Institutional  Capacity  Assessment    

Project  Activity  3.1  for  the  Project:  

Developing  a  piloting  model  on  payments  for  coastal  wetland  ecosystem  services  in  Mui  Ca  Mau  National  Park  in  the  context  of  climate  change  contributing  to  poverty  reduction  in  local  community  

   

 THIS DOCUMENT IS SPONSORED BY

     Project  sponsored  by  The  Swedish  International  Development  Cooperation  Agency  in  Vietnam    Project  Partners    Biodiversity  Conservation  Agency,  Vietnam  Environment  Administration,  Ministry  of  Natural  Resources  and  Environment,  Vietnam  Research  Center  of  Forest  and  Wetlands,  Vietnam  Forum  for  Reforms,  Entrepreneurship  and  Sustainability,  Sweden        This  report  prepared  by  Trang  Tan,  Daxam  Sutainability  Services  (www.daxam.se)      Citation  BCA,  FORES,  FORWET  2013  Institutional  Capacity  Assessment,  Stockholm,  Sweden      Project  Team  Ulrika  Stavlöt  Ana  P  Aponte  Scott  Cole  Linus  Hasselström  Daniel  Engström  Stenson    Nguyen  The  Dong  Huynh  Thi  Mai  Nguyen  Chi  Thanh  Nguyen  Tuan  Phu  Nguyen  Tien  Dung  Le  Huu  Phu        

Contacts  Biodiversity  Conservation  Agency,  Vietnam  Environment  Administration,  Ministry  of  Natural  Resource  and  Environment  Management  No  10,  Ton  That  Thuyet  Street,  Cau  Giay  district,  Hanoi,  Vietnam  Tel.:  +  84  4  37956868  Ext.3108    Forum  for  Reforms,  Entrepreneurship  and  Sustainability  Bellmansgatan  10  118  20  Stockholm,  Sweden  Tel:  +46  08  45  22  660

Table of content

Contents  1.  Background  and  purpose  of  report  .....................................................................................................  5  

2.  Approach  .............................................................................................................................................  6  

3.  Organization  structure  of  BCA  ............................................................................................................  7  

4.  Findings  and  recommendations  ..........................................................................................................  8  

Annex  1:    References  ............................................................................................................................  14  

Annex  2:    Organizational  chart  of  MONRE,VEA  .....................................................................................  15  

Annex  3:  Interview  questionnaire  .........................................................................................................  17  

 

Abbreviation BCA Biodiversity Conservation Agency BO Biodiversity offset MONRE Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment NP National Park PES Payment for Ecosystem Services ES Ecosystem Services REDD Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation VEA Vietnam Environment Administration

1.  Background  and  purpose  of  report The project’s goal is to establish a PES structure that will enable poor local communities in Mui Ca Mau NP to earn income from livelihood models that rely on services provided by coastal wetlands and mangrove forests and then be able to use part of this income to compensate the NP for the use of these ES. The project has four main objectives:

1. Develop a livelihood model for 20 local households aimed at reducing poverty and generating income for future purchase of ES from the NP;

2. Develop a mechanism and administrative system for buyers and sellers of ES to interact and conduct transactions (PES);

3. Improve capacity-building and public awareness of PES development and implementation in Vietnam and Sweden; and

4. Create a strategic partnership and long-term cooperation between Vietnamese and Swedish partners on PES development.

The purpose of this report is to provide background analysis that contributes to objective # 3. The analysis will focus on institutional capacity of PES policy making body-Biodiversity Conservation Agency (BCA), particularly how BCA staff understand and integrate market based instruments such as PES as one of the complimentary policy tools for biodiversity conservation policy. Suggestions for measurements that improve BCA’s capacity are made as a result of the analysis. In terms of scoping, the analysis also takes into consideration a wider context of other national policy making agencies such as the department of legal and policy, department of international cooperation and science and technology and the department of personnel organization within VEA. However given limited time for the activity, the report does not include analysis of local stakeholders, for example, provincial and district biodiversity agencies, Mui Ca Mau NP Administration, local administration and the community.    

