JOINT COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS debate -
Tuesday, 21 Nov 2006

Overseas Development Aid: Presentations.

Chairman

The next item is a discussion with representatives of Irish Aid, ActionAid Ireland and Plan Ireland on Ireland's aid programmes in Vietnam. I welcome them to the meeting. At a previous meeting it was agreed the joint committee should pay special attention to Ireland's aid programmes in Vietnam and Mozambique, two of the specially chosen countries on which Ireland is concentrating its efforts. It was also agreed that the committee would closely examine the situation in both countries and ultimately produce two comprehensive reports unique to each of them. Mr. Brian Arnold of Agenda Consulting has been appointed to assist the committee in the production of the reports. Mr. Arnold, who is in the public gallery, is most welcome to this meeting. Mr. Arnold will be given copies of the various submissions which have been made to this committee on Vietnam and Mozambique. He may have further meetings with the relevant non-governmental organisations as he sees fit. In addition to the oral presentations we will hear today, we have received written submissions on Vietnam from Plan Ireland, ActionAid Ireland, Irish Aid, Trócaire, Dóchas and Bóthar. I would like to record the committee's appreciation for these comprehensive submissions, which will be of great assistance to it in compiling its final reports.

Vietnam has been in the news quite often recently. It has just successfully hosted a meeting of Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation, or APEC, which has 21 member states in the Asia-Pacific region. Vietnam's economy is making rapid progress, albeit from a low base. Its efforts are driven by exports. The Vietnamese economy grew by an impressive 8.4% in 2005, making it the second fastest growing economy, after China, among the economies of the APEC countries.

Vietnam is still a very poor country, with a per capita GDP of just €440. Agriculture represents a substantial part of the economy. Indeed, the rural economy accounts for approximately 90% of the economy. If the current rate of growth continues, Vietnam may in the years ahead begin to emulate the development and economic achievements over the past 30 years of other Asian countries and regions, such as China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Singapore.

I had the pleasure last Friday of meeting Madame Ton-nu-thi-Ninh, who is a member of the Vietnamese National Assembly and the vice president of the assembly's foreign affairs committee. She told me how much the Vietnamese Government appreciates the Irish Government's commitment to providing aid to Vietnam. She suggested that Ireland's aid might best be targeted in areas and sectors in which it could make a real difference. I was particularly impressed by her presentation on the needs of Vietnam and on how the Vietnamese Government is tackling the many difficult problems which are faced by that country. I am sure we will hear much more about Vietnam's development needs from our guests at today's meeting.

I welcome Ms Mary O'Mahony and Ms Olga McDonogh from ActionAid Ireland; Ms Sabrina Brett and Mr. Colin Lee from Plan Ireland; Mr. Noel White and Mr. Damian Boyle from Irish Aid; and Mr. Conleth Brady from the Department of Foreign Affairs. I also welcome Mr. Eamonn Casey from Dóchas and Mr. David Moloney from Bóthar, who are in the public gallery.

As the committee is hearing a number of presentations today, I ask that they be restricted to approximately seven or eight minutes each. The presentations will be followed by a question and answer session at the end. If everyone is in agreement, I propose to take the presentation from Irish Aid first, followed by ActionAid Ireland and Plan Ireland. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Before we commence, I advise the witnesses that while Members of the Houses enjoy absolute privilege in respect of utterances made in committee, witnesses do not enjoy absolute privilege. Nevertheless, the members of the committee tend to be quite careful with the utterances they make. Caution should be exercised, particularly with regard to references of a personal nature. I ask Mr. Noel White of Irish Aid to make a presentation.

Mr. Noel White

I thank the Chairman and the members of the committee for taking this initiative in respect of the Vietnam programme. About 12 months ago much the same team came to talk to the committee about the position in Timor-Leste. We found that exchange extremely helpful. We have been speaking to Mr. Brian Arnold about the report he is preparing and, obviously, are available to provide any further assistance or backup we can.

We have circulated the text of my intervention. Given the time constraints, I do not intend to read it entirely; I will touch on some of the main points. However, a copy of the text is available to the secretariat of the committee.

Our overall programme in Vietnam dates back to a decision taken by the Government in 2004 to open an embassy in Hanoi. It was to have responsibility for a south-east Asian programme which would encompass not just Vietnam, but also Laos and Cambodia. An interim programme was put in place in 2005. We are working on a longer term strategy covering the period 2007 to 2010 which we hope to finalise in the new year.

The message is as described by the Chairman in his introduction. Essentially, while Vietnam has made significant progress and there is an atmosphere in which to work, we are very clear in our approach to the country and in our development assistance programme that there is still a significant level of poverty and deprivation which needs to be addressed. Much remains to be done if the growth which Vietnam has achieved to date is to be sustained.

The Chairman mentioned the economic context, the significant annual growth in GDP in the range of 7.5% in the last decade, much of it dating from 1986 when the economic reform process, Doi Moi, started. It led to the progressive introduction of a market economy. The committee will be familiar with the political context. Vietnam is a one-party state, with significant decision-making authority delegated to sub-national levels. The Communist Party, however, retains a monopoly of power. There is broad agreement that much remains to be done as part of the reform process in the legal and judicial system, as well as in the areas of governance and corruption. Progress also has still to be made in the area of human rights.

Moving to the development context and question of poverty, this is the primary focus of Irish Aid's approach. We saw significant progress in Vietnam between 1993 and 2004, with the overall poverty figure ranging from 58% in 1993 to 20% in 2004. These trends have been accompanied by continued improvement in the key human development indicators, with significant progress being made towards the achievement of the UN millennium development goals. As I said, however, much remains to be done. An estimated 17 million people are still living in poverty. There are also considerable regional disparities. There is increasing potential for a widening of the gap as the country becomes wealthier through economic growth. The particular focus is the question of ethnic minorities and the level of poverty in rural areas, in which regard the statistics are less impressive. About 61% of ethnic minorities which account for just 13% of the population, are still living in poverty. Overall, however, they account for 39% of the poor in Vietnam.

