The Chia Se Programme
Chia se is a Vietnamese word wich mean sharing is also a development cooperation initiative between the Government of Vietnam and the Swedish International Development Co-operation Agency, with focus on poverty alleviation. The Programme builds on the Comprehensive Poverty Reduction and Growth Strategy (CPRGS) that was adopted by the Vietnamese Government in May 2002.
The Chia Se programme evolved from previous cooperation programmes between Vietnam and Sweden, as the Forestry Cooperation Programme, FCP, and the Mountain Rural Development Programme, MRDP. Though learning lessons from these and other programmes, Chia Se in line with the CPRGS policies takes a broader approach to poverty alleviation. It is also an outspoken ambition to test and develop methods in this field.
The Chia Se Program is designed to make poverty alleviation a bottom-up and demand-driven process, ensuring villagers’ participation, grassroots democracy and transparency. Planning and implementation processes are based on expressed local aspirations and needs.
The planning process of the Programme involved some 1 500 people on different levels in society – from villagers to politicians and other stakeholders on national level. Many of them actively engaged in seminars, workshops and meetings to discuss the design of the programme. The progress and outcomes were discussed and endorsed at meetings with the Joint Reference Group of which key ministries and Sida are members, and to which also provincial representatives were invited.
The programme commenced in October 2003 with an inception period where the project concept was tested in piloting communes and villages. Autumn 2004, Sida conducted an In Depth Review to evaluate the first phase of the Programme. Based on the positive outcomes of the In Depths Review, it was decided that the project should go into full implementation from year 2005 until 2008.