VN - Program 135 Phase 2 Support Credit

closed

Vietnam has been one of the best performing economies in the world over the last decade. It has become increasingly integrated with the world economy, and formally joined the WTO in January 2007. This first credit in a programmatic series of three, would support policy and institutional actions to improve the results of one of Vietnam's principal National Target Programs (NTP) for poverty reduction: the re-designed Program for Socio-Economic Development in Communes Facing Extreme Hardship in Ethnic Minority and Mountainous Areas (2006-2010), known more familiarly in Vietnam as Program 135, Phase 2 (P135-2). The credit would support policy and institutional actions to improve the results of P135-2 with particular reference to: (i) improved poverty targeting of program resource allocation; (ii) deepening and scaling-up of community-driven approaches to planning, managing, operating and maintaining basic rural infrastructure; (iii) enhanced fiduciary transparency and accountability in program implementation through wider use of social audit approaches; and (iv) process monitoring and impact evaluation. Critical aspects of this reform agenda have already been demonstrated at scale under ongoing IDA- and other ODA-supported initiatives in Vietnam covering at least a half of all the provinces, districts and communes targeted for inclusion in P135-2 (see maps and Annex 7). Those elements of the reform agenda supported by the proposed series of operations are described in the attached Letter of Development Policy (Annex 1).