding how and towhat extent opportunities for civic activities would emerge in post-Doi Moi Vietnam.1
How much civic space has opened up as a result of the new political environment after the
introduction of the Doi Moi policy, and to what degree does the Vietnamese society embrace civicness?
The existing work on this theme in Vietnam includes aspects on the state-society relations manifested invarious new forms (Kerkvliet, 2001; Thomas, 2001) and on the characteristics of its civil society insocial and political spheres (Thayer, 2009).

To define what is civic is a difficult task, but in the context

of pre-Doi Moi Vietnam, what was NOT civic was more evident.

The political system of Vietnam istypically characterized as composed of three institutions: the party, the government, and the massorganizations (Gray, 1999).

If they represent the state all together, what is civic would be the rest of

the societal components.

In the post-Doi Moi period, however, the empirical observations do notnecessarily indicate such a clear distinction as there are seemingly mixed actors over mixed boundariesof the civic space and the state. This is especially salient in women’s activities in rural Vietnam, wherea mass organization as the state actor intersects with the typically civic domain.
In an effort to understand the characteristics of civicness, or the degree in which civil society
emerges in Vietnam, this paper attempts to delineate the characteristics of the grassroots activities of thewomen’s mass organization in rural communities and to explore the civic quality of such activities.
The female leaders at the community level have taken up microfinance activities, which are often
1
The term, “post-Doi Moi,” employed in this paper refers to the period after the launch of the Doi Moi policy in1986.

associated with active civic or NGO engagement, and provide assistance to other women, especiallyfrom poor households, in a wide range of activities.

This paper is based on an interpretation of thefindings from a preliminary study of a comparison of rural communities in the two major delta regionsof the north and the south of Vietnam in order to understand the level of civicness of women’s activities.
Due to the historically different paths they followed in the twentieth century, the communities in thenorth and the south have different levels of socialist legacy. The community in the north is expected toshow closer ties to the state and the party, and the southern community is expected to show greater
civicness.

The following section reviews the existing discussions on civic arenas in Vietnam, with anemphasis on mass organizations.

The third section portrays the situations of the two communes, Hai

Van Commune in the Red River Delta, and Than Cuu Nghia Commune in the Mekong River Delta, andof the women’s organizations in these communities. In the fourth section, empirical cases relating to
women’s activities in microfinance are examined. The analyses were conducted based on interviews
carried out in the studied communes in collaboration with the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam Academyof Social Sciences, and also based on commune-level data from 2008 to 2013 collected by the Instituteof Sociology, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences.
2.

Civicness in Post-Doi Moi Vietnam
What makes activities civic in the context of post-Doi Moi Vietnam?

The existing discussions

on civil society in Vietnam provide diverse views on how to understand civicness in this rapidlytransforming society.
Certain scholars consider the proliferation of organizations as a sign of a widening civil society in
Vietnam. Kerkvliet (2003: 16) points to “mutual assistance associations among farming households
and organizations among fellow religious devotees to renovate temples and hold particular ceremonies”
as representing certain aspects of civil society. The criteria for civil society here is to be “voluntary,”
working to contribute to certain public deliberations, and also to have “reciprocity,” building mutual
help and feedback to each other.
There are two possible arenas where civicness could emerge on a voluntary basis: civil society inthe private sector, and civil society as citizens’ activities.

First, the extent to which the private sector

has grown as civil society is not substantial. In describing the nature and extent of activities that could
be recognized as civil society in Vietnam, Dixon (2004: 22) points out that, despite the emergence of a
new economic elite after Doi Moi, the extent to which they could form the basis of an “economic civilsociety” was seriously limited because they were either within or closely allied to the party-state system
instead of residing in the domestic private sector.

Second, after Doi Moi, the number of citizen’s

associations increased rapidly; an estimation reports that in 2005 there were 140,000 community-basedorganizations and 3,000 cooperatives, and 1,000 locally registered NGOs and 200 charities (Thayer,
2009: 5). Also as many foreign donors rushed to assist Vietnam, they emphasized the important rolethat NGOs play in ensuring a bottom-up approach in the authoritarian political system (Ibid.: 4). Thismay have influenced the government’s attitude towards civicness.

Due to the great interest in

development policy to promote civic engagement in wide activities of the public domain, top-downinstitutions can find it useful to foster a certain range of civic bottom-up activities that could serve forpolicy agenda.
One perplexing aspect is that the mass organizations function in both top-down and bottom-up
manners.

As any activities of citizens in the pre-Doi Moi period in Vietnam took place within state-ledorganizations,2 mass organizations are intrinsically categorized as the state domain instead of the civic
domain.

In reality, state-led organizations are of great importance in examining the society in Vietnam.

Despite its mobilizing nature, they were at the core of the construction of the independent country before
and after the reunification in 1975. Even after Doi Moi, however, they have remained intact andcontinued to grow as organizations, which is a stark difference from other state pillars such as
state-owned companies and cooperatives that have been dismantled.

It indicates the clear aim of Doi

Moi to open up strictly the economy and not the society.
The views on mass organizations in relation to civil society are mainly split in two: someconsider mass organizations as part of civil society while others do not consider them so.

