Networks and International Cooperation of Public Policy Research and Training Institutions in Vietnam

By Dang Kim Son

1. Background

Vietnam’s transition from central planning to a market-oriented economy during the past 20 years is known as doi moi, or renovation. In this transition process, policy reform has played a decisive role as one of the most important factors contributing to the successful development of economy and society. In the course of institutional reform, policy research has been gradually specialized and decentralized. Several major decision-making and policy-setting powers, which were previously in the hands of the central government and key ministries, such as the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) or the Ministry of Finance (MOF), have now been distributed gradually among different concerned ministries. Furthermore, a considerable number of significant policy decisions have been decentralized from central to local authorities.

Every line ministry has formed agencies specializing in public policy research. Some institutes of strategy and public policy research were established quite early, such as the Development Strategy Institute (DSI: 1964) or the Central Institute for Economic Management (CIEM: 1978). Both institutes operate under the authority of MPI (the former National Economic Planning Committee). These institutes can be characterized as policy formulation and policy research agencies. In other ministries, most institutes of public policy and strategy research were formed during the second half of the 1990s, while some were created just two years ago, such as the National Institute of Posts and Telematics Strategy (NIPTS) of the Ministry of Posts and Telematics (MPT). The Institute of Policy and Strategy for Agricultural and Rural Development (IPSARD) of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), although it was established as Institute of Agricultural Economics already in 1982, began functioning as the think tank of MARD only since July 2005.

See Table 1: Year of establishment of selected institutes of strategy [ PDF 11.4KB | 1 page ]

The functions and mandates of every institute are different depending on whether their governing ministries have departments specializing in public policy or not. The approach to policy formulation has also been changed in parallel with the drive for specialization and decentralization. Previously, policies had been developed through centralized and bureaucratic decisions, while now they are based on scientific studies, which help identify policy issues and create economic and scientific foundations for different policy options.

The role of public policy research in supporting strategy and policy formulation has become increasingly important in the course of Vietnam’s administrative reform process and the transition to a market-oriented economy. Institutes of strategy and public policy research play a crucial role by carrying out policyoriented and basic socio-economic studies and by providing information in support of policy formulation. The activities of these institutes have been gradually specialized and are today independent from other ministerial departments in the policy formulation process.

Policy and strategy research institutes within governing ministries maintain official relations with each other, through recommendations or formal work assignments by ministries, and have developed semi-official relations by inviting individuals and study groups to join in research, write papers, teach, participate in councils to review and approve research proposals, and attend conferences. These institutes also collaborate with international partners, however, international relations are not yet meeting the demand and capacity of the policy and strategy research institutes.

2. Overview of the Status of Institutes of Strategy and Policy Research

Every institute of strategy and policy research in a government ministry has a specific function and mandate. In general, the size of these institutes averages 60 to 80 persons. The largest is the Development Strategy Institute (DSI) under MPI with 130 staff members. Institutes such as National Institute of Posts and Telematics Strategy (NIPTS) with only 20 staff members are among the smallest. Despite the small size, their staff are quite competent, however. Most of them are researchers with high qualification and research experience. The average ratio of graduates and postgraduates among institute staff is approximately 90%. Of these, the ratio of researchers with a postgraduate degree is between 12 and 40% - and even 50 to 60% in the cases of CIEM, HSPI and NIPTS (see Table 2 [ PDF 10.9KB | 1 page ]). In the case of ILSSA, however, the ratio of staffs with PhD degrees is only about 3%, as many former staff moved to senior positions in other departments within MOLISA.

While institutes share the strength of having highly qualified staff, they also share a common weakness in the fact that their researchers have different backgrounds, resulting in different research methodologies. The institutes’ young researchers do not have enough professional knowledge, while older researchers have more experience but lack computer and foreign language skills and knowledge of new research methodologies. In IPSARD, for example, only 30 percent of the staff are able to converse fluently in a foreign language and while most researchers can basically use a computer, only some 18% have the ability to use computers for data analysis. These constraints result from the strong dependence on the state budget with rigid and inflexible salary schemes, unreasonable benefits for staff, and the problem of ‘brain drain’. As a result, training and education of researchers in the institutes are weak.

All institutes of strategy and policy research play significant roles. They are located in the city center or near their ministries’ headquarters and they work closely with other ministerial departments and the ministry’s leadership. The state budget accounts for a large part of their operation cost (between 60 and 80% of the institutes’ budgets).

The clients and products of these institutes are diverse. For example, CIEM and ILSSA are directly involved in preparing draft resolutions, bills, structural reform proposals and other documents for central authorities (the Party, National Assembly and the Government). NISTPASS is involved in formulating strategic proposals for the Government and in preparing institutional reform plans for MOST. ISOS develops strategies and policies in public administration reform, civil servant management, NGO management, association management, and wage management. DSI and IPSI prepare many policies and planning proposals for state management and even prepare strategic planning for enterprises. IPSARD supports MARD by evaluating policy impacts and reviewing strategy orientations proposed by departments, etc.

