Promote gender responsive budgeting Gender responsive budget is an integral part of budget revenue-expenditure estimation in accordance with the outputs and budget process to promote gender equality. The core objectives of gender responsive budget include i) Raising stakeholder awareness of gender equality issues and the impacts of gender issues associated with budgets and policies ; ii) promote government responsibility in  making commitments to integrate gender equality into budget commitments; and iii) changing budgets and policies to promote gender equality.

The implementation of a gender responsive budget process is still considered difficult to carry out in Vietnam. The Law on Gender Equality has been in effect for 10 years, but the integration of gender equality issues in the development of legal normative documents is not totally concerned, with 40/63 provinces (accounting for 63.49%) having no data reported on gender intergration. There is a lack of coherence in the Law on Gender Equality, Law on Promulgation of Legal NormativeDocuments (LNDs), as well as some limitations on awareness and skills of analyzing, identifying gender issues and gender mainstreaming in legal normative documents, henceagencies often do not actively review, evaluate, and detect shortcomings, leading toinadequate implementation .

The 2015 Budget Law includes principles on ensuring equity and gender equality in state management of budget. International experience shows that intergrating gender into the process of planning, estimating state budget, implementing budget, auditing govenrment budget are important. However, Vietnam still lacks specific guidelines for building and implementing gender responsive budgets . These specific guidelines are necessary to build working mechanisms between financial institutions and stakeholders, as well as to promote the voice of social organizations in monitoring public services receiving of social groups . When implementing gender responsive budget in Vietnam, gender statistics are also difficult or unable to collect. Another fact is that the funding distributed for gender equality is stillbeing interpreted as a seperated budget line for gender equality that the government needs. Most of the budget spent on promoting gender equality is mainly for propaganda and legal education to raise awareness about gender equality  rather than intergrating gender into expenditures. In order to effectively implement gender intergration in financial policies, it is necessary to have a proper and universal understanding of  genderresponsibility concept; process and techniques to build gender responsive budget; develop a framework to analyze taxes, expenditures and distribute state budget with concerns on gender; develop methodologies to analyze, evaluate, monitor, and supervise theimplementation of gender responsive financial policies . Another fact discovered during phase 1 of GRB project implementation is the question on whether   govenrment officials consider vulnerable groups such as ethnic minorities, the poor, women and the disable, or have prejudices on disadvantaged groups such as ethnic minorities, women, the disable... are groups of dependents, lack of capacity, or needing capacity building, instead of taking on a rights-based approach. In consequence, the interventions,instead of eliminating physical and social barriers, continue to reinforce patterns, consolidate gender stereotypes and other forms, thus making these groups increasingly unconfident.

From July 2017 to December 2018, though the economic, political andsocial context of Vietnam has changed dramatically, the project "Promoting the role of youth and civil society in Gender responsive budget process in Vietnam" having technical and financial support from OXFAM has achieved certain results. CEPEW has worked closely with stakeholders such as NGOs, representatives of state agencies, local people in some provinces and youth groups interested in promoting equity and equality, transparency, and accountability to promote their participation in the process of raising public awarenessand advocating for gender responsive process in Vietnam.

Firstly, the capacity to analyze and advocate for gender responsive budget of CEPEW staff and collaborators has been significantly improved, illustrating in their gender factoranalysis of draft Law on Added value tax amendments, Special zone law, as well as supporting community groups to apply GRB tool in assessing public services. Theproject also contributes to improving CEPEW's financial and administrative management system,including staff recruitment process. Inherited from capacity building program for people in the community on GRB in the previous period, during this period, the project will develop and complete the manual on GRB and guideline for people to use GRBtoolsinmonitoring local budgets to transfer to NGOs and people in communities.

At provincial level, CEPEW has supported a number of members of the Pioneer Group (Advocacy group for Voice and Rights of Ethnic Minorities) and youths to apply gender responsivebudget instruments (Citizen Assessment Cards) to assess the quality of agricultural extension services in Sa Pa district (Lao Cai province) and the quality of health services in Ba Thuoc district (Thanh Hoa province). In 2018, the Pioneer group has conducted an independent assessment on mid-term results of the National Target Program for Sustainable Poverty Reduction in the period of 2016-2020, met and acknowledged stories of more than 100 beneficiaries of 12 projects under the Poverty ReductionProgramimplemented in 12 provinces. 100% of members participating in the evaluation completely volunteered and did not receive any financial support during information collecting process. The seminar on sharing the group#s evaluation reports, Listen from theheart ofthe people, taking place in Hanoi, has made great reputation, reported by numerous newspaper such as VTV3, Nhan dan, Dan toc, etc.... and received views of over 16,500 people. While cooperating with Pioneer group#s members, CEPEW found thatthey werealways interested in socio-political issues and did not hesitate to speak up on local issues such as bad quality house building, discharge of hydropower causing floods, etc. Especially, four members from the Pioneer group has also participated in training onGRB training organized by CEPEW and completed their research on this issue. Members of the Pioneer group inThanh Hoa and Lao Cai provinces want to continue to learn and apply GRB tool GAPA (gender responsive policy analysis tool) to evaluate local programs, policies to contribute to building capacity of people as well as monitoring and evaluating the use of budgets and raising voice on economic, social, political development programs under GRB perspective.