The former isa minority view while most observations and analyses support the latter view. As an example of theformer view, Asian Development Bank (ADB) (2011) considers mass organizations as part of civilsociety by looking at their public benefits and points out that mass organizations have very strong
grassroots links and large memberships, and that they have become increasingly independent since Doi
Moi, especially in the cases of the Farmers’ Association, Women’s Union, and Youth Union. Yet, how
one can assess the degree of independence is not specified here, and the mere fact of having a large
membership is not sufficient to make it civil society.

A report edited by Norlund describes that massorganizations “accepted as an integrated part of society,” while local NGOs and community-basedorganizations are “new types of organizations that developed in the 1990s but not fully recognized bysociety” (Norlund, ed., 2006: 10). The degree of acceptance is a vague criterion unless furnished withcertain opinion survey, and what counts is the context of acceptance, for instance, whether perceived aspart of the state or as the people’s voluntary sphere.

The same report points out that, for grassroots

organizations in the rural communities or in local areas, central control is much weaker, and many of themass organizations operate with substantial autonomy (Ibid.: 20).

This implies that mass organizations

at the local level have more possibilities to gain civic characteristics regardless of its statal origin.
The view that mass organizations do not represent civil society seems to be widely shared amongscholars. The organizational structure positions mass organizations under the party, thereby bound to
the state control. The mass organizations have a dual function: to implement party and state policies,
and to “act as a transmission belt channeling information to the party without which it could notformulate policies to meet changing conditions” (Beresford, 1988). The 2003 Decree on Associations(Decree 88)3 sets forth the rules for the registration of “associations,” which seems to be the closest
term to civil society. This Decree marks a shift in government’s relations with citizens’ organizations
by allowing them greater freedom in organizing and financing their own activities.
2

Although thisIn the Vietnamese context, “state-led” means “led by the state institutions/organizations including the party” as theparty and the government comprise identical authorities.
3“Decree No. 88/2003/ND-CP, July 30, 2003, Providing for the Organization, Operation and Management of
Associations.”Decree does not mention the term “mass organization,” it includes a statement that clearly excludes defacto mass organizations from “associations,” thereby exempting mass organizations from the control of
the Decree. Those exempted from the stipulations of the Decree are (in the order listed in the Decree):“the Vietnam Fatherland Front, Labor Confederation, Ho Chi Minh Communist Youth Union, Vietnam
Peasants Association, Vietnam War Veterans Association and the Vietnam Women’s Union.” On theother hand, the Decree considers “associations” as primarily voluntary and for mutual support.4

Even

if the voluntary and supportive nature is emphasized, these associations are after all managed by theministries, and the 2003 Decree retains the “dual management” (Sidel: 2009, 143) of associations,
namely, the uniform management of associations nationwide on the one hand, and the management ofassociations by line ministries on the other.
A perspective of civil society discourse in Vietnam indicates that civil society is equated with
developmental and environmental NGOs, which can be both local and international, resulting inmisunderstandings between concepts such as civil society and participation (Salemink, 2006: 121-122).
There is a tendency that the form of participation, instead of its process, determines whether it isconsidered civil society.

Hirsch points out that many of local NGOs in Thailand shifted from

community development work to policy advocacy work especially drawing on social and environmental
issues of development, such as dams and forestry, but as far as NGO advocacy is concerned, their roles
are significantly circumscribed in Vietnam as well as Laos and China (Hirsch, 2007: 198). Even
though the Women’s Union may perform as an NGO and it may advise the authorities in the higher
strata on the local situations, it would not hold any advocacy role.

Also, certain discussions on NGOsin the context of civil society call attention to a possible problem in promoting service delivery byNGOs or civic groups, instead of by the state, as it might weaken their capacity to maintain a watchdog
function and to hold governments accountable (Kabeer and Simeen, 2010: 50).
Apart from the above viewpoints on civic activities, it is important to pay attention to what would
be civic in the context of rural areas. Rural areas faced particularly rapid changes after Doi Moi. The
agricultural sector of Vietnam became increasingly integrated into the regional and global economies,
exposing Vietnamese farmers to international competition.

At the same time, the reduction ingovernment spending left the rural poor with few resources of alternative protection (Bach and Duong,2010: 117).
Another issue for civicness in rural Vietnam is migration from rural areas to urban areas.

The

1990s marked the beginning of a rapid decline in rural population, and this decline was further
accelerated in the 2000s.

In 1975, the percentage of the rural population in Vietnam was 81.2 percent;this had declined to 69.6 percent by 2010 (Table 1).

The main income earners, often men, work incities while women remain in the rural area to look after household and community responsibilities.
4

The Decree stipulates that “Associations prescribed in this Decree are understood as voluntary organizations ofcitizens, organizations of the Vietnamese of the same professions, the same hobbies, the same genders for thecommon purposes of gathering and uniting members, regular activities, non-self-seeking, aiming to protect members'
legitimate rights and interests, to support one another for efficient activities, contribute to the country'ssocio-economic development, which are organized and operate according to this Decree and other relevant legal
documents.” (Article 2.1.)

Table 1: Rural Population in Vietnam (Thousand Persons) (% of Total Population)
Year
Rural population% of total population

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2000

2005

2010

39,93944,33149,59754,95259,154

61,172

61,773

61,983

81.2

80.8

80.4

79.7

77.8

75.6

72.7

69.6

Source: Based on World Bank World Development Indicators.

