On two days 16 and 17 July, Workshop: Sharing experiences on community operation and maintenance of small scale infrastructures at the extremely difficult communes and villages organized in Thanh Hoa province hosted by the Ethnic Committee. Mr. Son Phuoc Hoan, Deputy Chairman of the Committee chaired the workshop.
Ms. Fiona Quinn, Vice Chairlady of Development Board of Ireland Embassy attended the seminar. More than 100 participants were governments staff at all levels and people coming from different provinces which were benefited from Program 135 as Hoa Binh, Ha Giang, Thai Nguyen, Cao Bang, Thanh Hoa and Nghe An provinces.
The Centre for Research on Initiatives of Community Development (RIC) is one of the prominent NGOs from supporting people of the Program 135 communes to maintain infrastructure works. At the workshop, Ms. Vu Ngoc Uyen – Adviser of the project Community-based maintenance has introduced effective procedure of operation and maintenance infrastructure works in Hoa Binh province. Practical evidence of the project also shared in the workshop by Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu – Noi village, Doc Lap commune. In addition, many representatives of the provinces of Ha Giang and Cao Bang also presented the experiences in the maintenance and decentralization to communal authorities acted as an investor. The results and the experience shared by the organizations and the participants proved that community was qualified enough to operate and maintain small scale infrastructure works. The decentralization to the communal level as an investor was really necessary, and brought efficiency in investment.
Ending the workshop, Mr. Son Phuoc Hoan stressed: “Program 135 Office will acquire all the experiences shared today to complete the period of 2016 – 2020. We appreciate the results of the research group and the model. Maintenance of small scale infrastructure works needed attention to how the next period conducted better. The model of community-based maintenance infrastructure works is well, however to replicate largely it need further researching because there are still something that are not inconsistent with institutional regulations or geographic. I see that citizens, relevant agencies still lacked of interest for maintenance. The mechanism of empowerment, settlement are entangled when done. Capital for maintenance does not have separate line, in additional, transfer slow, not enough for working, limited capacity at some levels. This is a real situation. “
Mr. Son Phuoc Hoan also stated the fundamental solutions to solve the problem: “the first is the need to have adequate mechanisms ensuring consistent implementation from national to local. The second is the capital for maintenance need to be proposed into line, decentralized to communal level with clear accountability structure. The third is to strengthen decentralization in direct management role, if decentralization without guidance, I think that the community groups hard dare to get done. It should have a mechanism to manage infrastructure works to increase efficiency. The last is strengthening capacity of management, planning, settlement, construction and supervision for communal government staff. This should be documented, with manuals to show high consistency in implementation, sanctions of reward and punishment to motivate good working. To date Program 135 built on sixty thousand works, without interest for maintenance, the works will be damaged and wasted. This is a policy that the Program 135 really need focused “./.
Some pictures at the workshop:
Ms. Fiona Queen – Irish Embassy gave opening speech of the workshop
Ms. Vu Ngoc Uyen – Adviser of the project presented in the workshop
Mr. Nguyen Van Hieu – Noi village, Doc Lap commune shared experience in the workshop