We describe our initiative as an interim programme, on the basis that we have not had a formal strategy in place. Nonetheless, there is a clear linkage between what we do on an interim basis and what we will do within the framework of the overall strategy. It has four main elements — poverty reduction, governance, support at local government level and support for the private sector. At government level we have worked with the UN capacity building programme to ensure better service delivery to the rural poor.

In the private sector, we have had a particularly useful engagement with the Mekong Private Sector Development Facility, which has a footprint. This is an operation which favours and encourages private sector development across the region in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. We found it particularly useful in seeking an entry point for our support to the private sector which, it is generally agreed, presents the greatest potential at this stage for job creation, improving incomes and reducing poverty. In addition, we operate a specific health sector project called the Ireland-Vietnam blood-borne virus initiative, the objective of which is to bring Irish expertise to bear in reducing the spread of blood-borne viruses, including HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C, which are prevalent.

Our engagement in Laos and Cambodia is at an early stage. We do not have a presence in those countries. For the most part, we have been involved there in helping to work in the area of the clearance of mines and unexploded ordnance, which date back to the war in the 1970s which they refer to as "the American war". Much unexploded ordnance from that period is still to be found in Laos, in particular, and in Cambodia. This obviously creates its own unpleasant dangers but is also, at a more mundane but no less important level, a major blockage to economic progress and development and on the useful use of land.

In the future we are looking at a significant up-scaling of our engagement in Vietnam and in the region over the next five years. This is in line with the plans which were in place at the start when the Government decision was taken in 2004. It is significant at this stage also because we are starting from the low base of what we have had over the past two years. It is also in line with the resources which are available to us in an expanding programme.

As I stated, our overriding objective will continue to be poverty reduction. We will work to support the delivery of basic services and social protection. We also want to work to promote economic transition and the growth of the private sector and, in parallel as part of a balanced package, we will continue to work in the area of strengthening accountability and equality across society.

The Chairman mentioned the committee's contacts with the Vietnamese parliamentary committee. We have been working and will continue to work on strengthening parliamentary capacity. We will be working equally on the area of access to justice and the rule of law. I will leave it at that for the moment. The full text of the statement is available to the committee.

Chairman

It is best at this stage to take questions from members to Irish Aid. Then we will hear presentations from the NGOs to whom we may put questions also.

Deputy Carey

I welcome Mr. White's presentation. I cannot claim to have an in-depth knowledge of Vietnam or Cambodia. Clearly, we would support the evident focus on poverty reduction and good governance.

In African countries, in particular, there has been a considerable emphasis on education, whether through the direct delivery of education, through support for teacher training programmes or support for teacher centres. While the objectives are poverty reduction, improvement of governance and setting up small and medium-scale enterprises, it struck me that somewhere among these would have been a necessity to underpin the education system. I am sure there is a good reason that education is not clearly adverted to here, but I wonder if it is even part of a sub-programme of our engagement in this region. I do not know, for example, how the levels of literacy compare with worldwide norms or the participation rate at primary level. Is there universal access to primary or other levels of education? This interests me because I believe education is the key to all such development programmes, whether it be at adult, primary, secondary or other levels of education delivery.

Deputy Mulcahy

I also welcome the presentation. When one understands how poor the average person in Vietnam is, one can appreciate why this work is essential and why the Government decided to include it in the Irish Aid programme. I have two brief questions. First, I note that funding will rise to €17 million in 2007 and to €21 million by 2010. Do we support Irish non-governmental organisations, NGOs, financially? If so, do the witnesses have details in this respect? Obviously they operate there, given the presentations the joint committee is about to hear. For instance, the Christina Noble Children's Foundation operates in Vietnam. I want to establish whether we support such organisations.

The south-east Asia programme only covers Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. While my next question digresses slightly from the subject of today's meeting, it is somewhat relevant. There are many extremely hungry and poor people in North Korea. Are there any thoughts, ideas or plans to go there to assist? The answer is probably "No", because we are probably unwelcome there. However, such people should not be forgotten. If one believes half of what is reported in the newspapers regarding events in North Korea, members should be aware that there is poverty on a scale that is even worse than in Vietnam. Moreover, the fact it is under a dictatorship should not act as a deterrent. Vietnam is a communist, totalitarian state. However, we have made a decision to be neutral in this regard because of our focus on ordinary people, which I support. In general, does Ireland have any plans to assist people in other poorer parts of the region?

Senator Ryan

I note the EU is engaged in dialogue with Vietnam regarding human rights, which is welcome. The relevant issues include the death penalty. Is the issue of the death penalty only raised with poor and powerless countries? Is it ever raised with rich and powerful countries or powerful countries that are becoming rich, such as the United States and China? While I have no difficulty with raising the issue of the death penalty as a matter of human rights, I have a difficulty with doing so selectively.

I refer to poverty in a country such as Vietnam. While the witnesses must excuse my lack of up-to-date information, is it defined by one of the international criteria, such as people living on less than $2 per day, or is the definition based on internal references?

One of the briefings received by the joint committee mentioned that Vietnam is a major rice exporter. I have a recollection of the existence of considerable international obstacles regarding exports and imports of rice, particularly those which originate in Japan. While I may be mistaken, we are attempting to assist this country.

Ultimately, is it intended to operate the programmes in Laos and Cambodia on the same scale, in terms of expenditure, as the programme in Vietnam? Is this part of the strategy to meet the welcome commitment to reach our UN targets in five or six years? I do not wish to go into the issue of that strategy but is the south-east Asia strategy part of a coherent strategy because of the knowledge of expanding resources or does it operate independently of that?

Senator Kitt

I very much welcome what Mr. White said. He spoke about the decentralised form of local government being rolled out. I imagine from what he said that there must be great difficulties in rural areas. He spoke about poverty and even basic things such as the provision of drinking water under some local government system and the environment generally. Will he give us more information on that?