2.  Approach    In this report, the assessment will employ the institutional analytical framework at three level; micro, meso and macro. At micro level, the human resources available are in focus, for instance, the levels and types of expertise, training, background and skills of officials. At meso level, organizational issues like procedures and management structures, systems of knowledge transfer and multilevel coordination are examined. Finally, at macro level, one needs to analyze broader assessment of linkages with values, norms and societal goals and connections with the larger policy network of stakeholders. The framework has been used by academies, for example Turnpenny et al., (2008) and Nilsson and Nykvist (2009) to identify institutional possibilities and constraints to the integration of environmental policy assessment approaches to the policy process with evidence found in the UK and Sweden system, or Ahmed and Sánchez-Triana (2008) to understand the institutional aspect of SEA in integrating environmental concerns in the policy process. The analysis uses 2nd information from reports and relevant literature and data collected from open-ended questionnaire survey with staff of BCA and VEA (see questionnaire in Annex 3). Eight BCA staff (33% of total BCA workforce) were asked to express their opinions of PES and other market based instruments and constraints that prevent the instruments to be institutionalized. In addition, three staff from the department of personnel organization, international cooperation and science and technology and policy and legislation within VEA were interviewed.  

3.  Organization  structure  of  BCA    BCA is an agency within the Vietnam Environmental Administration (VEA), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE). Its key mandate is to exercise state governance of biodiversity conservation. BCA’s main tasks include but not limited to a) policy formation and recommendation; b) instruction provision and monitoring of the implementation of biodiversity conservation policy and regulations; c) research of new economic tools (PES, REDD, BO, wetland credits) and research of climate change impacts on biodiversity and crosscutting issues to propose adaptation measures; and d) biodiversity conservation planning (MONRE 2012). The agency has 24 permanent staff and some contracted employees who work for specific projects. BCA is under management of a director and two deputies. It has an administrative office; units of biodiversity conservation planning, ecology, species and ABS and biosafety; and an international cooperation project unit which is set up as individual project office and lasts for the duration of each project.

Figure 1: Organization chart of BCA (Source: BCA 2012)    

WLC

DEPUTY DEPUTY

DIRECTOR

BCA OFFICE

INTERNATIONAL SECTION

PLANNING-FINANCIAL SECTION

LEGAL SECTION

OFFICE 79

DIVISIONS

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

PLANNING

ECOLOGY

ABS AND BIOSAFETY

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS

BIODIVERSITY CONSERVATION

CORRIDORS – PHASE 2

NATIONAL BIODIVERSITY DATABASE

PROTECTED AREAS

NBSAF

EBA

Alien invasive species

SPECIES

4.  Findings  and  recommendations Table 1 below presents findings, capacity gaps and recommended actions at three institutional levels. Those recommendations should be prioritized given the mandates and resources first within BCA, then VEA and MONRE to create an achievable capacity building action plans. For example, for the training budget planning in 2014, BCA can consider to request a budget line for soft skill training for staff (time management, teamwork, communication, project management, internet search, etc). The other activity could be that BCA, in collaboration with the department of international cooperation to seek out more pilot PES projects and training programs with international partners. Efforts to improve information flow within the agency can also be carried out. Creating clear job description and reward measurements for staff, leadership mentor program can be done together with the department of personnel organization. Actions at meso and macro level however require concerted effort at higher organizational level than BCA. Nevertheless it is recommended that BCA management are aware of these options. It is usually easier to start with measurements at micro level, nonetheless to be able to achieve total result one needs to consider taking actions at all levels since they are interconnected. For example the staff training for communication skill may not give the best result if the agency’s information flow structure at meso level is not in place.

Table 1: Findings and recommendations for PES capacity development at BCA

Key findings Capacity gaps Suggested actions Micro level

Staff are young and eager to learn

Lack of succession managerial team

* Design a leadership mentor program and reward young staff who participates.

Staff has university or higher education in biology, forestry, economics, environment and law.

* Staff lacks social science knowledge, i.e. community development, social behavior, conflict resolution, stakeholder management and gender equity. These are necessary knowledge for the application of the approach of stakeholder wide and community based PES measurement. * Staff lacks climate change background. No association between CC and PES as a CC adaptive measurement.

* Acquire expertise in: social science, social economics, environmental economics and climate change. * A long term plan to hire social scientist, environmental economist, social economist and climate change specialist.

Staff are multi-tasked, i.e. administrative work, meetings, preparing talking points for managers, contributing opinions to various drafted legal documents and specific project work.

Lack of budget to hire more staff.

* Increase hiring budget. * Restructure administrative function to be more separated from professional function (job description for each position)

Administrative work takes quite a lot of staff time.