Nevertheless, policy and strategy research institutes have yet to achieve a coherent position in policy formulation and decision making. For instance, institutes could participate directly in building policies or criticizing policy proposals objectively, or both. In the case of doing both, it is difficult to ensure the independence and objectiveness in policy formulation and decisionmaking. Clients of the institutes are mainly at the central level of government, with only few clients coming from the private sector or other parts of society. The institutes’ products include both long term research results (policy and strategy inputs) and short-term research results (answering policy inquiries, helping ministers respond to questions at National Assembly meetings, etc.), which together form a relatively heavy workload. Consequently, they are unable to conduct long-term, policy-oriented studies, which would make these institutes more effective.

Apart from policy and strategy research institutes, there are also public policy training agencies under some ministries. They are similar to policy and strategy research institutes in their relatively small size, the high rate of staff with high qualifications, good infrastructure and their close involvement in the ministries’ activities. For example, the College for Management Training in Agricultural and Rural Development II (CMTARD II) has 83 employees, including 34 lecturers, of whom 90% hold a masters degree. Such schools often offer management training based on the authority delegated to them by the National Academy of Public Administration. School trainees receive certificates conferred by NAPA, which enable them to take exams for “Senior Specialist”-level. These schools also provide training for experts to take exams for “Senior Technician”-level. CMTARD I and II also offer administration training programs for commune-level administrative staff, as well as management training programs for cooperatives and local small and medium-sized enterprises.

Some major localities such as Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have their own socio-economic research institutes to support the local leadership in policy formulation and planning. These institutes share the characteristics of ministerial policy and strategy research institutes (compact organization, high investment, modern headquarters, close link with local state management). For instance, the Ho Chi Minh City Institute of Economics has 80 staff, of whom 30 hold a PhD or masters degree. This institute plays three important roles: (1) consulting and preparing economic and urban management policies for the city (equivalent to the role of a provincial department); (2) participating in the development of guiding documents of the city’s committee of the Communist Party (equivalent to the role of a Communist Party committee); and (3) doing research, such as policy analysis and projection at the city level (equivalent to the role of a research institution).

Local policy research institutions and ministerial policy training schools also have similar weaknesses, such as the lack of a clear mandate in policy research and policy formulation.

These institutions, with their diverse functions, mandates, capacity, clients, and products, are part of a wide network of central and local-level institutions and overseas partners. The content and effectiveness of this cooperation is also fairly diverse and unsystematic. This study will analyze the cooperation in policy research and formulation among institutes and with other agencies, classified into three main groups:

• Relations with policy research institutions and policymaking bodies within the same governing ministry;
• relations with other domestic institutions other than those in the governing ministry;
• international cooperation.

2.1. Relations between institutes of strategy and policy research and other agencies within the same governing ministry

Relations in administrative management

The institutes of strategy and policy research are linked to departments of the governing ministry firstly through the administrative management relations. In principle, departments of each ministry are in charge of administrative management functions such as making policies and plans, allocating budgets, formulating technical criteria, monitoring, as well as ensuring proper policy implementation. For example, the Department of International Cooperation (monitoring the visiting international delegations, managing international projects and workshops, etc) and the Department of Finance (allocating state budget, controlling plans and approving the expenditures, etc) of a ministry exert strong influence. Only CIEM has a special position in this regards, as it is a so-called ‘first-level accountability body’ with a higher degree of independence: after receiving its part of the annual state budget from MPI, CIEM has full autonomy in allocating its budget for individual research projects without the need to obtain additional approval from MPI. It should also be noted, however, that this budgetary autonomy has recently been narrowed.

Local institutes of policy research such as the HCMC Institute of Economics receive research funds from the annual state budget to prepare policy drafts and plans, to review project proposals and carry out studies in support of the city authority’s decision-making.

The budgets of public policy training institutions come from different sources depending on each individual training program. For instance, CMTARD no. I receives funds from the Department of State Organization of MOHA and the college plans its administrative management courses based on this budget and MOHA regulations. In addition, some specialized ministerial departments, such as Department of Cooperatives and Department of Promotion of Agricultural Development of MARD also allocate budgets for training courses to CMTARD no. I.

The development of long-term plans, such as projection, strategy, and forecast are frequently assigned to other bodies than the strategy and policy research institutes: projections are often made by specialized institutions, which act as research centers and public service agencies, such as governmental consulting firms; strategy development is generally assigned to inter-ministerial taskforces with the involvement of different ministerial institutions.

Cooperation in the policy formulation process

As mentioned above, due to specialization, the functions and duties of policy and strategy research institutes in different ministries are quite different. However, most of them are not directly involved in the policy formulation process. Instead, they are responsible for (1) carrying out studies of macroeconomic policy and strategy orientation and sectoral development; (2) identifying policy issues; (3) collecting, processing and distributing policy and strategy information; and (4) establishing the scientific basis to support the policy formulation process. In addition, they implement socio-economic development projects, provide information, process data, and report to the ministry leadership to support decision making and state management. Another fairly important function these institutes have in common is to join in the assessment councils for policies, strategies and institutional proposals. The only two institutes directly involved in planning and making projections are IPSI and DSI.

