Understanding Poverty in Vietnam and the Philippines - Chaire ASIE

167 Pages·2003·5.52 MB·English

Understanding Poverty
in Vietnam
and the Philippines
Concepts and Context

Edited by
Rodolphe De Koninck
Jules Lamarre
Bruno Gendron

LOCALIZED POVERTY REDUCTION IN VIETNAM (LPRV) PROJECT

© September 2003
Understanding Poverty
in Vietnam
and the Philippines
Concepts and Context

Edited by
Rodolphe De Koninck
Jules Lamarre
Bruno Gendron

LOCALIZED POVERTY REDUCTION IN VIETNAM (LPRV) PROJECT
Funded by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)

Canada Chair of Asian Research, Université de Montréal, Canada
and
Département de géographie, Université Laval, Canada

© September 2003
I
Table of contents
ARTICLES

3 Rodolphe De Koninck
The analysis of micro-macro interactions and policy alternatives :
A question of scales
7 Jules Lamarre
An organizational approach to poverty
25 Jules Lamarre
From a multidimensional to a socio-political definition of
poverty
49 Leonora C. Angeles
Women, bureaucracy and the governance of poverty in
Southeast Asia: Gender planning and participatory governance
in poverty reduction programs in the Philippines and Vietnam
71 Dang Dinh Trung
Coffee production, social stratification and poverty in a
Vietnamese Central Highland community
101 Vo Thanh Son
Poverty and utilization of natural resources:
A case study in the northern uplands of Vietnam

ANNEX

137 Jules Lamarre
Les institutions de microcrédit : centres de services bancaires ou
organismes communautaires?
III
Foreword

Essentially funded by the Canadian International Development Agency, the
Localized Poverty Reduction in Vietnam (LPRV) project has involved, since
August 1998, collaboration between, primarily, six Vietnamese academic
institutions and two Canadian Universities. These were, on the Vietnamese side:
the National Centre for Social Sciences and Humanities (NCSSH) and the five
universities of Thai Nguyen, Vinh, Hue, Dalat and Ho Chi Minh City; on the
Canadian side; the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, and Université
Laval in Quebec City. Several other institutions were involved, from both
countries as well as from Vietnam’s neighbouring ones.
The LPRV project was, primarily, a training venture with very little research per
se being involved. Ideally, a proper training programme should be able to
include and benefit from research. For these reasons, Laval University’s
representatives have insisted, throughout the duration of the LPRV project, on
the need for research or, at least, for some amount of reflection on conceptual
issues and for some amount of practical, down to earth, poverty-related,
empirical research. It is believed that these provide indispensable foundations to
proper policy definitions and related training.
The present collection of papers represents a modest contribution in that
direction. The authors of the first four papers, i. e. the undersigned, Jules
Lamarre, Marc Miller and Leonora Angeles were directly involved in the project.
Dang Dinh Trung and Vo Thanh Son, who signed the other two papers, were
not. However, in the context of a research project funded by the International
Development Research Centre (IDRC), they recently completed, respectively, an
MA thesis at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and a PhD one at Laval
University. Both their research topics dealt with poverty issues, particularly
among Highland minorities, hence the relevance of their contribution to this
collection of essays. As for Jules Lamarre, whose concerns with poverty issues,
both theoretical and practical, are exemplary, he could not resist submitting yet
another essay, in French this time. It has been included as an annex. Bruno
Gendron’s input was crucial during the final stages of the endeavour.
The production of this volume has been handled by the Laval team of the LPRV
project and the Canada Chair of Asian Research, held by the undersigned at the
University of Montreal since July 2002. Thanks are therefore due not only to
CIDA, but also to IDRC, SSHRC, which supports the Chair, NUS, Université
Laval and Université de Montreal.

Rodolphe De Koninck
Montréal, 18 September 2003
V
ARTICLES
1
The analysis of micro-macro interactions and
policy alternatives :
1
A question of scales

Rodolphe De Koninck
Canada Chair of Asian Research
Centre d’études de l’Asie de l’Est (CÉTASE)
Université de Montréal, Canada
UNDERSTANDING POVERTY IN VIETNAM AND THE PHILIPPINES
has caused the flooding, but cannot establish an effective flood warning system
for villagers or compensation for flood victims due to cross-border
miscommunication. The Cambodian government has called on the Mekong River
2
Commission... to look into the situation ».
In fact, cases where proper monitoring and management of micro-macro
interactions becomes a challenge for policy are numerous all across Asia. This
may be perceptible at several geographical scales, within river basins like those
of the Mekong and the Chang Jiang in China, in large national development
ventures, such as the recently closed down transmigrasi programme in Indonesia
and its impact on inter-ethnic as well as environmental issues across the country,
or even in the Malaysian attempts at integrating nationally the two Borneo states
of Sabah and Sarawak, etc.
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE ISSUE?
1) The nature of the relationships between on the one hand local processes, even
micro-level processes such as soil erosion, and, on the other, regional, national
even global processes are crucial.
2) Nowadays, it would be difficult to come across a so-called development expert
unaware of the fact that there exists, literally, a chain of causalities behind micro-
level processes such as soil erosion and that these causalities are operational at
several scales. Such is the case, for example, with the relation between the
unusual erosion that has occurred over recent years along the coffee-covered
slopes of several communes located in the basin of the Upper Srepok river (a
tributary of the Mekong) in Dac Lac province in the Central Highlands of
Vietnam, and, the preceding rise in the world market price of coffee. Of course,
the two processes are linked by a succession of factors, involving, on the one
hand, decision-making at several levels – whether those of the nation, province,
district and commune - as well as by individual pioneering settlers and, on the
other, natural processes such as climatic changes, at several geographical scales,
these changes being attributable, at least in part, to land use changes, themselves
at least partly induced by the rising price of coffee or its drop...
3) Concerning soil erosion and the various environmental problems that occur
upstream and downstream of it, so to speak, lies the fundamental issue of
deforestation or, to euphemize, forest replacement. Trying to measure, assess,
understand and explain, control and reduce deforestation, or at least coordinate
it – yes, yes, coordinate – , implies a constant back and forth assessment of the
fundamental factors, such as poverty, as well as instrumental ones, such as
agricultural expansion, that interact and lead to deforestation.

2 Mekong Update, 3 (2), April 2000, p. 2

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