Mr. White spoke about rural areas and Deputy Carey raised a point about education. There was reference to HIV-AIDS. Perhaps Mr. White will tell us more about the general health services in the country as well as about education.

Mr. White

I thank members for the various questions that I will try to answer as comprehensively as I can. They cover quite a range of areas.

Chairman

When we met Madame Ninh, the vice chairperson of the Vietnamese foreign affairs committee, last Friday, she asked us to try to avoid overlap with too many people going into the one area and said that we should try to target provinces, some of which are very poor and have no donors, a point made by Deputy Carey. Apparently, mountainous areas are in great need. Madame Ninh mentioned, in particular, mountainous areas and ethnic minorities where development is very slow and difficult. I believe Senator Kitt raised the question of incomes there, and suggested that the incomes would be extremely small based on the averages. If theirs are by far the lowest, their incomes must be very low when the average is approximately €440per capita in GDP.

The situation in rural areas is very difficult. We get the impression there is progress in Hanoi and in major cities but the rural population is considerable. Approximately 90% of the populations live in rural, mountainous and agricultural areas. There are considerable problems there. Madame Ninh said she would like to see effective targeting by our NGOs and by Irish Aid, although she very much welcomed the work being done.

Deputy Michael D. Higgins, Senator Mooney and our foreign affairs adviser, Michael Baylor, were with me at the United Nations last week and by chance, we met the other vice chairperson of the Vietnamese foreign affairs committee, Ngo Anh Dzung. He said they were very anxious that we visit at some stage. Perhaps 17 May would be a good time.

Perhaps Mr. White would like to respond. He may have longer answers and he might supply them afterwards.

Mr. White

I will answer the questions in the order in which they were asked. With the Chairman's permission I will ask my colleague Mr. Damian Boyle to answer some of the questions. Deputy Carey asked about education statistics. I understand the origin of his question in that Vietnam is not a classic Irish aid intervention compared to the programmes we have run in the more developed of the developing African countries. In those classic aid programmes we have a sectoral approach through health, education, governance, justice and law and order. This is a different approach. We have had to adapt our approach to the different circumstances and this is as it should be. We try to use the lessons we have learned in Africa, where applicable. The primary mechanism we support is the poverty reduction support credit, PRSC, a budget support mechanism which is a platform for the areas that are not seen, such as education and health. It has a wide range.

Deputy Carey asked for an outline of what is happening in education. We have some of the basic social indicators, which are helpful. Education is generally good compared to what we are used to in many other countries in which we work. There may be a quality issue, as there often is under such circumstances, but with that caveat the literacy rates for children and adults aged 15 to 24 is 94.5%. Primary school net enrolment is 94.4% while secondary is 65%. That gives a sense of what is happening.

Senator Kitt asked about health, which comes under the same broad heading. I have some of the health statistics. The key statistic is life expectancy, which is 73.1, compared with 77 in Ireland. The maternal mortality rate is 85 per 100,000 live births while infant mortality is at 18 per 1,000. Under five mortality is 28.5 per 1,000. Nonetheless there are gaps in the system, which we try to plug as much as we can. It is not a classic approach such as the clearly-defined sectoral approach we use in Uganda, Mozambique and other African countries in which we have worked.

Deputy Mulcahy asked about NGOs and about North Korea and other countries. The NGOs present will wish to speak about their activities. This team is primarily concerned with the programme country budget, which is at the government-to-government end. In another part of the forest that is Irish Aid we have our NGO civil society sector which is used in Vietnam, where we channel support through NGOs through a series of mechanisms. It ends up in the same place, but NGOs have a significant autonomy on how they spend their funding, depending on the mechanism they have used to obtain it. Representatives of ActionAid are present and will have their own figures which they can offer. The Christina Noble foundation is also active, particularly in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon. Additional funding is channelled through that mechanism.

Deputy Mulcahy asked about other countries and specifically about North Korea. The white paper is clear on the focus of the programme for the future. Leaving Asia to one side, broadly speaking the focus of the programme is Africa and will remain so in terms of concentration and best use of resources and building on skills we have acquired over the years. That is not to say other countries are left to one side because I refer to our direct programme engagement in those countries, working directly with governments. Nonetheless, across the spectrum through Irish and international NGOs and support we channel directly into international bodies and sub-bodies of the UN in particular, we provide support in more than 90 countries. Concern, one of our major funding partners for Irish Aid, is active in North Korea. Regarding Senator Ryan's questions, Ireland is entirely consistent in its bilateral and multilateral approaches in respect of the death penalty. They are not applied selectively. Mr. Boyle will explain the slight discrepancy in the criteria used for poverty and how we use local interpretation of figures.

We seek to upscale in Laos and Cambodia but this is a challenge of a different nature. These countries are smaller in population and we do not have a presence on the ground. We also have a resource problem in respect of how to spread what we have with our small team there. The engagement with Laos and Cambodia is an initial attempt to create a network of contacts with the authorities in those countries. The levels of poverty and need there are such that we expect to increase the volume and type of engagement.

We have learned to harmonise our efforts with other donors and not to overlap. We work with them but we try not to intrude on areas in which they are working. We seek to add an Irish identity while working with other donors. We expect to work more closely in the province of Bac Kan, the third poorest province. The ethnic minorities, rural population and mountainous areas are a focus of what we do. Our work there reflects what we have done in other countries, where we have tried to engage with the rural poor so that this informs what we do through Government, allowing our information to feed Government policy dialogue.

Mr. Damian Boyle

Some 17 million people live in poverty, representing 20% of the population. These are defined according to the local Vietnamese poverty line. This is much lower than the international standard of $1 dollar per person per day. The Vietnamese poverty line defines a poor rural area as having an income of 200,000 Vietnamese dong per month, or €120 per year. In urban areas, the income level amounts to €156 per person per year.

Chairman

That makes income levels clear. I thank the officials for attending. We will suspend to allow the next delegation to appear.