Coordination in policymaking between departments and institutes of policy and strategy research usually follows one of three different patterns: (1) departments assign annual plans and projects to institutes, (2) departments and institutes implement joint projects and (3) departments and institutes exchange experts and information. These patterns of coordination can result in both close or loose relations between the institute and another ministerial department.

In cases of IPSARD, ISOS, HSPI and ILSSA, the ministry leadership and heads of departments assign missions, questions and requirements to institutes and listen to their feedback. Nevertheless, the voice of institutes in policy formulation is not as strong as in suggesting policy options, as decision making and policy formulation take place within departments and the ministries’ leadership.

Some institutes - e.g. DSI, NISTPASS, CIEM - are directly involved in policy formulation and, accordingly, play the same role as other ministerial departments. However, this role creates time constraints for the institutes and makes it difficult for them to maintain independent and objective standpoints, which allow them to criticize policy options. The involvement of institutes in policy making and their relations with policymakers in the governing ministries can be generally described by the followings procedures:

The parallel and corresponding procedure in terms of the workload during the policy formulation process: When the MOI formulates policies for industrial sectors (such as engineering, metallurgy, chemistry, textiles, leather and footwear, etc.), departments are assigned to implement policy projects and plans. They identify legal aspects of policy issues while IPSI is in charge of technical aspects of policy options. The ministerial departments and IPSI are jointly responsible for developing policy proposals. Then, the proposals are reviewed by the Science Council of MOI and reported to the ministry’s leadership, which ultimately promulgates the policies. In this procedure, policy making is a parallel process involving departments and the institute.

The parallel/not corresponding procedure in terms of the workloads: This procedure can be witnessed in the cases of NISTPASS, CIEM and the HCMC Institute of Economics. When ministerial departments are assigned to implement projects (on policy, strategy, institutional development, etc.), they often invite the above-mentioned institutes as their counterparts. Vice versa, when NISTPASS or CIEM are in charge of a project proposal, they call on respective departments to participate as their counterparts. Normally, departments and institutes assign their experts to join the taskforce of the presiding organizations. When the project is completed and NISTPASS or CIEM are in charge, they will send preliminary results first to the relevant departments (e.g. Department of Finance and Planning, Department of Science and Technology, etc.)and then to the Science and Management Council of the ministry, which reports to the ministry’s leadership. This procedure often takes place in several rounds. As a result, policy making is a parallel process among departments and institutes, but it does not correspond in term of workloads.

The participatory procedure: In MARD, MOHA and MOLISA, when a policy issue emerges, the ministry leadership usually assigns parts of the task to develop a policy to the responsible departments and institutes. For example, the legal department reviews existing policies, the technical departments draft policy options, while the institute carries out a survey and research to identify policy issues as well as to examine existing solutions, and to classify the scale and scope of issues. These procedures are principally implemented in parallel during the first stage of collecting information and data. Then, several meetings and workshops are organized for discussion and exchange of ideas. Finally, departments will formulate policies and their policy drafts might merely be forwarded to institutes for review. Hence, in this procedure the role of the institutes is limited to specific stages of the policy formulation process.

Conclusion

In general, relations between institutes and departments within the governing ministries vary across ministries and even within each ministry. Although relations can be categorized into the above three procedures, this does not imply that one institute follows one procedure only, rather it may follow different procedures for different issues. The quality of these relations depends greatly on the effectiveness of individual and institutional relations, which, in turn, can have positive or negative effects on the policy formulation process.

During the policy formulation process, the approval of draft strategies and policy drafts is carried out more carefully, systematically and effectively than other steps of the procedure. As a result, the relationship between institutes and specialized departments is closer. Naturally, the quality of evaluation remains strongly dependent on individual qualifications.

In many cases, the assessment and supervision of policy implementation is done by the same departments which formulate policies. Equally, some institutes involved in policy research may directly take part in policy formulation. Both cases can have a problematic effect on the objective evaluation of policy impacts.

One of the main reasons for the weakness of institutes in policy formulation is that the standard process does not include proper policy analysis as a scientific step to identify the impact of different policy options on different stakeholders. Only few studies exist which analyze the scientific foundations of policy issues prior to suggesting different policies and solutions. Hence, some policies are adopted without a clear theoretical basis. Experts involved in policy formulation are often selected for their seniority and personal relations rather than for their analytical and methodological skills. In addition, many policies are formulated under strong time pressure and with only limited funds and information available. A systematic procedure for the coordination between institutes and departments, which properly take into account scientific research, does not exist. Relations between departments and institutes vary and are subject to change depending on institutional capacities, personal relations and guidance from the ministry’s leadership.