Lack of time for PES training and PES work for professional staff.

* Soft skill training: time management * Restructure administrative function to be more separated from professional function (job description for each position).

Staff has basic knowledge of PES and views PES as a good tool to solve conflict between economic development and biodiversity conservation. Some staff can associate PES to their specific work.

Staff lacks of in depth knowledge on ecosystem valuation, economic valuation which are essential for good understanding and interpretation of the expert analysis on PES.

* Increase PES training budget, targeted at quality abroad education and international training cooperation programs. * Specific training on interpreting scientific report for policy makings

There are some in-depth research on PES theory and international case studies in biodiversity conservation, mostly done by outside experts or research institutes.

Staff lacks of in depth knowledge on ecosystem valuation, economic valuation which are essential for good understanding and interpretation of the expert analysis on PES.

Same as above

The knowledge is mostly obtained from workshops or internet.

*Staff lacks of PES field work experience that limits staff’s capability to connect theory and practices and hence can design more realistic PES policy. * Staff lack of professional language skills

* Create more PES field work that involves BCA staff. * Engage in international projects/workshops * Share PES field work results among staff. * English training for staff * Soft skill training: internet search skill

The PES research is not widely shared.

Lack of knowledge sharing structure and motivation for staff to do so

* Create and test a PES information exchange structure (including staff rewarding measurements) within BCA and further on within departments in VEA and other ministerial agencies. * Leverage the current practice of ‘sinh hoat hoc thuat’, makes the event agenda more lively with focused topics covering PES theory and field experience, policy dialog, best practices…

Most of the local branch staff comes from land administration background.

Lack of adequate knowledge and experience for biodiversity conservation work and new economic tool like PES

* Increase budget to train local staff on basic concept of PES and its implication to biodiversity and local livelihood improvement. * Invite local staff to attend training at national events. * Engage local staff in PES fieldwork

Meso level

‘Silo’ working practice within BCA. There is little intertwining among staff.

Lack of teamwork skills Teambuilding training to staff and management.

Work information obtained through personal network contacts.

Lack of clear structure and motivation for information exchange

Create and test a PES information exchange structure (including staff rewarding measurements) within BCA and further on within departments in VEA and other ministerial agencies.

Abundant information about biodiversity conservation both in hard and soft copy but not stored centrally. Project information is with project owners.

Lack of clear structure and motivation for information exchange

* Centralize a PES information portal, leveraging the infrastructure of the current Jica funded project that builds a national biodiversity database. * Create and test an information exchange structure (including staff rewarding measurements) within BCA and further within departments in VEA and other ministerial agencies.

Project formulation process is lengthy, resulting to outdated project contents.

Lack of mechanism to include new information into the project planning process.

* Revise the project formulation process which allows inclusion of new information/instruments such as PES. * Soft skill training: Project management

Horizontal coordination across sectors and ministries is limited.

* Lack of awareness, structure and motivation for inter-department coordination. * Lack of skills/technology to formulate coherent inter-ministerial policies for integrated natural resource management.

* Increase intertwining between BCA and counterparts at other ministries, first at managerial level. Cultivate managerial relationship at inter-ministerial level. * Create a forum to regularly exchange ideas, information of PES among counterparts (most importantly MONRE, MARD, MOF, MOT, MOLISA).

Overlapping and conflict ministerial mandates (i.e. who is responsible for mangrove forest in wetland? MARD or MONRE or both?)

* Lack of clear mandates. * Lack of motivation to formulate coherent inter-ministerial policies for integrated natural resource

Continue legal reform to reduce overlapping and conflict among ministry’s mandates. Needs macro level’s intervention.

management.

Limited vertical coordination: * ministries have limited access to provincial resources (due to decentralization system); * local staff lacks adequate knowledge and experience for biodiversity conservation work and new economic tools like PES.

* Limitation to implement realistic policies on the ground. * Lack of budget for local staff’s training.

* Increase PES awareness to provincial leaders so they can allocate more resources for PES work. * Increase interaction between national agency and provincial agencies.

Inter-agency coordination is passive and based on specific task. The most common form of coordination/consultation is sending draft documents for comment.

* Lack of interactive and instant feedbacks/discussion. * Lack of budget to organize consultative events? * Lack of coordination skills

* Soft skill training: team work, communication skill. * Increase budget for consultative events.