Sitting suspended at 2.45 p.m. and resumed at 2.46 p.m.

Chairman

We now resume in public session. I welcome Ms Mary O'Mahony and Ms Olga McDonogh from ActionAid Ireland and Ms Sabrina Brett and Mr. Colin Lee from Plan Ireland. I call on Ms McDonogh to make her presentation.

Ms Olga McDonogh

On behalf of ActionAid Ireland, we extend our appreciation to the joint committee and, in particular, the Chairman and the clerk for inviting us. I would like to introduce my colleague, Mary O'Mahony, a trustee of the ActionAid Ireland board. We have prepared a brief presentation which I understand the committee has a copy of. We will provide some brief background information on the organisation and specific information on the work we undertake and support in Vietnam, both from our own publicly-raised funds and funding from Irish Aid.

ActionAid Ireland is an independent Irish non-governmental development organisation founded in 1984 with its own independent board of trustees. ActionAid Ireland raises its own funds in Ireland, principally through regular support from 7,500 donors via child and community sponsorship. ActionAid Ireland has received funding from Irish Aid since 1995 and is currently in receipt of three-year funding under the civil society scheme. I have attached an appendix setting out the funding we have received from Irish Aid for Vietnam to the back of the presentation.

We are a founding affiliate of ActionAid International, which has its headquarters in Johannesburg in South Africa. We work in 42 countries in Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe. Our international strategic plan entitled "Rights to End Poverty" outlines the six key thematic areas in which we work in all of these countries. These are as follows: women's rights; the right to education; the right to food; the right to human security; the right to a life of dignity in the face of HIV and AIDS; and the right to just and democratic governance.

The focus of our work is on poor people and fighting poverty. Our approach is a rights-based approach to development where we try to enable poor people to fight for and gain their own rights. In each country, the country programme is managed and implemented by national staff and funded by the northern affiliates, official donors, trusts and foundations. Within this framework, ActionAid Ireland supports development work in four key partner country programmes — Kenya and Malawi in Africa and Vietnam and Nepal in Asia.

Much has been said about the context of working in Vietnam so I will not discuss this in any great detail. Suffice to say, development there is impressive. However, despite this impressive progress there are significant groups of poor and excluded people including women, children and ethnic minorities. There are widening disparities between people living in rural and urban areas and between the rich and the poor. It is these increasingly excluded groups on whom we focus in our work.

While mass organisations in Vietnam such as the Women's Union have been successful in providing services, they have not facilitated the development of civil society organisations that can influence government policy. The growth of civil society organisations has been slow to date and the focus has been also very much on service delivery but little has been done to tackle the underlying policy issues. It is hoped the new law on association will create a firm foundation for the development of member-based organisations. ActionAid Vietnam will work to support the development of locally-based civil society organisations, encouraging their participation in influencing policy and the empowerment of poor and excluded people.

There is also considerable corruption in Vietnam, particularly among government officials at local level. Government control of the media and civil society hinders the development of democracy. Therefore, supporting better governance is an important issue for non-governmental organisations.

ActionAid Vietnam was established and has been working in Vietnam since 1989. We currently work in 19 of the 64 provinces with a local staff of approximately 60 people. We concentrate on working in the most disadvantaged provinces with the rural and urban poor. We were the first international NGO to be given official government permission to work in the central highlands, the poorest and most isolated part of the country. We only received that permission this year.

ActionAid Vietnam focuses on a number of key development issues, namely women's rights, the right to just and democratic governance, the right to life and dignity in the face of HIV, food security and the right to education. This work is carried out in partnership with the most excluded groups including women and girls, ethnic minorities, poor farmers, rural-urban migrants and people living with HIV.

I will give some examples of our work there. In the case of women and girls, including trafficked women and children, we focus on tackling low pay, exploitation in factories, trafficking to nearby countries for forced labour and the sex industry, low access to education and proper health care, violence against women, the absence of women in decision-making roles and increased vulnerability to contracting HIV. In the case of ethnic minorities, who are among the poorest communities in Vietnam, they live in remote and mountainous provinces characterised by difficult natural conditions, geographical isolation and limited access to productive resources. Our focus here is on access to food, health and education.

With regard to rural poverty, around 90% of the poor in Vietnam live in rural areas. Our focus is on increasing access to food through increased control over production, resources such as seeds, land water and credit. For poor people living with HIV-AIDS, the focus is on preventing the spread of the disease and care and support for those who suffer from it. With rural-urban migrants, our emphasis is on combating exploitation in factories through raising awareness of workers' rights and entitlements.

ActionAid Ireland has supported development in Vietnam since 2004, providing particular support for education for ethnic minorities in the northern provinces, particularly in Ha Giang and Cao Bang, two of the poorest provinces in the country. The issue here is that the majority of Vietnamese people are known as Kinh and almost all of the trained teachers in the country come from this majority group. The problem in schools in the ethnic minority areas is that the children speak only their own ethnic language and the teachers speak only the majority language, Vietnamese. When children cannot understand what they are being taught or find it difficult to learn the majority language, they frequently give up. The work we support involves both providing teacher training for teachers from ethnic minority communities, providing ethnic minority language training for teachers from the Kinh majority, providing in-service training for school assistants and providing teaching materials for poor schools.

The work supported on women's rights sets out to raise women's awareness about their rights, create structures for women and men to get support at the community level to deal with domestic violence, provide information about trafficking and give support to women who have been trafficked as well as to sex workers. This work is very sensitive in Vietnam but it is very important as trafficking is on the increase.

The work with women factory workers has been very successful both in raising the awareness of employers about workers rights and supporting workers to claim their rights.

The Reflect methodology, based on Paolo Freire's literacy through practice, was originally designed by ActionAid. It is now used worldwide and has been very successful in Vietnam with the World Bank, GTZ and five major international NGOs all using the methodology. It is important that Reflect will be recognised officially so that it can be used widely throughout the country.