Also from the initial success with 4members of the Pioneer group in Thanh Hoa and Lao Cai provinces, the group proposed to expand project activities, improve the capacity of all group members including members in 12 provinces across the country on the state budget and GRB. After the training, members ofthe groups will receive technical support to implement initiatives to monitor the use of local state budget and share the results with local authorities to recommend appropriate policies in order to solve inadequacies in approaching and using local budgets. The process and performance of the group will be documented to be used as a tool for communication and advocacy at the central level. In addition, the project has received young people#s participation in conducting evaluation studies "Projecton vocational training for rural workers till 2020" (or Project 1956) in Ha Giang and Quang Tri provinces. The study pointed out the impacts and necessities of needs assessment and gender analysis before distributing budgets to ensure equity and equalityin statebudget management. The research results on GRB, policy gaps and gender inequalities in beneficiary of state budget programs have been shared with stakeholders in Quang Tri and Ha Giang, including policy makers and implementers; as well as being used to advocate for UN universal human rights review mechanism (UPR). In the first phase, the project has also promoted the diverse participation of various groups in society to raise their voices about inequalities in the process of accessingpublicservices, including the disabled with different levels and types of disabilities. The youth group and the group of disable people have jointly developed the research initiative "Evaluation of public services and public administration for people with disabilities". However,due to many objective reasons, the research has not been implemented. From now until 2020, the Ministry of Home Affairs will implement the project "Measuring the satisfaction of people and organizations on service of  State administrative agenciesin 2017-2020" in order to assess objectively the quality of public administrative service provision of state agencies. Vietnam is also developing a report on the Convention Reinforcement of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). In addition, Clauses 1 and 2, Article40, Law on the Disable 2010 stipulate the Law on Persons with Disabilitiesuntil January 1, 2020, the following public facilities must ensure accessment conditions for with people with disabilities: a) Headoffices of state agenciesb) Stations, bus stations, wharves; c) Medical examination and treatment facilities; d) Education and vocational training establishments; e) Cultural, physical training and sports contructions. Therefore, the re-launch of the "Evaluation of public services and public administration for people with disabilities", expected to be implemented in Hanoi and Ha Giang, will study the opportunity for human rights advocacy under GRB perspective and recommend appropriate policies to ensure equality in accessingpublic facilities and servicesusing state budget for groups.

On the other hand, the project could achieved the current results and spread to many stakeholders thanks to active contributions and participation from representatives of community groups, of People's Councils and People's Committees, Fatherland Front, etc. at provincial, district and commune levels in Hoa Binh and Quang Tri provinces. In the first phase of the project, with the budget transparency alliance ( BTAP) coordination, the projecthas contributedto improving thecapacity of people and community groups and supporting local budget monitoring initiatives to ensure disclosure, transparency, and people#s participation, as well as budget revenues and expenditure with gender equality instead of gender stereotyping and/orgender-based discrimination. This coordinated activity has contributed to changing the people and policy makers# perspective andconcept of gender, thus reaffirming that gender equality is an important issue that needsto be integratedinto state budgetrevenues and expenditures. In the coming period, the project continues to improve people's knowledge and capacity in monitoring public development and investment programs using state budget. The project will also focus on buildingcapacity for provincialand district policy makers and consultants in Quang Tri province on GRB, and providing technical support during their local implementation.

With the above analysis and results, CEPEW proposes the implementation of the project "Promoting gender responsive budget in Vietnam" to provide deeper and more concrete intervention programs in changing the government and people#s awareness and approach on GRB with a rights-based approach to disrupt stereotypical stereotypes about low capacity ofvulnerable groups. Also, apply gender impact analysis to bring gender intergration issues into revenue and expenditure management at local and central level through close coordination with representatives of state agencies, NGOs, youthsand local people in the projectareas.
Theproject will continue to improve the capacityof local officials and people in the communities of Ha Giang, Quang Tri, Lao Cai provinces, and Pioneer group members' areas through building capacity and common understanding of GRB to attackstereotypes about vulnerable groups with a rights-based approach. Then,the project will continue to provide technical support for people to apply and practice GRB analysis tool in developing local budgets and consulting localpolicies; overseeing local budgetrevenuesand expenditures relating to public investment projects, public services and local state budget development programs. The results will be synthesized and documented into policy proposals and sent to local authorities. Based on the results of thelocalimplementation, a policy recommendation will be developed to ultilize at central level dialogues.

The project is proposed with below objective and results:

Objective: Contributing to ensuring the principle ofequity and gender equality inthe budget process stipulated in the 2015 State Budget Law
Result 1: Improved understanding and capacity toassess and monitor development programs and programs using state budget that apply GRB tools of people and social organizations
Result 2: Activeparticipation of people and social organizations in GRB building process