In addition, most of the civil society associations are formed mainly in urban areas, and there are lessspaces for civil society associations to be formed in the rural areas.

For this reason, the roles women

and women’s organizations play are relatively significant in the rural areas, and it is important toexamine the way in which they engage in civic or non-civic activities within the communities.
3.

Cases of the Two Delta Communes

3-1.

Social and Economic Situations of the Study Areas
This study is based on empirical observations of two communes: Hai Van Commune, Hai Hau

District, Nam D nh Province, and Than Cuu Nghia Commune, Chau Thanh District, Tien Giang
Province. Hai Van is in the Red River Delta, approximately 100 km southeast of Hanoi. Than Cuu
Nghia Commune is in the Mekong River Delta almost 50 km southwest of Ho Chi Minh City. The
selection of a study site in Vietnam depends largely on theauthorization of the government, thus the cases presented here
are not free from a selection bias.

They are not necessarily

typical or average communities that represent each region.
The government usually approves researchers to study
communities that are on good terms with the government andthat do not have possible sources of conflict.

Hai VanCommune has especially close relations with the government
over years, which might influence its social and politicalcharacteristics.
Nevertheless, the communities in the north and thesouth do have distinctive differences in terms of the historicalbackground and experiences of the communist rule.

Thenorth has a longer period of engagement in the communist
institutions while the south has been exposed to them for amuch shorter time.

The economic basis of production in thenorth was under the influence of the collectivization since thelate 1950s whereas the south was affected only after thereunification in 1975 and until the late 1980s. In theory, thiswould lead to the stronger influence of the state on the society
in the north as opposed to the less influence in the south.

Map 1: Vietnam andthe Study Areas

The following section describes the social and economic situations of the two communes.

Hai

Van Commune has a population of 9,464 persons and 2,688 households (as of October 2014).

The

population of the Than Cuu Nghia Commune is twice as large as that of Hai Van, with 21,035 persons
and 5,149 households (as of January-June 2013).5 According to the commune data of 2008-2013,
collected by the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, certain commonalities anddifferences exist in the social and economic conditions of the two communes.

The livelihood of theboth communes is based on agriculture and is supplemented by livestock and craft-making.

In general,

Vietnam has relatively good nationwide infrastructure, and its poverty rate is low in comparison to thatof its neighbors in the region. Such national characteristics apply to both of the communes.

In 2013,

Hai Van’s electrification rate was 95.2%, and that of Than Cuu Nghia was 100%.

Both have

all-weather roads connected to other communes. In Than Cuu Nghia, the province provided 9 billion
VND for inter-hamlet road construction, and the population in the district and communes contributed
approximately an equal amount.
With regard to the differences between the Hai Van and Than Cuu Nghia communes, theircharacteristics are distinct from each other in the aspects of religion and economy. Hai Van is unique inthe sense that about 80 percent of the Commune population is Catholic as a result of its early French
influence.
Economic differences between the two communes are fairly large.

With regard to the income

level, Hai Van’s annual per capita income increased from 20 million VND in 2008 to 29 million VND in
2013.

On the other hand, Than Cuu Nghia’s annual per capita income is substantially lower, 25.5

million VND in 2014 although it increased from 15.5 million VND in 2010. Hai Van’s relatively highper capita income is due to labor out-migration and to furniture/wood industry as well as handicraft
production.

Concerning labor migration, according to their village committee, the income increased

since around 2010, which was facilitated mainly by the road network as the National Route 21 connects
Hai Van to the provincial capital, Nam Dinh.

Hai Van has construction labor teams that are regularly

dispatched to Hanoi and its proximity.
Figure 1 and Figure 2 show the household income quintiles in the both communes.

Regardingincome poverty at the household level, none of these communes have population classified as “verypoor,” and both communes have a fairly small proportion of population classified as “poor.”6The

poverty rate in 2011 for Hai Van was 7.75 percent and that for Than Cuu Nghia was 8.16 percent; theformer slightly less than the national average poverty rate, and the latter higher than the national
average.7

Although Than Cuu Nghia seems to face a more severe problem of poverty, there is muchstronger economic equality among households in Than Cuu Nghia, as households classified as “Average”
5

Than Cuu Nghia is considered a middle-size commune. It was created through the merger of three villages, ThanNhou, Cuu Dieu and Nghia Thanh, which were composed of seven hamlets.
6
The communes in Vietnam monitor poverty information at the household level, which is compiled by the MOLISA,
to be incorporated into the values for poverty lines and poverty rates (Demombynes and Vu, 2015). Although
identification of the “poor” was carried out by Commune authorities using different criteria in different communes
and over time, after 2005, the MOLISA implemented a National Census on Poverty (NCP) to produce a complete listof poor households (Ibid.).
7
The national average poverty rate in 2013 was 7.8 percent (MOLISA).

and “Above Average” account for 82.2 percent of the total while those of Hai Van account for 64.7
percent in 2013.
Figure 1: Household Income Quintiles in Hai Van, 2008-2013 (Number of Households)
3000
2500
2000
1500
1000
500
0
2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

Very Poor

Poor

AverageAbove Average

2013
Wealthy

Source: Based on village information collected by the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences.
N.B.

