## **Box 1:** PPA **Partner Agencies**

**ActionAid** is a British NGO and has been running long term poverty alleviation programs in collaboration with provincial, district and commune People's Committees since 1990. Their program activities are concenirated in Son La Province, an upland area with a high proportion of ethnic minorities, and Ha Tinh Province, where the PPA took place. ActionAid places a strong emphasis on the use of participatory techniques in program (lesign, monitoring and evaluation.

**Oxfam GB** is a British NGO with program activities in Lao Cai, Ha Tinh and Tra Vinh, where they have been working since 1995. In Tra Vinh, they are working with local authorities to address poverty in a sustainable manner through a coherent set of sectoral activities. They have a strong advocacy agenda and aim to bring informed arguments for the needs of the poor and marginalised to community, provincial, national and international levels.

**Save the Children (UK)** is also a British NGO with a distinct program emphasis on protecting and improving the lives of disadvantaged children. Working in Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, three north central provinces and Ho Chi Minh City, their programs combine practical projects at the community level, research, institutional capacitybuilding and advocacy work to achieve its objectives. They have a conducted interesting research into the issue of child labor.

The **Vietnam-Sweden Mountain Rural Development Program (MRDP)** has evolved out of a long history of Swedish support to Vietnam. This began in the late 1970's with support to a paper mill in Vinh Phu (ncw Phu To) Province but then branched into forestry work. Work since then has broadened to cover five Provinces in the northern upland region. This program is one of the first in Vietnam to use participatory techniques on a significant scale.

There was no firm commitment from all four PPA agencies until December 1998 - five months before the PPA teams went into the field in the northern uplands, the north central coast, the Mekong delta and Ho Chi Minh City. In January 1999 there was a meeting with all the PPA partners to decide on the framework for the PPA research and appropriate methodology. The PPA agencies and the World Bank decided at this stage to establish a formal link to the World Development Report 2000 (WDR2000), which was to be on the theme of poverty. As a background to the WDR2000, the World Bank was coordinating a 23-country PPA research project, known as the Voices of the Poor. Members of the Voices of the Poor team met with the PPA agencies, who agreed to adopt a framework for analysis, which would allow findings to feed into this high profile, international research effort.

# **_Government involved through the establishment of a Poverty Working Group_**

Though donors had agreed to collaborate and PPA partners had made a commitment there was still, at this stage, limited involvement of Government. In February 1999, the World Bank wrote to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) outlining the intention to establish a _Poverty Working Group_ (PWG). This outlined the donor and NGO membership (the World Bank, UNDP, SIDA, DFID and the four PPA partner agencies) and requested that 6 government agencies participate in the group. These were MPI, Ministry of Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs (MoLISA), Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), General Statistics Office (GSO), Committee for Ethn-ic Minorities and Mountainous Affairs (CEMMA) and the Women's Union (WU). At the 6