Recommendations to the Vietnamese Land Policy

1. Funded by: Implemented by: Supported by:
Viet Nam:
Recommendations to the
Vietnamese Land Policy
Hanoi, 21/6/2016

2. Situation and Roles of CSOs in Viet Nam
• All CSOs are set up directly or indirectly by the Government
• Biggest umbrella organization for CSOs is the “Vietnam Union
of Scientific & Technology Associations” (VUSTA)
– Total: more than 1,000 CSOs.
• Generation change in CSO leadership
– 1990s: Old leaders, working in poverty reduction & Water &
Sanitation, Education
– Since 2005: Younger leaders  focus more in Environment, Human
right (Child Care, right of person with disabilities, Health care, land
right etc)

3. Who is S-CODE?
• SCODE stands for “Centre for Sustainable Community Development”
• Set up 2005 by South East Asia Research Association of Vietnam (SEARAV)
• SCODE is a member of Land Alliance (LANDA), Asia Pacific Research
Network (APRN), CIFPEN
• SCODE vision: to be one of a leading NGOs in policy advocacy, focus in land
policy, climate change, environment protection.
• SCODE mission: promote internal strength of vulnerable communities to
have better future
• SCODE involved into QDF to recommend for Land policy because of being
Landa member (MRLG partners), so we can learn and share experience
with others from network on land governance in Vietnam

4. A window of opportunity
• In early 2015 the MOJ identified a general lack in Vietnamese policy
documents:
– More than 9,000 illegal documents in 2014 (80% relating to land issue) “policy on sky,
life on earth”
• MONRE initiated a process to improve the current land policy and started
to collect suggestions from the provinces and the public until Nov 2015
• S-CODE identified this as a window of opportunity to provide consolidated
recommendations to the Vietnamese Government
• Together with two other CSOs, SCODE applied for a QDF project of the
Mekong Region Land Governance project (MRLG)
• The QDF was granted and supported S-CODE to organize investigations
and pre-consultations that included stakeholders from government
(province, district, commune), communities, land experts and the private
sector

5. Crafting the policy recommendations
• Approach
– Group discussions & In-depth interviews
– Local people’s stories and observations
– National consultation workshop to consolidate recommendations
• Results
– 15 recommendations were initially collected, 6 recommendations
were agreed upon during the national consultations
– All agreed recommendations were given to MONRE
– 3 items are partly influenced in the new Decree
– 3 items did not work because of not being concerned
• Challenges:
Working with Gov. officials was not easy if you do not have better
understanding of land law/policy or strong evidence for your recommendation

6. Lesson learnt from Vietnam case
• Vietnamese CSOs need to prove their capacities in land policy
to government officials to improve the working relationship
and gain trust
• For this QDF, leading land law experts who can provide
valuable technical support for the recommendations to
MONRE needed to be involved
• Sharing the learnings, experiences and knowledge is essential
to other CSOs who want to engage in policy advocacy