The data for 2013 is for the period from January to June 2013. (The same

applies for the data hereafter.)Figure 2: Household Income Quintiles in Than Cuu Nghia, 2008-2013 (Number of Households)
6000
5000
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
2008

2009

2010

Very Poor

Poor

Average

2011

2012

Above Average

2013
Wealthy

Source: Based on village information collected by the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences.

With regard to the industrial structure, there are distinctive differences between the two
communes (Figure 3 and Figure 4).

First of all, the proportion of labor engaged in the primary sector issubstantially lower in Hai Van, accounting for 26-35 percent in 2008-2013.

In contrast, the secondary

sector of Hai Van is distinctively large. Many male workers from this commune go to Hanoi and otherprovinces, and women take up the responsibility of agricultural work in the commune.

Mostimportantly, this commune also has a strong furniture and wood industry as mentioned earlier as one of
the reasons for its higher per capita income.

According to Houtart and Lemercinier (1984: 32-34), therestructuring of the workforce and the reversing of the primary and secondary sectors occurred between
1973 and 1978 as a result of the policy for co-operatives.8
Figure 3: Labor Force by Occupation in Hai Van, 2008-2013 (%)
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
0%

20%

40%

Primary

60%

Secondary

80%

100%

Tertiary

Source: Based on village information collected by the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences.

Than Cuu Nghia Commune, on the contrary, has a large primary sector.

Income sources for the

population of Than Cuu Nghia are: 1) vegetable and fruit farming, 2) rice cultivation, and 3) handicraft.
Its agricultural production is integrated into the market economy, and is also managed in a large scale:the agricultural land area per capita in 2013 was 221 m2 in Hai Van and 474 m2 in Than Cuu Nghia.
Figure 4: Labor Force by Occupation in Than Cuu Nghia, 2008-2013 (%)
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
2013
0%

20%

40%

Primary

Secondary

60%

80%

100%

Tertiary

Source: Based on village information collected by the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam
Academy of Social Sciences.

8

The furniture and would industry is made up of small-scale enterprises with less than 30 employees. These
companies have been established through loans from the Agricultural Policy Bank and the Social Policy Bank. The
timber is imported from Laos, and the products are sold to both the foreign and domestic markets. The commune
authority mentions that this industry has prospered as a result of the good road networks reaching Nam Dinh City.

One of the reasons for Hai Van to reduce the number of agricultural labor was because
agriculture alone could not absorb the young workforce, especially after they come out of the secondary
education (Ibid.).

Despite its larger agricultural land area, it does not mean that the Than Cuu Nghia

Commune does not have any problem regarding job opportunities for young people.

Besides,

agriculture is mechanized and does not require additional labor. In 2009, a new industrial zone openedin Kon Tan Huong, approximately four kilometers away from this commune,9 and young people moved
there to seek income.

According to the commune authority, this was a welcomed development as

young people do not have to leave for distant cities, such as Ho Chi Minh, to look for jobs.
Women are an important labor force in the agricultural sector in both communes.

Althoughthere is no gender-disaggregated data for agricultural labor, narratives show that Hai Van’s agricultural
responsibility depends largely on women, and that both men and women are in charge of agricultural
production in Than Cuu Nghia. Historically, women predominantly worked in agriculture due to theexodus of men to the army in times of war, and, traditionally, women had also taken up heavy labor in
the fields (Beresford, 1988: 74). In the cases of the two communes, despite significant differences in
the industrial structures, both of their agricultural sectors rely very much on women.
In these transitional processes of the Vietnamese society and economy, differences between thetwo communes is discernible at the level of the influence of the state.

Hai Van has been in a close

relation with the state since early on. The state introduced industrial co-operatives into Hai Van in the
mid-1970s. According to the Central Committee of Hai Van Commune, the government introduced therural program to this commune in the 1980s one of the earliest in the country. Moreover, Hai Van was
one of the early communes in which the government set forth the cultural titling.

For instance, if ahousehold meets the cultural criteria, it receives titling of “Cultural Family.” The same type of titling
applies to the commune, district and province, but the communes are the important bases of such titling.
In this sense, Hai Van has served as a model commune for the government policy and plans.
3-2.

Women’s Status and their Organization in Rural Areas
Vietnam has made striking achievements in the advancement of women’s status in the publicsphere.

Reforms were launched to promote greater participation of women in political and economic

activities. Government policies, laws for gender development, and programs to protect women fromharassment, as well as to protect mother and children, have been enacted and enforced.
Traditionally, women have had a lower status in the family, and had very few decision-making
opportunities. After the revolution, socialist ideology propounded the principle of equality between
men and women.

However, the inquiries carried out in Hai Van by Houtart and Lemercinier (1984:

119) in the pre-Doi Moi period indicated that, at the household level, male domination indecision-making in family finance and management has remained persistent, especially among theyounger generation.
9

With regard to the social and cultural activities of the family members, both

The industrial zone has garment factories from Taiwan, Korea and China. The total number of workers isapproximately 40,000 persons, and 70 percent of them are women. In 2014, the average salary of the workers in theindustrial zone was 4.5 million VND per month.

women and men partake in decision-making, which seemingly reflects the social changes in the socialist
period.10
The Vietnam Women’s Union, founded in 1930, is the oldest mass organization in Vietnam.
The main activities of the Women’s Union are carried out in accordance with the National Five-Year
Plans and the National Women’s Union Congress, which take place every five years.