Macro level

National biodiversity conservation policy includes PES as one of the policy instruments.

Lack of implementing regulations

Continue pilot PES in biodiversity to institutionalize realistic PES regulations.

PES has been existed in different forms, particularly in forestry sector, PES has been formulated and institutionalized.

Needs for lesson learnt sharing between forestry and biodiversity sector

Build effective coordination structure with MARD to share information and lesson learnt.

In general, awareness of PES is limited. Some views PES as necessary but difficult to implement and that it requires tradeoffs.

Lack of holistic view of PES.

Create PES awareness communication at different levels, from top leaders to the public. The form of awareness communication should be different to different targeted groups: * for leaders: PES awareness dissemination in the form of briefing, policy dialog, case studies which highlight the policy implication of PES,

study tours of best practices; * for the public: PES awareness events which explain what it is and what it can do to the communities, the companies and the environment….

The legal formulation system in general still has overlapping and conflicting, resulting in confusing policies and regulations.

Need to consolidate and improve the effectiveness of the policy making process, particularly inter-ministerial policies

Continue legal reform

Annex  1:    References    Mackay & Russell (2011). Technical Assistant Consultant’s Final Report: ‘Socialist Republic of Viet Nam: Climate Change Impact and Adaptation Study in the Mekong Delta’ Monre (2006). Vietnam’s National Capacity Needs Self-Assessment for Global Environmental Management- Vietnam’s Strategic Action Plan for Global Environmental Management (final draft) Monre (2011). Decision # 2476/QĐ-BTNMT: Approval of the planning for human resource development in the natural resource and environment sector 2012-2020. ‘Phê Duyệt Quy Hoạch Phát Triển Nhân Lực ngành Tài Nguyên và Môi Trường Giai Đoạn 2012 – 2020’

Monre (2012). Introduction on Functions, Mandates, Powers and Organization Structure of Monre. Power Point Presentation.    

VEA (2009). Decision # 947 /QĐ-TCMT: Mandates and Organizational Structure of the Biodiversity Conservation Agency. ‘Quy định chức năng, nhiệm vụ, quyền hạn và cơ cấu tổ chức của Cục Bảo tồn đa dạng sinh học’

VEA (2010). Summary of human resource development need for environmental sector at national and local level to 2020. ‘Tóm Tắt: Nhu Cầu Đào Tạo, Phát Triển Nguồn Nhân Lực Ngành Môi Trường ở Trung Ương và Địa Phương Đến Năm 2020’

VEA (2011). VEA’s Staff Statistic (as of 31/12/2011). ‘Báo Cáo Số Lượng, Chất Lượng Công Chức’

VEA (2012). List of BCA staff

Annex  2:    Organizational  chart  of  MONRE,VEA    

Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) (Source: MONRE 2012)  

 

 

Vietnam Environment Administration (VEA)  (Source: MONRE 2012)  

 

Annex  3:  Interview  questionnaire    

Interview purpose: Need assessment for BCA to improve capacity to use market based instruments (ex. PES) for its state management of biodiversity.

1. What is your area of work/responsibility? • Your view about market based instruments in state management of biodiversity,

particularly PES? • Compare to other management tools?

2. How did you know about market based instruments? • Have you attended any seminar or training? Have you found them useful? (the

concept, methodologies, training method and materials?) • Do you know how a PES can be used? Have you used any of the knowledge

obtained? • Is PES part of your routine’s mandate? Other instrument? • How much time of your work is dedicated to PES? (by % on average)

3. In your organization, how is PES used? • How does the use of PES for state management of biodiversity reflect to the mission

of your organization? Is it clearly defined? • What are the procedures (instruction, guidelines)? • Who decides if PES is to be used? How? Your role? • When is PES used, in related to the state management of biodiversity process? • Does the use of PES involve other departments/stakeholders? How to work with

them? • The advantages and disadvantages of the inter-department collaboration? • How is information obtained for PES? What is the mechanism to share the

information? • How is the budget for the application of PES allocated? What are the budget sources?

Do you find that sufficient? Why? Why not?

4. In your opinion, what are the most three important obstacles in applying PES to state management of biodiversity and how to address them? 5. Your opinion about the legal documents relating to PES for biodiversity management?

• Are there sufficient legal documents? • Any gaps between law, implementation and enforcement? How to address them?

6. Your other comments to improve the application of PES in Vietnam?