Funding from Irish Aid has enabled ActionAid Ireland to support some key development initiatives in Vietnam and both ActionAid Vietnam and ActionAid Ireland welcome the decision to establish an Irish Aid programme in the country and we look forward to working closely with Irish Aid on the ground. ActionAid Vietnam has already engaged with the Irish Aid programme and we are happy to be of further assistance in the future.

As part of its programme we would like Irish Aid to consider funding education in some of the ethnic minority areas as we consider education to be of key importance in the fight against poverty. Education requires considerable investment, much more than an NGO can provide so we would welcome Irish Aid input into this vital area of development. We also encourage Irish Aid to provide support to vulnerable women, both women in poor rural areas and also migrant women who are forced out of rural areas to work in very harsh conditions in factories in the cities. Governance and public accountability is an important national issue and one which Irish Aid is well placed to engage with.

Chairman

We will return to questions on both presentations afterwards.

Mr. Colin Lee

I wish to introduce my colleagues and to thank the committee and the Chairman for allowing us to make a presentation. I am the national director for Plan Ireland and my colleague, Ms Sabrina Brett is the programme manager and she will make a presentation on our work in Vietnam.

Plan Ireland was established in Ireland in April 2003 but the organisation is far older and has been around in an international form since 1937, having been established during the Spanish Civil War. Our international headquarters is based in the United Kingdom and we are working in 48 different programme countries, world-wide. We have 16 national offices, inclusive of Ireland, that support the organisation's work in the fields of advocacy, programme funding and other types of private individual funding. We have been in receipt of funding from Irish Aid for a number of our world-wide programmes. Our current focus is on west Africa. A total of 5,000 regular donors to our overseas programmes are based in Ireland. Our work is mainly focused on improving the lives of children and we adopt a child-centred approach throughout all our programmes. We place a high focus on education, both in terms of humanitarian response and of development work. Our relationship with Plan Vietnam is quite close, although as yet, we have not received nor have we sought funding from Irish Aid for those programmes, because we are working to prop up our west African programmes. However, we have been quite heavily involved in private fund-raising both for programmes and disaster risk reduction in Vietnam, to prepare communities for natural disasters that frequently occur in that country. We also have a presence in Laos and Cambodia. We welcome the initiative from Irish Aid to set up in Vietnam. It is a very important initiative as it is an extremely needy country. Plan Ireland and Plan Vietnam would be more than willing to assist in that process.

Ms Sabrina Brett

I am quite conscious that my colleagues from ActionAid Ireland have mentioned quite a few of the problems that we too have concerns about. Rather than go through our presentation, I shall focus on particular priorities for Plan Ireland. We have been present in Vietnam since 1993. I have submitted our country strategic plan to the committee which outlines our plans for the 2005-10 period. Our particular concerns are child protection, early childhood care and development, and quality basic education.

One of the issues identified is that children do not fully develop and retain basic learning competencies. An ideal school would have competent and motivated teachers with active participation from children. Parents and communities would also be encouraged to involve themselves in school governance. We favour active teaching-learning methods accompanied by appropriate teaching aids. We also want to develop safe, child-friendly learning environments. The curriculum should be relevant and appropriate and contain local content suitable for ethnic minority groups. There should also be high children preparedness, meaning that children are healthy and well-fed and are therefore productive while attending school. Children should be participative in school and are empowered to learn properly. We aim to be supportive of the Government in terms of teacher training.

Improving early childhood care is a particular area of importance for us. As ActionAid Ireland and Irish Aid have mentioned, while some parts of the education system are quite well supported, that is not the case for ethnic minorities, preschool activities and health care programmes for very young children. Plan Vietnam intends to increase access for children aged under six to child-friendly early childhood care and development services. By this we mean kindergarten services where teachers would be instructed in child-friendly methods appropriate to the local context. We also hope to improve the quality of early childhood care and development services through teacher training. We aim to train teachers to identify child malnutrition and to be aware of issues such as child abuse.

We are also seeking to improve the quality of home-based early childhood care and development services by working with parents to identify issues such as nutrition and child abuse. We hope to provide capacity building for our partners and stakeholders in this area. For example, we will make investments in local capacities with local parents for the provincial and district commission for population and family and community, the Department of education and training, the Department of health and other organisations.

Child protection is an extremely important issue for us. We feel that children, especially those from poor and migrant families, are in need of protection. This is especially due to the migration of children and families from rural to urban areas. Given the household registration system, children who are migrants in an area where they are not registered are unable to access services such as education and health care. Therefore, their parents must pay fees for these services. Plan Vietnam hopes to begin raising awareness on children's rights, improve access to and quality of public services for children in need of special protection and improve child protection in Plan-supported areas.

A further issue for Plan is that children are at risk or suffer from accidents, injury or abuse. This is a serious problem in Vietnam, where a national survey in 2001 showed that 1.5 million children were injured — one child is injured every 20 seconds — so this is a serious issue for us. To tackle this, we would like to see capacity building for children, parents, other caretakers, communities and relevant government agencies concerned with child abuse, accidents and injury prevention. This would operate through support for the commission for population, family and children in its development of comprehensive and child-friendly materials on child abuse and child accident and injury prevention for different audiences such as groups of children, parents and government authorities. We would also work closely with the commission for population, family and children and the young pioneer council to select core groups of children in community schools and multi-grade classes to provide training on basic knowledge, skills and injury prevention.

We advocate taking concrete action to reduce the number of children being killed and injured in accidents. This will be achieved by creating child safe homes, schools and communities through provision of simple things like covers for wells and water tanks, gates, fencing for schools, railings on bridges, speed breakers, road warning signs and so on.

Another issue for Plan is that children and poor women and men are not fully involved in the decision-making processes that affect their lives. Although there has been the grass roots democracy decree, to which Ms O'Mahony and Ms McDonogh from ActionAid referred, there has also been the volunteer law. Women, those from ethnic minorities in particular, are not being included in the decision-making process, which is particularly detrimental to development. Plan hopes to ensure that children and communities are fully involved in programme developments to support the grass roots democracy decree and promote children's participation in all programmes and development processes.