It operates

nationwide under the Party’s guidance, hence the organizational structure and management are inprinciple the same in both communes.

Although the overall organizational framework is the same forthe both communes, the Women’s Union in Hai Van has a much higher unionization rate (Table 2).
According to the Women’s Unions of the both communes, there are six main areas of work (Table 3).
In Hai Van Commune, activity 4) is not limited to informing the higher strata about the administration ofcommune affairs, but also includes giving feedback on social policies from the viewpoint of theTable 2: Women’s Unions in Hai Van Commune and in Than Cuu Nghia Commune
Hai VanThan Cuu Nghia

Number of members (persons)

1,558

998

Unionization rate (% of the total number of adult women)

73.9%

18.9% *

18-60 years old

18-60 years old

Membership age
Source: Based on interviews, November 2014.
* Estimation based on the commune population data, 2013.

Table 3: Main Activities of the Women’s Unions,
Hai Van Commune and Than Cuu Nghia Commune
Hai VanThan Cuu Nghia

Training (child care, family knowledge,

Training (livestock, agriculture such as

business management)

vegetable growing)

2“Happy Family Movement”“Happy Family Movement”

3

MicrofinanceMicrofinance4

Providing recommendations to the district

Providing advice to local authority about

and the province regarding conditions in theissues pertaining to people’s lives

1

commune5

Expansion of the Women’s Union

6

Support for women in poverty

Capacity building of the Women’s Union
members
External relations andcooperationforcollaboration with other organizations andforeign organizations
Source: Based on interviews, November 2014.

10

For instance, the authors point to equal decision-making on the type of newspapers to read, and to female
initiatives in going to visit friends or attending women’s meetings (Ibid.: 121).

commune. For instance, the Women’s Union could suggest support for people with special needs suchas handicapped children.

Even in cases where certain measures taken by the government is not

appropriate for the commune, the Women’s Union of the commune can still make recommendations tobureaus at a higher level of decision-making. Their contact is not limited to the public bureaus, as they
can also demand enterprises to provide appropriate salaries and health insurance.
In Than Cuu Nghia Commune, under activity 3), women are mobilized in environment andsanitation issues. For instance, every household is required to build a new toilet.

If someone needs toprolong his or her credit terms, the Women’s Union brings this request to the local authority. Under
activity 4), the Women’s Union follows up on community health conditions; for instance, it verifies ifchildren under the age of six have received free medical cards. There is great need for activity 5),
capacity building of new members, because approximately one hundred women take up membership in
the Women’s Union every year.
The types of technical training are different in the two communes, reflecting the need of the two
local areas: family care and business management in Hai Van, and agriculture and livestock skills inThan Cuu Nghia.

The rest of the activities are generally the same for the both communes, except theone activity in Hai Van to support women in poverty and the one in Than Cuu Nghia for external
relations and cooperation, directly dealing with outside organizations and foreign organizations, inparticular, the provider of the microfinance assistance. In both communes, the Women’s Union plays acrucial role connecting between the communities and the authorities.

In the sense that its service

delivery is substituting for the local authority’s work in many administrative themes in the communities,
it is a very statal organization.
In sum, the organizational aspect of the Women’s Union indicates that of Hai Van being highly
unionized, which is understandable from the historical background of northern Vietnam.

In terms of

their activities, most of their main work areas overlap with each other while they reflect certain specificcharacteristics and concerns of the local areas.
4.

Women’s Microfinance Activities and Civicness in the Communes
Microfinance has become a widespread development tool in the developing world.

These

activities are often carried out by community development groups and self-help groups. They arehighly appreciated because they can reach out to the poor, and especially poor women, who are often
excluded from credit opportunities.

Microfinance is also believed to be cost-effective as it handles

small amounts of loans, and because the repayment rate is very high.

In Vietnam, microfinance wasquickly adopted in the 1990s at the time of the full reduction of the state sector. Rankin (2008: 1217)
claims that the introduction of microfinance into Vietnam took place through ad hoc negotiations
between individual donors, provincial and district governments and the mass organizations, rather than
through regulatory reform and institutional diversification.

At the same time, behind the introduction

and further promotion of microfinance activities in Vietnam, there were policies to emphasize ruraldevelopment.

The National Target Program on New Rural Development (hereafter NTP-NRD) is themain rural policy framework started in 2010 for improving income, livelihood, and living standardsthrough the development of modern infrastructure, an improved economic structure, and production
bases for agriculture, industry and services.11
Nghiem (2012: 621) categorized microfinance in Vietnam into two types: formal andsemi-formal.

The providers of formal microfinance are the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural

Development (VBARD), the Vietnam Bank for Social Policy (VBSP) and the People’s Credit Fund(PCF).

The semi-formal providers of microfinance are non-bank institutions of NGO microfinanceactivities. In the two communes in this study, both types are present: the VBARD, the VBSP, and the
Women’s Union as a non-bank institution although it is not an NGO.

The former PCF, which used to

be a government-owned bank, had a higher interest rate (11%) than the VBARD (10%).