2.2. Relationship between institutes and domestic bodies outside the governing ministry

In general, institutes have diverse relations with counterparts outside their governing ministries. Their partners can be policy research institutions of other ministries, other research institutes and centers, universities and colleges, Vietnamese associations and NGOs, media agencies, and a network of central and local authorities. The diversity also concerns joint projects and is reflected in the different forms of coordination among organizations and individuals:

• cross-sector strategy and policy formulation;
• joint studies and workshops;
• involvement in public policy training programs;
• provision of public services.

Involvement in cross-sector strategy and policy formulation

At present, the formulation of sector policies and strategies is undertaken by each respective line ministry. Cross-sector policies and strategies relating to different areas are jointly implemented by ministries. Generally, in these cases, one ministry is assigned as the coordinator. Departments and institutes represent their ministries in cross-sector meetings and workshops to collect and discuss information and ideas. They will have official correspondence in the case of critical issues or contradictions relating to benefits, regulations and policies. Information exchanges and discussions generally follow official administrative procedures, and it is the role of the research institutes to identify basic scientific issues and to provide information in support of the policy making process.

Participation in joint studies and workshops

At present, perhaps due to a lack of open bidding and available information, ministerial institutes seldom participate in national research programs. Many policy-oriented research projects are carried out by institutions without proper specializations and the quality of results is therefore often insufficient. In the case of studies commissioned by a ministry, usually one institute will be assigned to head the study and it will invite other organizations - e.g. strategy and policy research institutes of other line ministries - to join. However, it must be acknowledged that the vertical budget allocation procedure in ministries is not favorable for such inter-ministerial cooperation among research institutes. An official and effective mechanism enabling institutes to inform each other on their research, research outputs, and to share information, skills and resources, is lacking. The exchange of information, ideas and opinions among institutes is mainly achieved by inviting experts and researchers to participate in seminars, approval and assessment councils, or special subject workshops and annual review meetings. Thus, opportunities for institutes to become familiar with and share the research priorities in different sectors are few. Equally we find no systematic cooperation in cross-sector and cross-regional joint research activities, also because of limitations resulting form disparities in educational backgrounds, methodologies and research skills among institutes’ staff.

Nevertheless, one can identify cases in which cooperation between institutes is ongoing, e.g. in the framework of international study projects, local research programs or state-sponsored study tours and missions. In these cases, researchers from different institutes and institutions work together effectively in a cross-sector taskforce. They use the same approach to research, the same methodology and apply common scientific standards. As a result, their research outputs are rather good.

Local research institutes, such as the HCMC Institute of Economics, often act as sub-contractors for central-level institutes in different ministries. The local institutes then co-organize workshops and conferences, carry out research and implement activities in the locality. This procedure reduces costs for the central-level institutes and allows local institutes to participate in policy formulation and research.

Involvement in public policy training programs

Most strategy and policy research institutes also have a training mandate, in order to support and improve the expertise of researchers inside and outside the sector through long-term and short-term training courses. The institutes organize frequent training courses for their staff on policy research methodologies. Lecturers are both domestic and foreign experts, as well as staff from the institutes themselves. Support for such training courses is often provided by international projects and capacity building programs and they have made considerable achievements, not least because the training is linked to other studies the institutes are involved in. But the training courses have not followed a long-term strategy and trainees were selected unsystematically to merely meet the immediate requirements of the courses.

Other training courses relating to public policy are organized for participants outside ministerial institutes. However, these courses mainly aim at introducing and advising about policies rather than providing the scientific foundations for public policy formulation and analysis.

Civil servants regularly undergo skill training courses organized by the government. These courses usually use outdated methodologies with little practical content and do not encourage trainees to be active in learning. Meanwhile, important skills such as foreign languages, office computing and advanced professional skills are not included in these training courses.

Most strategy and policy research institutes also have a mandate to organize or participate in postgraduate education, usually by coordinating with a university. This mandate does not, however, mean that the institutes can all launch postgraduate courses because their staff lack the required academic qualification. At present only few institutes, such as CIEM and DSI, are offering a PhD training program. The master course in science and technology policy organized by NISTPASS in coordination with the University of Social Science and Humanities is one of the successful postgraduate programs, in which the degrees are conferred by the university. So far, nine masters classes with ten to twelve students each have graduated from this program. Coordination with the university is very useful for the education and training program of NISTPASS, as it provides the institute with sufficient highly qualified lecturers, and the university’s experience in designing the syllabus and curriculum.

Nevertheless, education programs and training courses offered by ministerial institutes do not meet international standards: lectures and methodologies are outdated, lecturers are unprofessional, entry requirements are low, facilities are poor and there is no link between training and practical policy research and formulation.

Some management colleges of ministries have state management departments like in the CMTARDs of MARD. Such departments are responsible for training in administration management skills, which includes policy formulation and implementation. Such courses are often a requirement for the promotion of a civil servant, therefore the knowledge or skill is not the main target for the trainee. Trainees are eager to join other programs, such as the training course on development policy for local authorities and enterprise managers. In many cases, participants have to use funds from local budgets to pay for the tuition, as in the case of courses at the Agricultural Extension Department and the Business Administration Department of CMTARD II. Teachers at this college often develop case studies at local level which can then be used as syllabus for the training course. Unfortunately, the budget for such case studies is quite limited.

