Rationale
Hue City is located in central Vietnam on the banks of the Perfume River, just a few miles inland from the Thuan An sea. It is about 700 km (438 mi.) south of the national capital of Hanoi and about 1100 km (690 mi.) north of Ho Chi Minh City-the country's largest city formerly known as Saigon. Its population sits slightly over 340,000 people (Statistics, 2008). It was the imperial capital of the Nguyen Dynasty. As such, it is well known for its monuments and architecture. Presently, Hue comprises 27 administrative divisions, including 24 urban wards and 3 rural communes (Statistics, 2008). The Hue City is an important trade centre surrounded by rice fields. Chief economic activities include tourism and the manufacture of textiles and cement. Hue is connected by road and rail to Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. The Hue City is also served by Phu Bai international airport.
From “Doi Moi” Reform occurred and free market economy was accepted in 1980s, Hue has quickly developed in terms of economic growth and administrative reform, and was identified as the number one urban area on 24/8/2005 (Government, 2005). However, pressure from rapid population growth, urbanization and lack of awareness about environmental issues has led to increased environmental degradation in the Hue City. There are many serious problems emerging in the city such as waste, sewage, plant disappearing, disordered advertisement boards, and roadway and roadside encroaching. These problems are negatively affecting the community’s health and damaging urban landscape in the Hue City (Department, 2009). These issues have been mentioned and discussed in the mass media in recent years. The Hue City Council has in recent days organized conferences on city environmental and community’s health problems, and these environmental problems have been prioritized to be addressed (Committee, 2010).
In response to these problems, local community have implemented some preventative strategies in order to improve city environment such as youth unions. Others associations have also participated in, and supported environmental protection agendas by undertaking green volunteering campaigns over the last few years. Remarkably, youth unions of High Schools and University of Hue in recent years often organize summer volunteering campaigns in order to collect rubbishes on Perfume River and takes care of plants at Parks (Union, 2010). However, the situation of environmental degradation has still been happening and continues to get worse day after day. According to recent research results, this serious situation is mainly the consequence of lack of participation and supports from local community such as local householders, pupils, students; their loose of collaboration and cooperation between stakeholders such as Hue Environment and Urban Work Company, Hue Resource and Environmental Department and Hue Transportation Department as well as others (Department, 2009). Thus, mobilizing community’s participation and encouraging collaboration/cooperation between local government and other stakeholders to establish a collective action to deal with the environmental problems at Hue City has become imperative. The collective action can be seen to provide an appropriate solution to solve the problem as well as building a healthy community.
All issues mentioned above, from describing problems, sharing concerns to suggest solutions and so forth have been shared and discussed between members of blog on hungblogger.blogspot.com. Finally, the members of bog have agreed to do something/project collectively in order to deal with environmental problems in their hometown-Hue city. Building environmental action groups at Hue city to address the problems has been selected by the members of blog.
Project goal
This project aims to build local environmental action groups to deal with environmental problems in Hue city and keep the city greener, cleaner, and more beautiful.
System and core issues
After agreeing to build the environmental action groups to deal with the environmental problems at Hue city, these blog members (project members or project staff) have shared reasons that causses existing situation. Following issues are their conclusion.
In general, the serious environmental problems in Hue city are rubbish, sewage and disordered advertisement boards on the streets. Recent research results show that these problems have been generated as a consequence of turbulent economic development, poor environmental management of local government and un-mindfulness of local community regarding the city environmental issues (Department, 2009). There are many reasons why the problems still exist and why they can not be completely solved. There are though some efforts of local government such as establishing Hue Environment and Urban Work Company; supports from community such as environmental summer voluntary campaigns of youth unions. The primary reason for this situation is that local community’s participation in resolving the environmental issues by for instance collecting rubbish are not highly consider and encourage. For example, the cleaning of markets is the responsibility of the Hue Environment and Urban Work Company, while people who are participating in trade and business activities at the market who produce lots of rubbis have no duty over these problems (Department, 2009). This leads to ineffectiveness of environmental protection programmes such as cleaning of streets or collecting the rubbish at nearby trade centres.