In the case ofThan Cuu Nghia, the VBSP provides credit for the poor with an interest rate of 0.65%.

Borrowers

invest in agricultural activities such as fruit planting, livestock such as poultry, and fishery, or small
businesses and other forms of commerce.

The poor may repair houses using this loan, and the limit of

the loan was raised from 5 million VND to 10 million VND in 2010. A household that wishes to start afamily business would be eligible to apply, and a typical loan would be provided in the areas of fish
farming and coconut tree growing in Than Cuu Nghia. The VBSP also provides loans to organizations
such as the Women’s Union, the Farmers’ Union, the Youth Union, and the Vietnam War Veterans
Association.12
One of the main semi-formal operators of microfinance is the Women’s Union although, as
Nghiem described, their finance providers are usually NGOs.

Microfinance, especially the one

operated by women, has been classified into two groups of approaches: the “financial systems” approachand the “poverty lending” approach.

The former offers a commercially-oriented, minimalist packageof financial services for the economically-active poor, while the latter offers loans to the poorer,
subsidized by donors, and often coupled with training, as well as social and other support services(Kabeer, 2005: 261).

To examine the cases in these two communes, it is not so much whom

microfinance is targeted at because “very poor” people do not exist according to the commune data.
More of importance is the second point, whether micro finance comes with or without schemes.
Kabeer draws attention to: 1) the philosophy that governs their delivery, 2) the extent to which they are
tailored to the needs and interest of those they are intended to reach, 3) the nature of the relationships
which govern their delivery, and 4) the caliber and commitment of the people who are responsible fordelivery (Ibid.).
For the purpose of this study, I modify these parameters to portray the characteristics of civicness
11

This policy replaced the earlier Poverty Reduction Policy (PRP). The main difference between the PRP and the
NTP-NRD are the target areas. The PRP focused on credit for the poor to improve only the economic aspect
whereas the NTP-NRD has 19 criteria and encourages cooperation with other organizations, for example,
collaboration with the Vietnam Fatherland Front for the building of cement houses to replace poor simple houses.
To promote livestock and vegetables or health programs, it is considered necessary to cooperate with all these relatedorganizations.
12
As of November 2014, the total number of borrowers of small loans from the VBSP in Than Cuu Nghia was 488
persons. These loans were issued for the following purposes: 1) for building houses, 2) to extend work activities (20households utilized this scheme in November 2014), 3) a poor family with a university student can receive 10-11
million VND per year per person, 4) a household near the poverty line can receive a loan for economic developmentin the range of 5-20 million VND a year, and 5) for installation of clean water facilities, new toilets, and sanitation
measures.

manifested in microfinance activities: 1) the civic philosophy of microfinance delivery, 2) the civic need
responsiveness of the operation, 3) the civic nature of relationships in microfinance delivery, and 4) the
civic caliber and commitment of those involved.

Using this as the frame of analysis, the following

section explores the microfinance activities carried out by state-led organizations at the commune level.
It is assumed to show the different levels of civicness in the two communities in accordance with thedifferent influence of the state.
The following are cases of similar microfinance activities in the Hai Van and Than Cuu Nghia
Communes.

Both have received foreign assistance to initiate microfinance projects.

Hai Vanreceived aid through a Belgian scholar team that was visiting the Commune, and Than Cuu Nghia
received aid from a Norwegian NGO.

Such direct contact and cooperation, although reported to andauthorized by the authorities, would not have been possible in the pre-Doi Moi period.
With regard to microfinance in Hai Van, the reasons why the Women’s Union manages the fund,according to them, are: most agricultural workers are women; and the husbands have moved to large
cities for work. Approximately, 80 percent of the Women’s Union members have husbands working inlarge cities and who return home six to seven times a year.

Due to these reasons, the providers of the

microfinance fund decided to leave the management responsibility with the Women’s Union. A fundcommittee was established, in which the committee president supervises overall management, and atreasurer serves regularly. The president of the Women’s Union also partakes in the management.

In

the first two years, three to four Vietnamese experts were brought in to train the staff of the Women’s
Union in management skills. As Table 4 shows, each loan is 2 million VND, and the loan is issued infour installations of 500,000 VND every six months. The repayment is also made in four installationsof 500,000 VND every six months.

Only Women’s Union members can vote on whom to assist

through the microfinance system, and the Women’s Union submits a report on the fund capital annuallyto the Commune president, who then submits it to the cooperation office in Hanoi to be sent on to
Belgium.
In the case of Than Cuu Nghia Commune, a Norwegian NGO, the Norwegian Mission Alliance(NMA),13 has been in cooperation with the Tien Giang Province’s Women’s Union since 2002. In
2010, the project’s status was changed to the “Tien Giang Capital Aid Fund for Women’s Economic
Development (Tien Giang CWED),” a non-profit organization for poverty eradication, job creation, andassistance to poor women in remote areas.