Most Vietnamese universities do not offer an official program in public policy research and formulation yet. Training courses have, however, been organized at universities as part of international projects, in order to provide policy analysis and research skills. One such program with high quality is run at the Hanoi Agricultural University and is funded by the Government of Australia. Most trainees in these courses are university lecturers, but neither can they transfer their new skills to regular university curricula, nor can they use their skills by participating in active policy analysis and research. As a result, despite the good quality of the training program, the degree of effectiveness is low.

Provision of public services

Strategy and policy research institutes can be active in policy consulting, research management, or provision of other public services for partners outside their governing ministries. These activities not only generate a significant source of income for the institutes, they also improve the cooperation between institutes and local and other institutions. Public service provision has not yet been fully exploited by institutes, partly because they continue to rely on the state budget as their main source of income, partly because of their strained human resource situation. IPSI is an exceptional case in exploiting income-generating public services through consulting enterprises and their counterparts inside and outside MOI on management, investment, technology transfer and other public services.

Another example is the Business Administration Department of CMTARD II, which signs training contracts with state-owned enterprises. Activities include training for directors and heads of crucial departments on policy management issues requested by the enterprises (for instance equitization, ISO, etc.) These contracts often include case studies at the enterprise, which allows the trainer to get close to the enterprise’s operations and design the course in a relevant way.

Another interesting, and special activity is the so-called ‘Central Director’s Club’, which is operated by CIEM. This club was established a long time ago and has some 160 members, mostly of state-owned enterprises. The club’s main activities are training courses and monthly seminars.

Conclusion

Just as relations with departments and institutions within the governing ministry, the relations with other organizations outside sector ministries in general and with other institutes of strategy and policy research in particular are dominated by unsustainable individual contacts. Therefore, the exchange of information and ideas among institutes of strategy and policy research remains limited. Relations are generally short-term and bilateral in character, rather than multilateral. And because they are unsystematic, they lack uniform procedures.

It seems that the degree of decentralized authority granted to the institutes is insufficient, as they must still obtain approvals form higher authorities. This leaves them rather passive in establishing external relations. As we have seen, there are a few examples of official relations among institutes, such as the ‘Collaboration in developing the program of science and technology management reform’ (Box 1), where the central government manages the relations and links institutes together through their governing ministries. Consequently, the most effective way to connect different strategy and policy research institutes for cross sector policy issues seems to be through official ministerial procedures.

Strategy and policy research institutes obtain few public service contracts, although they receive a considerable state budget in comparison to technological research institutes. The HCMC Institute of Economics goes so far to refuse implementing public service activities and claims to lack the necessary human resources and wants to avoid commercialization of public policy research. This issue still needs to be discussed and adjusted in order to determine the most suitable procedure for public service.

2.3. International cooperation

Similarly, international cooperation of institutes of strategy and policy research is also diversified in terms of relations and partners. Their main international counterparts are international research institutes, multilateral and bilateral organizations, domestic and foreign NGOs, universities, international centers for policy and strategy research, international networks of research and public policy training, etc. The key forms of cooperation are research contracts (with experts and institutes), international research and capacity building projects, exchanges of experts and information, etc. The contents comprise of development programs, joint studies, training and education programs, workshops and conferences in Vietnam and abroad. Researchers of institutes of strategy and policy research are also involved in international cooperation on an individual basis, on which they write articles, give lectures, etc. Through these activities, the parties can exchange methodologies and information, and strengthen the capacity of strategy and policy research institutes.

Public policy training and research are a priority of many sponsors active in Vietnam in implementing programs on rural development, poverty alleviation, public service reform, public administration reform, etc. These sponsors are multilateral institutions such as the World Bank, UNDP, ADB, FAO, UNIDO, WHO, etc., and bilateral donors such as SIDA, CIDA, DANIDA, ACIAR, IDRC, SDC, etc.

Interviewed experts of UNDP told us that all UNDP technical assistance for Vietnamese partners involves public policy to some extent. UNDP has also made an effort in supporting research and capacity building in public policy to strengthen inter-sectoral collaboration. UNDP is conducting a large-scale capacity building program for the GSO, which aims not only to improve the office’s annual data collection to better support policy analysis, but also to link it with other ministries, so that they get acquainted with and use GSO data more effectively in their sector policy formulation. In the future, this will help research institutes to improve their research quality and the decentralization of policy formulation. UNDP uses the same approach for their poverty alleviation program, which is coordinated by MOLISA. In fact, UNDP would like to call for related ministries to join in components of the program, especially in policy formulation and implementation.

The World Bank is an active sponsor of policy research programs through three major channels: (a) hiring international experts to support Vietnamese partners; (b) loan programs; and (c) conducting small-scale research that matches with Vietnam’s requirements.