Plan's programme approach is that it is a child-centred organisation and children are the focal point. We will ensure that children are included in the decision-making process and that their voices can be heard. Child rights are an extremely important issue for us. We work to achieve these through participatory processes and building relationships. Whenever Plan enters a community or works with a community, we ensure that men, women and children are involved in all aspects of decision-making and that they lead and manage any community development projects.

We also work through involving groups and organisations, such as women's groups and youth groups, through partnership and networking — particular partners would be the Vietnamese Government and relevant ministries — and through advocacy at a national level. For Plan, child protection is a major issue, particularly with regard to current issues. For example, there is much physical, psychological and sexual abuse of children, as well as neglect, exploitation, commercial sexual exploitation and much child injury and death from accidents. This is an area on which we will put particular focus in coming years.

Deputy M. Higgins

I apologise for being late. I was attending another meeting and could not make it earlier. I wish to ask a question that may relate to the Irish Aid presentation. The presentations I have just heard were excellent in their concentration on children and on change from the base. We have also received three briefing documents from the Department. One of the most striking aspects of Vietnam, which I visited in 1998, is that an entire generation is missing as a result of what happened in that country. A curious feature of the Department's documents is that they do not refer to that missing generation, even though it affects Vietnam's demography in a crucial way.

Similarly, a large proportion of the population of the neighbouring country of Cambodia comprises people who are dismembered or disabled, or have been brutalised in some way. Such factors represent a striking aspect of the region. When I welcomed Irish Aid's decision to get involved in Vietnam, I suggested that Cambodia, which is much poorer, and Laos should also be included. Such a decision would help to save time. I will talk about the briefing documents and Ireland's relationship with the countries under discussion. A small investment in Cambodia would help to save that country's heritage. There is a person working in the capital of Cambodia with absolutely precious records — the oldest records in Cambodia — on the basis of a scholarship given by a UNESCO worker. Nobody else is of any assistance in that regard.

Our cultural connection with Vietnam is also important. Vietnam has a small but brilliant film industry. Its documentaries are among the best in the world. I have had meetings with representatives of the Vietnamese film community and members of the politburo who were responsible for such investment in years gone by. That is an important connection.

I would like to mention two more aspects of Vietnam which are worth including in the background briefing material. The vibrancy of Buddhism affects Vietnamese society in several crucial ways. Those who have visited Vietnam will be aware that the details of interment — where people are buried — affects land transition because people are buried in their fields with appropriate monuments, etc. The connection between a person's fields and the history of the person's family is part of our psyche.

When we speak about countries like Vietnam, we should note that they have advanced recycling schemes. Some of the most efficient uses of water are to be found in Vietnam. The same volumes of water are recycled to be used for up to a dozen different purposes on small holdings. I do not suggest that such practices are general, but they are there to be observed. We should learn from them.

While I am speaking about the general background to this issue, I suggest that the committee should include on its agenda the need for a debate in the future on the concept of "good governance". The manner in which the term is considered by the World Bank, for example, is most contestable. If one is to use the term "good governance" in a proper and scholarly way, one should refer to the need for people in Vietnam, for example — more than 50% of the people in that country live in rural areas — to take decisions in villages, communities and groups. In terms of the criteria of transparency for macro-economic investments which regularly creep into people's presentations, the World Bank talks about good governance. The macro-economic prescription is a single model which no country in Europe would have dreamed of encountering during the long Keynesian period after the Second World War. It is an intolerable imposition by the World Bank. It is a crude usage of the term "good governance".

I will continue repeating that the only scholarly study of the concept of good governance was conducted by the Raoul Wallenberg Foundation, which commissioned 12 people to write about the subject. People do not have to believe me — they can look at the scholarly exegesis of that concept. It will be worse under Mr. Wolfowitz. To anyone who dreams of putting it down I simply ask if he or she is talking about governing structures based on the traditions of people in villages? Is one talking about people who are ethnic minorities, people who live in mountains or cities? All people who use good governance à la Wolfowitz and the World Bank are circulating an abuse of a concept that could mean something. However, the way they are using it is an imposition. I have reversed my position in writing about clientelism internationally. I would prefer countries to move through the clientelist categories that are at least native, even if they are corrupt, rather than accept these imposed short-cuts, which simply will not work. The evidence is striking as regards that.

The freedom of association aspect is also very interesting. These are very good presentations and my only quibble is as regards the concept of good governance which has nothing to do with the work of the NGOs. If we are to achieve credibility we must be mindful of what the NGOs have been so good in reminding us about, namely, addressing the issue of trafficking. In Ireland we have not ratified the United Nations convention against the trafficking of women and children. There are 23 UN conventions that we have not ratified and four of them deal with children. We talk about the rights of the child in the Constitution as we talk about the protection of the child in the Constitution. However, even in relation to the protection of the child we have not ratified the convention on the trafficking of women and children. Nor have we ratified the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of their Families. It is very good that these issues are being highlighted because the region which includes, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and so forth is a region of the greatest concern as regards the massively abusive relationship with the north to the south in terms of exploitation, particularly of young females, and the evidence exists for that. The collaboration being referred to with Atlantic Philanthropies in relation to the blood-borne diseases is also a very important one.

As regards the Vietnamese economy developing until 1998 and then going into a slower growth phase, this is only superficial. It could be put another way. In Thailand, for example, the baht was devalued and it was worth about 15% of its value on devaluation, which had been preceded by "dollarisation". Vietnam actually survived the crisis by the simple fact that it had insulated its economy to a certain degree. That is the true story of the economic growth rate in Vietnam. It was because it was able to seal itself off from the Malaysian fire and from the effects in relation to Thailand that it did so well. I am glad of that, but it is very important that we are hearing from the NGOs. It is also very important that Irish Aid is in Vietnam.