The credit is used only for production and businessactivities because its aim is to increase income for the poor.
CWED requires borrowers to make mandatory and voluntary savings monthly and to complete a
training program on business management, followed up by local consultants throughout the process.14
13

The NMA provides small-scale credit assistance with the aim of improving the lives of the poor so that they canestablish their own businesses, develop existing production, or improve their living conditions.
http://www.misjonsalliansen.no/english/a46553 (Viewed on May 21, 2015). In 2005, the fund’s accounting, which
took place at the commune level, became integrated with the accounting system of the province. See Mekong
Organization of Microfinance. http://mom.com.vn/ (Viewed on May 21, 2015).
14
The program eventually changed its status to be a licensed microfinance institution (MFI).
http://www.norad.no/om-bistand/publikasjon/ngo-evaluations/2011/evaluation-of-capital-aid-fund-for-womens-econo
mic-development/

In the case of Vietnam, the program provided assistance to 12 communes out of the total 22 communesof Chau Thanh District. The borrowers enroll in technical courses mainly in the areas of agriculture
and fishery, and staff from the Women’s Union follow up on all borrowers and their activities.

The

funds of CWED are managed by the province, and the province pays the Women’s Union 1.5 million
VND quarterly per year as administration and management fees.
NMA started operating in Than Cuu Nghia Commune in 2009, providing 1.2 billion VND (Table
4). An eligible woman can borrow 5 million VDN for 12 months with a monthly repayment of 50,000
VND.

For the second loan, a person can borrow 6-7 million VND. In November 2014, 378 members

had utilized this credit scheme for the purposes of rearing chickens/pigs/cows, vegetable farming, or
fishery.

At the time of the credit issuance, their activities are examined, and two or three months later,

the credit staff visit each borrower to see if they are actually engaged in the activities.

For the loanborrowers, the Women’s Union organizes training courses two or three times a year on rearing chicken,
fishery and other activities.

These training courses receive budgetary and technical support from theprovince’s extension office.
In these two communities, although the institutional arrangements are the same, in other words,
both based on collaboration between the Women’s Union and a foreign donor, their funding scales anddelivery details are quite different.

The interest rate of Than Cuu Nghia microfinance is as high as thatof the commercial institutions. As the total fund is larger in Than Cuu Nghia, the first credit amount isTable 4: Comparison of Microfinance Activities in Hai Van and Than Cuu Nghia
Hai VanThan Cuu Nghia

2008

2009

Original fund sources

Foreign aid

Foreign aid

PurposeFor the poor

For the poor

Rate (%)

0.5% per year

1.2% per month

Terms

N.A.

12 months

Total amount of funds (VND) (original)

100 million

1.26 billion

Total amount of funds (VND) (current)

110 million

1.2 billion

49

378

Year establishedBorrowers (persons)
Cumulative number of borrowers (persons)400

19,959First loan (VND)

2 million

5 million

Repayment (VND)

500,000 per 6 months

50,000 per month

Repayment Rate (%)

100%

More than 99%

Second loan (VND)

N.A.

6-7 million

Types of activities

Poultry, pig husbandry,

Poultry, pig husbandry,

vegetable farming, andvegetable farming, fishery.

retailing.
Source: Based on interviews, November 2014.

more than twice of that in Hai Van, and Than Cuu Nghia microfinance provides a second loan.
With regard to the four aspects of microfinance, the following observations were made, which
did not necessarily correspond to the original assumptions.
both communes is to provide assistance to poor women.

First, the philosophy of microfinance inAccording to the Hai Van Women’s Union,

the provision of a small amount such as 2 million VND is extremely important to a poor woman,because she could purchase 10 chickens or one pig with this amount of money.

They can breed as

many as 100 chickens, and above all, there has not been any delay in repayment in Hai Van.

However,

the actual loan policies are fairly different between the two communes, and for Than Cuu Nghia
microfinance, it is doubtful whether reaching for the poor was actually possible with such a high interest
rate.

Their loans are also restricted for income-generating activities such as cash crop production,

livestock and business, which would not anticipate the needs of the landless or the very poor.
Furthermore, the mutual support is institutionalized in its operation, as seen in the case of Than Cuu
Nghia in the form of the mandatory savings, but there is no reciprocal mechanism in placing themembers’ feedback or evolving this program for further activities beyond individual delivery.
Second, whether microfinance in the two communes has responded to the needs of the people, it
is an advantage that the Women’s Union staff serve as the managers of microfinance activities because
they are very much aware and informed of the issues of the locality.

Identification of the project’s

targets was also made in consultation with the donors, followed by technical training of the managers aswell as of the borrowers in both cases.

Moreover, in the case of Hai Van, the absence of men due totheir labor migration leaves much responsibility for women in securing livelihood.

In this sense, thefemale managers of microfinance are the best fit for dealing with the female borrowers.
The third question on the nature of the relationships in microfinance delivery is closely related to
civicness. As those who are involved in its management are doing so as part of their duties in the
Women’s Union, it is not of voluntary civic engagement.

Yet, their remunerations are rather symbolic,and one needs to acknowledge that these female managers are working, especially so dutifully, out ofcertain voluntarism and dedication.

While the characteristics of microfinance activities are often

associated with civic relations, the operation of microfinance is very administrative, which could bedone either in a public bureau or a private financial institution.

In the case of microfinance in Hai Van,a female manager of the Women’s Union took part in a training course in Thailand, visiting model farms
and exchanging views in a conference with Thai farmers.

The entire operation and management, as

well as building of staff capacity in the Women’s Union, strongly resemble that of a development project.
After all, microfinance operated by the Women’s Union leads to the reduction of the administrative cost,and it utilizes peer pressure for repayment (Rankin, 2002).