Research funded by the World Bank relates for the most part to macroeconomic policies such as impacts of accession to WTO (implemented by the Institute of Economics of VASS); (ii) poverty assessment (implemented by MOLISA); poverty mapping (implemented by an inter-ministerial task force); impact of growth on the environment (implemented by CIEM and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment). The World Bank also sponsors research into sector policy and strategy (in agriculture, public health, education, public administration, environmental management, water resources, forest protection, etc.) Within programs funded by the World Bank, there are some limited training activities relating to public policy, mainly as part of loan programs and as on-the-job training for staff.

ADB has conducted some development and poverty alleviation support programs and has also established activities related to policy, mainly regarding training rather than research and mainly as part of loan programs (State-owned Enterprise Reform Program, Administration Reform Program, Education Quality Reform Program).

Bilateral organizations also have many activities that considerably influence policy formulation, such as a public administration training program by the Swiss government for the National Academy of Public Administration and a monitoring and evaluation program for MARD.

According to the interviewed experts of international organizations, it seems that international support for policy research and training usually faces difficulties in finding a Vietnamese counterpart which is competent to implement the program. In many cases, Vietnamese partners are unable to separate policy formulation, policy implementation, and policy research. Additionally, the lack of long-term strategy in ministries’ policy formulation and complicated administrative procedures hamper international collaboration. Even collaboration among donors themselves is weak in many cases. As a result, program support is often unsustainable and has limited effectiveness.

Three current trends among international donors are to move (i) from direct support for development projects to support for policy research and formulation, to move (ii) from conducting policy and strategy research to capacity building support for Vietnamese institutions in policy research and formulation, and to move (iii) from technical assistance to administration and institutional reform. These trends will clearly create new opportunity for policy research and training institutions in Vietnam.

Besides financial support, international organizations also mobilize a large number of experts as well as implement many policy-oriented studies themselves, most of them together with local institutes, thereby enhancing their capacities.

Strategy and policy research institutes use international support to set up policy research funds. These funds can be used for studies of the institutes or for inviting other research institutions to bid for research projects, in which the ministry’s leadership has an interest. For example, NISTPASS was involved in the Vietnam-Netherlands Research Program and IPSARD is currently involved in the Mobilisation de l’Information au Service des Politiques Agricoles (MISPA), funded by the French government. Both programs have funds as described above. These funds, with competitive bidding procedures and assessment of independent consultants, have been exploited efficiently and have contributed to enhancing the cooperation among strategy and policy research institutes and between institutes with other policy research bodies.

One highly effective international cooperation is the support for international postgraduate education. For example, the Ford Foundation has granted some 20 master scholarships in economic and policy research to MARD (some IPSARD researchers are benefiting from this program), Sweden and The Netherlands are providing scholarships for researchers of NISTPASS, Sweden is providing scholarships for researchers of CIEM, etc.

The Vietnamese staff, who studied public policy and management abroad on governmental and international scholarships at internationally recognized universities have led Vietnamese institutes to access modern technologies, new sources of information, and to opening up international research relations. Institutions which have made significant contributions to this success are the John F. Kennedy School of Government (USA), Australia National University, Institute of Social Studies (Netherlands), University of Philippines, etc.

Fulbright Economics Teaching Program in Vietnam also plays an important role. This is a unique systematic training program in public policy and management with modern methodologies and combining research with training. A large number of students who have graduated from the one-year Fulbright program are now working for government agencies and many senior Vietnamese officials have participated in the Fulbright policy training courses.

The strategy and policy research institutes have also improved their international cooperation by becoming involved in international policy networks. For example, CIEM now is an official member of four networks: (1) the Global Development Network (GDN), which is funded by the World Bank and includes public policy research and consulting organizations all over the world (CIEM is part of a branch of GDN, the East Asian Development Network); (2) DAN, which is funded by a Canadian organization and comprises Vietnam, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia; (3) the Mekong Delta Economic Research Network funded by the Swedish government; and (4) the Association of South East Asia Economic Research. ILSSA is a member of (1) the Institute Network for Labor Research of ASEAN, which is funded by the Japanese government and has carried out many policy-oriented studies, and (2) the Poverty Analysis Research Network funded by the World Bank as a five year initiative. NISTPASS is member of the Southeast Asian Science and Technology Policy Network under the auspices of UNESCO.

Each network has different activities, the most common of which are conferences, joint research, information exchange and training courses. However, due to the difficult administrative procedure involved in sending Vietnamese government officials to international workshops, conducting joint studies, and selecting and using foreign experts, this form of international cooperation has not yet been exploited efficiently.