At some stage we will discuss good governance as a topic on its own. We really have to discuss, as well, the question of urbanisation. All of the problems are in the movement from rural areas to the cities. As regards Hanoi there is a desperate need for us to just look at urbanisation, the rate of which is far faster than anything we have experienced to date. In the case of ActionAid Ireland, I very much support it and I am glad it has put in print that its approach is a rights-based approach to development. It is the only way to go. We have not gone that way, fully, yet. There is a big distinction between taking account of rights and having a rights based approach. Having a rights based approach means one accepts the principle and seeks to put it into practice. Equally as regards Plan Ireland, it is very good that it is laying such emphasis on improving education.

I will finish with one small warning to which our Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform might listen as well, that is, if one states that one will adopt a rights based approach and one proposes to accept the international disciplines on the rights of the child, then that must include all children, no matter where they are, and at home it must include the children of those who have come to work here. If we decide that children of migrants who have come to live in Ireland are not entitled on the basis of habitual residence to the same rights as other children, we give bad example and contradict ourselves.

Senator Ryan

I thank the two groups for the different, interesting and, to my slow brain, challenging presentations, but I have a few questions. ActionAid often mentions employees' rights. Is there any procedure to ensure that multinationals investing in Vietnam are required to meet at least national minimum labour standards and is there a burgeoning free trade union movement there? While one is not seeking international standards based on those in Sweden, for instance, one would like to believe there were some minimum standards. My experience is that if one mentions this to many governments in Asia, one would probably be accused of protectionism, if not neocolonialism, but I genuinely believe there is an important issue of acceptable minimum standards that are appropriate to a country.

I confess to being surprised that a government, which is as flexible and resilient as the history of Vietnam would suggest, would send teachers to teach children who could not speak the same language. Is there a historical reason for this such as a quasi-colonial relationship between the central government and the ethnic minorities, or is it just a mistake? If the former is the case, the solution is much more difficult than merely training a few teachers.

Would the representatives from Plan Ireland tell us a little about migration and migrants in Vietnam? Until recently, it has been a fairly structured and ordered society. I am surprised there could be significant internal migration and I would be interested in hearing a little more about it.

I emphasise that my background is in the NGO movement. Therefore this question is not hostile and merely looms in my mind. When do we get to the stage where more NGOs result in diminishing returns? I see the genius of NGOs in raising new ideas. While all new NGOs become middle-aged NGOs and old NGOs, they last forever. There are so many NGOs in Ireland at present that it seems, for the sake of the NGO movement, one must ask how does one get to the stage of believing that every NGO has a new unique role?

Ireland will now be one of the countries with the most rapidly expanding development aid programmes in the world. We will essentially double our aid in a short period of time. How do we avoid becoming the target of international NGOs, who see a potential source of funding here, and ensure that NGO involvement with our development aid is constructive and in the interests of those we are trying to support?

Chairman

That last question is a big one. To what extent is child labour a problem? It was mentioned on a couple of occasions, by ActionAid and by Ms Brett of Plan Ireland. To what extent is there progression in education? Earlier we were given figures suggesting a literacy rate for young people of approximately 95%. What proportion of the population continues in education beyond the age of 14?

The question about people with disabilities was raised. What supports exist for people with a disability? Is there any social security system? I presume it is very small, given the figures we have seen so far. How extensive is trafficking? We have been concerned about it in different situations, but we would like to know how widespread it is. The witnesses from ActionAid Ireland mentioned cases of trafficked women and children, tackling low pay, exploitation in factories and trafficking to countries nearby for forced labour and the sex industry. Can they expand on these cases?

With regard to the comment on when the NGOs become redundant, it crossed my mind that the people are giving great support to those organisations. It is like an open market in which NGOs specialise in particular areas and people give them support. I presume that Irish Aid will have to look rationally at the situation. We have had great support. Mr. Lee mentioned 5,000 regular donors in Ireland who are supporting the work of Irish Aid. That is part of the answer to the question. The Irish were the second highest per capita contributors in the world to UNICEF in 2004. This brings home the point that Irish people are very concerned, very outward looking and very good at helping people in disadvantaged areas.

Deputy M. Higgins

We should not forget that Vietnam has defeated all the permanent members of the UN Security Council, which is a great mark of distinction.

Chairman

I was aware of that. However, the Vietnamese are now moving very quickly into the market economy and there are some Irish companies in the country as well.

Ms McDonogh

I thank the members for all their comments and questions. I agree with Deputy Higgins on the issue of governance. In the ActionAid Vietnam strategy, we state clearly that we do not agree with the position of the World Bank. Our approach is to get excluded people to interact and mediate with the state, seek accountability and challenge the unequal and unjust power relations and so on.

Senator Ryan raised a question about employees' rights. We negotiate with the owners of factories and then get in to the factories. We then work with both owners and employees. We have done some primary research on this issue, looking at their terms and conditions, the long hours they work, how they are treated and their social supports. We have focused particularly on the footwear industry. Vietnam is the sixth or seventh largest shoe manufacturer in the world. By getting into the factories, we are working with the authorities as well as the workers. We are trying to bring both together. I visited the factories and I have seen the conditions in which the workers live. Many of them are young women from very poor villages. They come into the city and have virtually no support. The factory organises accommodation for them, paying them around $20 per month for working 14 hours a day. They never get home except for the three main festivals of the year. The conditions are overcrowded and 40 people might use one toilet and one well. We are trying to get them to become aware of their entitlements and we also make the employers aware of their rights as employers. There is some Vietnamese law on employment, but I cannot give Members chapter and verse on that.

Many of these factories are owned and managed by Taiwanese. It is not——

Senator Ryan

There are no free trade zones in Vietnam like those horrible places we hear about in the Philippines in which there are no labour rights at all.