In its multiple capacities, the Women’s

Union has grown to act as an administratively inexpensive implementer of a financial development
project at the community level, which can be easily misinterpreted as the representation of civic
activities.

Another path could have been to build upon the essence of civicness in microfinance a“practical basis” for women to meet regularly and to promote new ideas eventually leading to address
their interests (Kabeer, 2005).
This point overlaps with the question on the caliber and commitment of those involved inmicrofinance. The female managers and staff of microfinance have much experience in dealing with thesocial and economic issues of the communes.
fund, as well as supervision and reporting.

They have been well trained in the management of the

Nevertheless, the privilege that members of the Women’s

Union have in the form of sole decision-making rights for the selection of the borrowers may create
room for unequal opportunities if the managers turned out to be less committed to social justice andequality.
5.

Conclusions
This study explored the situations of civicness by comparing women’s activities in the north andthe south of Vietnam. Against the assumption that the state intervention, by the form of the more
firmly organized mass organization, would be stronger in the north, there were no significant differencesof the work frame in the north and south with regard to the civicness of women’s activities, regardless of
the longer and deeper state control in the north and the less state-influence in the south.

Certaindifferences exist with regard to the organizational aspect; Hai Van’s Women’s Union in the north has amuch higher unionization rate, and that of Than Cuu Nghia is low but rapidly growing.

Also, in termsof actual activities, a more institutionalized and more strictly organized microfinance program wasfound in the south.

According to the microfinance typology made by Kabeer, the north had the“poverty lending” approach while the south had the “financial systems” approach.

This does not imply

any inherent nature of the north or the south, yet it suggests that the actual characteristics of the
microfinance program could be differently experienced by the borrowers, and the implication for the
civic spaces in the communities is large as the spread of the “financial systems” approach could be
misunderstood as the enhancement of civic engagement.

This awaits further studies with a greater

sample size, but the re-examination of what seems and claims to be civic would be instrumental for the
analyses of the transitional societies.
In the pre-Doi Moi period, social protection in the forms of secure employment (albeit
remuneration in kind instead of salaries) and the provision of health and education services was animportant part of the socialist state operation. After Doi Moi, the diminished state sector meant that
there was no stable provision of employment or subsidies.

The emphasis on civic activities came about

at a convenient time and provided an opportunity for the state to reduce the statal responsibilities byleaving them for citizens’ self-help or mutual help. In addition, the poverty reduction policies werebeing implemented and becoming the overarching framework in social engineering. There was agreater need to make a difference at the commune level, and in particular to target at the poor
households, which was expected to be more effective and efficient in reducing poverty.

In the pre-Doi

Moi period, the party mobilized mass organizations for political outputs, whereas in the post-Doi Moi
period there were less needs for socialist ideological dissemination and greater needs for incorporation
into the national development strategies.

Mass organizations came to serve increasingly as

development partners operating poverty reduction activities, with their leaders and members working(with voluntary dedication) as if they were development workers.
Despite the call for reaching out to the poor women, the actual operation and management ofmicrofinance do not correspond fully to the civic principles of voluntariness or reciprocity.
Voluntariness has been always a part of women’s activities traditionally and historically, which obscuresthe discussions of civicness. Although the mass organization’s remunerations are very humble andtheir staff are usually very dedicated and hard-working, it is difficult to consider them as a form ofvoluntary contribution on the side of the women leaders of the Women’s Union and of the fundcommittee.

Reciprocity in terms of finance is somewhat embedded into the system of microfinance.

As a revolving loan, the mere usage of the fund and the repayment would automatically reciprocate thebenefits to other users.

However, the “services” that female leaders and staff provide in microfinanceactivities are delivered unidirectionally, and there is no space for the reciprocal feedback from theborrowers on how to manage the program.
The philosophy, needs identification, the types of relations created, and the quality of thepersonnel involved in the microfinance activities, all contribute to creating a new role and image ofwomen’s activities in development. Regardless of its civicness or non-civicness, development work
can take place in both the private and public fields. Examining the case of civic relations in Laos, acountry with a very similar political structure as in Vietnam, Iinuma (2013: 138) points out that in thecontext of a one-party state, the boundary between “voluntary” and “being mobilized” is blurred, and thetwo areas can even overlap with each other, and that under such a regime, it is important to look at whatsocial relations are tolerated or promoted by the government.

In the case of rural Vietnam,

development activities provide an arena for such an overlap to take place.

The Women’s Union has

become a well-trained and well-experienced institution to operate most of such grassroots activities that
could contribute to reducing poverty and to supporting the livelihood of women who are in a more
precarious position in the post-Doi Moi period.

The state-led organization is acquiring multiple

characteristics in a flexible manner to function as both a civic and statal organization. The risk ofincorporating the mass organization into these major development activities may include legitimatizationof its roles in both of the civic domain and the state domain.
Acknowledgements
This research is funded by the Vietnam National Foundation for Science and Technology
Development (NAFOSTED) under Grant Number I3.3-2012-01. The author is deeply grateful for thesponsorship of the Institute of Sociology, Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences, under the research
project “A Study on Civil Linkages and Their Roles in Rural Area Development (the Red River Delta in
Comparison with the Mekong Delta).”
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