In conclusion, international cooperation is diverse across the different institutes of strategy and policy research. Each has one to four major international cooperation programs and some small scale programs on average. International cooperation of units under each institute can be strong or weak depending on their personnel capacity. For example, if one unit has more researchers who have been trained abroad, its international cooperation is likely stronger than that of other units. It can be said that most international cooperation activities are shortterm with limited effectiveness, and Vietnamese partners are often not active enough. Usually, the international partner is the one seeking cooperation from the Vietnamese counterpart. Many training courses have repetitive contents and procedures, few practical applications and few training manuals; many trainees does not have chances to apply what they have learned because they are transferred to other units after completion of the training courses. In addition, the capacity of researchers in terms of professional knowledge and foreign languages is often not sufficient to work directly with foreign partners. Furthermore, leaders and international cooperation divisions of institutes do not have enough experience and capability in this field.

In order to overcome these constraints, the further decentralization of authority to the strategy and policy research institutes and the establishment of an active cooperation mechanism are among the most beneficial solutions for better international cooperation.

3. A New Vision for Public Policy Research and Policy Formulation

New demands on public policy formulation

The need for public policy research has become greater as policies today are more complex due to the larger number of stakeholders, cross-sectoral and cross-regional issues, increasing need for projections, and competitiveness. Research into economic, social, political and environmental aspects must provide scientific foundations for strategy and policy formulation. At the same time, the central government is delegating authority to local governments, enterprises in all economic sectors and individuals, while Vietnam is gradually integrating into the global economy. Consequently, policy options must take into account the feedback from various stakeholders in various contexts.

The development of science and technology, the spread of modern communication technology, the expanding role of mass media in identifying policy issues and reflecting people’s opinions have created opportunities and new information demands and debates among people about policies and strategies of the State. In addition, the ongoing public administration reform towards transparency and accountability, decentralization and empowerment, requires that policies and strategies are formulated scientifically and systematically along with the responsible participation of stakeholders. The deepening international integration requests the policymakers formulate policy and strategy in conformity with international rules and agreements.

As a result of the above opportunities and challenges, the policy formulation process is necessarily becoming more specialized and more independent, objective and scientific, taking into account cross-sectoral issues and international criteria. The scattered, discontinued and individual relations in policy formulation need to be rearranged to become sustainable and systematic. Researchers participating in policy formulation must improve their analytical capacities and information systems and statistical databases must be set up, in order to connect strategy and policy research institutes. Researchers at institutes, universities and colleges, NGOs, mass organizations and unions, and international bodies must be mobilized to participate in public policy training and research.

Attempts to link economic research activities

The greater demands for policy research require coordination of policy research institutions and experts. As a result, there are more and more initiatives aiming to bring about such coordination, for example:

The Vietnam Development Forum (VDF): The Vietnam Development Forum was established in 2004 by a joint research project between the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS) in Tokyo and the National Economics University (NEU) in Hanoi. VDF aims at connecting policymakers and researchers through workshops, conferences, books, publications, a website, etc. This forum has proved to be helpful for researchers of NEU through several small studies. To some extent, this forum has linked with some agencies of MOLISA, MOI, etc. While responding quickly to new policy issues, this forum does not have enough profound professional activities, and its influences on policy formulation are limited.

The Viet Nam Economic Research Network (VERN): This is a project between the Institute of Economics of VASS and IDRC, which began three years ago. Focusing on globalization, poverty reduction and economic growth, this network mobilizes domestic and international experts through research programs. Although its target is to carry out research into policy-related issues, its overall goal is broader, including promotion of scientific innovation, linkages among researchers, and capacity building. Its strength is that it supports research proposed by independent research groups with comprehensive support in designing, organizing, developing methodology, and analysis. An independent research committee of domestic and international experts selects projects for support. Each project receives modest funding (US$ 20,000) for 2 to 3 years, which allows for a solid scientific contribution but not for a rapid response to immediate policy questions. So far, members of the network are rather diverse (15 members from Ho Chi Minh City, Hue, MOLISA, NEU, MPI, etc). Another advantage of this network is its good support to training, as some 20 university lecturers participate in the research projects and make use of the research results in their lectures.

The MISPA Project: This is the project funded by French embassy previously for ICARD and now for IPSARD. Its goal is to support research and information dissemination for policy formulation in agriculture and rural development. Policy questions raised by policy makers of MARD are turned into research projects through MISPA’s research fund. Research groups nationwide can bid for these projects. The projects’ scale is similar to those of VERN but have a shorter duration of normally one year. Research results and information about policies are disseminated to policymakers in different ministries through many channels: books, bulletins, website, and seminars. Generally speaking, MISPA combines the strengths of VERN in research and of VDF in provision of information. However, its capacity-building activities are weaker than those of VERN and its links with universities are weaker than those of VDF.

There are further related activities apart from these three examples. Most of them are also international projects and/or be expanded, but they have yet to provide an adequate development strategy for research and training institutions in Vietnam.

Proposal to improve collaboration among policy research and training institutions

In the future, multilateral collaboration in activities relating to public policy will be crucial and must include:

• collaboration among policy and strategy institutes;
• collaboration between policy and strategy institutes and policy training schools;
• inter-ministerial and interregional collaboration among policy research, formulation and training institutions; and
• international collaboration.