Ms McDonogh

I am not au fait with so-called free trade zones. I am referring to factories in cities such as Haiphong, which are partly owned by Taiwanese, although Vietnamese law states that any company must have a Vietnamese partner. One cannot come in from outside and set up a factory alone, so Vietnamese partners are often appointed by the Government or the partners might be wealthy Vietnamese. We are working to get them to see the value in treating employees properly. We have had quite considerable success with that, but there is a long way to go. We have done this in a number of cities, including Hanoi.

The official language in education is Kinh, or Vietnamese as we call it. Every child who goes to school learns through that medium. There are virtually no trained teachers in the ethnic minority languages, so we end up with a situation where the Kinh speaking teachers try to teach kids from the ethnic minority communities who speak a variety of languages because there are more than 60 ethnic groupings. These children do not necessarily understand the Kinh language and this causes problems. We are trying to address those issues, as I explained in the presentation. Education costs a great deal of money and Irish Aid does not have the funds to address the problem on the scale it needs. We cannot do it nationally, but we could take a certain area and focus on supporting teacher training. One of the ways of helping the ethnic minority groups to develop is through education, because through education their own teachers, leaders, structures and support will then emerge.

The point made about the non-governmental organisations, NGOs, and diminishing returns is well taken. I would always define success in my area as working myself out of a job. ActionAid was originally a northern dominated NGO, but now it is southern dominated. Our headquarters are in the south, in Johannesburg. All country programmes are managed by local people. The staff in any given country are all from that country and one would only find northern people in the northern offices in Europe and North America. In that sense, we are working ourselves out of a job. If one looked at ActionAid ten or 15 years ago, one would have found that Europeans were managing those programmes. Now there is no European in any country programme. I suppose the country programmes are our way of facilitating the transfer of power to the south.

Trafficking is a huge issue and is very sensitive. Some Vietnamese Government Ministers will say there is no trafficking and that it is all migration. They use the term "migration" but much of it is trafficking. Examples of trafficking include women being taken across the borders to China or Taiwan to be forced into marriages with Chinese or Taiwanese men. Once they get there, they are imprisoned, live in very difficult situations and are totally vulnerable with no community supports.

People are also trafficked for the sex industry and to work. We have done research on this as well and have gone to the countries to which people have been trafficked. We have not only done the research in the villages in Vietnam from where the people come. We have gone to Taiwan, Cambodia and China and have documented this. The research is available and I can get it for members if they are interested. Women are often imprisoned, work long hours, etc. Trafficking for the sex industry is particularly harrowing. It is appalling and horrendous.

We are trying to create awareness in the villages from where people come. Group organisers go to the villages, say to the parents they will take their daughters and give them a certain amount of money, which is a huge amount for a small, rural peasant farmer. We are trying to create awareness at that level about the reality of trafficking. We are also working at the destination of the trafficking, which is perhaps unique.

We are not only working on prevention but with the people who have been trafficked to try to get them to see how they can get out of it because they become brainwashed, conditioned, etc. We try to help them to go back to Vietnam and to their own communities and to try ensure they will not be shamed when they go back or be a disappointment to their families and communities. That is the kind of approach we take.

Chairman

I hope we can communicate with Ms McDonogh afterwards if we need to.

Ms McDonogh

Yes. As I said, we would be happy to give the committee any information or research we have.

Chairman

I call Mr. Lee.

Senator Ryan

I apologise to Mr. Lee in that I have to attend another meeting which started five minutes ago.

Ms Brett

Would Senator Ryan like me to briefly answer his question on migration?

Senator Ryan

Yes.

Ms Brett

Vulnerability is really the problem which leads to migration. People live close to the poverty line and 4% of the population lives in areas extremely prone to natural disasters. This makes households extremely vulnerable to falling into poverty. Given the growth taking place in urban areas, we see the rural-urban divide persist with the poverty rate in rural areas increasing to more than five times the urban poverty rate. This gap fuels the urbanisation trend.

Many rural-urban migrants are at a disadvantage in the urban labour market due to their lower education and skill levels and are more vulnerable to poverty and economic shocks due to the loss of important social and support networks. They also are disadvantaged because of the household registration system which prevents migrants from registering as official residents outside their place of birth, which means that migrants and their children cannot qualify for government social services as residents at their destination point.

Senator Ryan

I thank Ms Brett.

Mr. Lee

I wish to make two brief points, one of which is on the issue of trafficking. Trafficking is not unique to Vietnam or the Asia region. We often make it a complex issue but when one scratches away the surface, it is quite close to home in that a relative takes somebody away from a village. We have worked quite closely in Vietnam and other areas on the preventative side, on the warning signs for which communities should look out and on bringing children who have been trafficked back to those communities to educate them. We also had quite a successful programme with the police forces, particularly in Indonesia and that region. That took effect in the aftermath of the tsunami when we worked on an effective training programme on what to spot in terms of children being trafficked out of countries, through ports for example. There is a range of areas in which all of the organisations are involved.

On the Senator's earlier question about the number of organisations involved, when Mr. Jan Egeland was in Dublin two weeks ago, he made the point that on the humanitarian front approximately 500 international organisations had the ability to scale up to respond to disasters worldwide. He predicted that in the next ten years that figure would reach approximately 1,000.

I returned from Mali in west Africa three weeks ago and had to count the number of organisations in that country. Often there is not just a niche for an organisation but a geographical spread. Organisations, whether participating in an Irish Aid programme or otherwise, can bring added value elements by being present in a country such as Mali which is ranked approximately fifth poorest in the world on the humanitarian index.

Chairman

I thank everyone for their informative presentations which will be valuable in assisting the committee to prepare its report on the Irish Aid programme in Vietnam. Clearly, Vietnam is a developing country with an economy in transition. What we have heard today confirms my view that helping Vietnam to make the transition deserves Ireland's support through its official aid programme and the work of Irish NGOs active in the country.

The joint committee went into private session at 3.40 p.m. and adjourned at 3.45 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Thursday, 23 November 2006.