Such collaborations would ensure the effective utilization of human resources, equipment, technology, and information, thus enabling the mobilization of scarce resources for crucial activities as well as the use of research results in policy training and policy formulation. Mutual benefit, improved quality of policy formulation and sustainability of this collaboration would be the results. Such collaboration is also the prerequisite for improving quality and effectiveness of policies and should, therefore, have top priority in public administration and policy reform.

Currently, all research institutes express the desire to collaborate. However, such collaboration takes time to develop. A starting point could be collaboration among selected strong institutions. and could move from loose to close collaboration, for example from a forum (loose collaboration), to an agreement (moderate), to the formation of a ‘club’ (relatively close), and finally to a network (close) and a proper association.

However, in order to achieve such collaboration, institutions need to overcome the following obstacles: the differences in training and methodology among researchers, weak information systems, underdeveloped libraries, and poor infrastructure. Another issue is the lack of a precedent of collaboration between link with a research fund. They are useful initiatives and should institutes in different ministries, making such new collaboration difficult. The lack of transparency or a strong mechanism to attract institutes to join the network further weakens the drive towards collaboration, as does the difficulty in arranging resources to maintain such collaboration, especially in an initial stage. In order to overcome these initial difficulties, efforts from all three sides are needed: from institutes themselves, from the government and from the international partners. We suggest the following steps to establish a collaborative network of united and comprehensive research and training institutions:

• Policy research institutes need a research collaboration program to jointly contribute to and comment on strategic issues such as five-year plans, economic development programs, the Communist Part congresses etc.
• The weak components in policy formulation, such as literature review, projection of policy impact, assessment of policy implementation, must be improved. Therefore, a standardization of the policy research process is necessary, starting from conducting surveys, developing databases, and defining research methodology, to presenting policy options, so that institutes of strategy and policy research can exchange information and ideas. These steps need to be organized systematically and match with international standards for policy research institutes.
• An effective information system to supply and exchange information and ideas is needed, in order to improve research quality and link policy research institutes with end users and individuals who are affected by policies. Publications, periodical seminars, and specialized media for policy dissemination should be supported as well.
• To enable the unbiased commentary and consultative role of research institutes, they need a certain independent status in terms of personnel management, finances, and organization. First pilot models in this direction should be encouraged and supported.
• Research needs to be closely linked with training. A team of policy researchers must be formed, which requires developing a specialized training program with high-quality textbooks. The training program should combine analysis with case studies, international experience with specific experience of the situation in Vietnam. Ideally, students would be trained by researchers from policy research institutes under the supervision of domestic and foreign professors.
• A collaborative mechanism should be developed to link institutes, departments, divisions, experts through seminars, forums, reviews, journals, etc. An official network is needed to form a think tank to support state management organizations and solve inter-sectoral and inter-ministerial policy issues.
• Research funds should no longer be controlled by individual ministries, but rather be subject to open and competitive bidding procedures.
• Local training programs in public policy should aim at supporting local policy makers. These programs could be implemented by the schools of management training in different ministries.

Opportunities for international organizations to support policy research and training activities.

International support plays an essential role in equipping research institutes and policy training agencies, harmonizing database systems, sponsoring information networks, promoting data processing and analytical methodology. Eventually this support will lead to the creation of international-standard research, which includes collection and processing of data, report writing and the dissemination of results.

International projects should help research institutes to buy user licenses for software, foreign and domestic statistical databases, and to update electronic policy libraries. These resources would be shared among policy and strategy research institutes within the newly-established network.

Lessons from VERN, VDF and MISPA show that policy research funds are very effective tools to support the decisionmaking process in ministries and can provide important information sources for policy training. These funds should, therefore, be further developed and, where possible, connected with research funds from other government ministries.

Initially, it would be important to support networking activities, such as linking separate websites to form a general website, and jointly holding seminars and training courses.

International support could play a strong role in linking public research with public policy training, for example by supporting a program training government officials on how to do policy research and work with policy agencies; or by supporting a program training researchers to take part in teaching or preparing training materials. Information exchange between research and training would also benefit from international assistance.

International support could also help institutes to send their researchers to various international conferences to enhance their international cooperation activities. This would help research institutes to get in touch with other relevant institutes, organizations and networks all over the world and to invite their specialists to work in Vietnam.

To accomplish the setup of a research system that has proper functions and meets the Government’s requirements, it is necessary to support pilot models of autonomous research management, creative ideas for the bidding for policy research projects, models linking policy research and training, and for models of attracting talented people to policy and strategy research institutes and resisting the brain-drain issue. In all these aspects, international support can play an important part.

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1. Rathindranath Pal
   (posted 23 April 2008 / 08:10:32 PM)
   
   It’s a good initiative and relevance to Viet Nam at this moment as its economy is quickly growing like China and India. Without strengthening the capacity of public policy and research it is difficult for a country to be on right track of development.