The second significant reason is that collaboration and cooperation between local institutions in solving environmental problems is disjointed and lacks partnership, for instance the lack of environmental strategic integration between company employers and Hue Work and Sanity Company. For example, in 2005 Hue Environment and Urban Work Company provided a number of rubbish bins and located them around institutions such as school, hospital and hospitalities, but this method didn’t seem to improve the rubbish situation through the ignorance of these institution employers (Ha, 2010). Moreover, these institutions are not willing to cooperate because they have different strategies in solving problem. For example, schools are recognising environmental issues while departments which are responsible for sewage processing at companies and factories are not interested in this issue (Department, 2009). As a result, the problems still exist and become worse although some institutions have endeavoured to deal with this problem.
The third important reason which creates the problems is the low investment for environmental protection programs from local government, both in human and financial resources. A recent report shows that there is no increase in investment for solving environmental problems, all the while population and trade centres have enlarged over the past few years. There is only one company-Hue Environment and Urban Work Company that is responsible for dealing with environmental and sanity issues from Reform-Doi Moi (Committee, 2009). In addition, the turbulent economic growth of transitional period has created many environmental problems that affect urban environment and city landscape such as dust from works and disordering of various businesses along the streets. Thus, environmental protection activities at Hue City do not meet demands to control the situation, and environmental problems at Hue City are becoming worse by the day.
The fourth main reason that has created this serious situation is lack of awareness of local community for environmental issues. Recently, environmental information and campaigns seem not to be popular and the priority themes on mass media such as local TV channels, magazines and newspapers. Additionally, community understanding about environmental issues and environmental regulations are not efficient. They are not aware what they do can be harmful to their surrounding environment. Although, there are some volunteering activities of students and city youth unions such as ‘green summer’ and green volunteering activities annually, these effort seem to not be improving serious environmental problems at the city (Union, 2010). Consequently, environmental problems have not been solved during the last few years.
The final significant reason is poor environmental management of local authority. According to legal documents, there are a few regulations of environmental protection as well as fines for those who break environment laws (Committee, 2005). This is also a common situation for other cities in Vietnam. Moreover, environmental monitoring and management tools are poor and seem not to be effectiveness. Sanctions to deal with environmental offences are not applicable to the local situation (Ministry, 2010). These lead to uncontrollable and ineffective environmental protection programmes. Thus, environmental management activities are facing many difficulties that can not improve the serious situation which is presenting itself.
From various reasons, these project stakeholders have a close relation with the environmental problems above and may either directly or indirectly affect this environmental situation can be identified. They consist of: (1) local community, including people who live permanently and temporarily live in the Hue City such as households, pupils, students, workers, businessman; (2) local institutions operating as private enterprises, public and private services, state-owned companies such as Dong Ba market, Hue Huda Beer Factory, Hue Central Hospital and Hue University; (3) Hue Environment and Urban Work Company; (4) Hue Resource and Environment Department; (5) Hue Transportation Department (6) The Hue City Council; (7) non government organizations locating at the Hue City such as JBIC (Japanese), and (8) community based organization such as women unions and youth unions. These stakeholders are main actors relating to the environmental problems at the city as well as actors who affect or are affected by the project-keeping Hue City greener, cleaner and more beautiful. They are potential stakeholders and have been initially identified. However, each stakeholder influence and power will be identified and grouped after the environmental action groups have been established.
- Appendix: Detail plan for meetings and workshops in the first stage of the project
From system analysis above, it can be seen that local community, institutions and government have not closely partnered together in dealing with environmental problems at the city such as collecting rubbishes, processing sewages and reordering advertisement boards on the streets. This means that the environmental problems main issue here is the lack of community’s participation, support and collaboration from local community to solve the problems. Therefore, mobilizing local community’s participation, appealing for support from local institutions and encouraging collaboration between stakeholders to take a collective action are appropriate and reasonable strategies to reduce environmental problems, leading to keeping the city cleaner, greener and more beautiful. This strategy can be done through building environmental action groups which are responsible for improving the community’s participation and the cooperation between local institutions.
Methodology/theory
The project staff have discussed principles and methods that can apply to conduct this project on the blog and have decided using dialogical approach. Following methodologies are chosen.
Recent research results show that the building of the environmental action groups will allow local people to participate in environmental protection strategies; contributing their resources to deal with the problems; working in partnership with local institutions and getting attention from local government. This allows these groups to create bridges to link people who have the same concerns, raise awareness and attract attention from the community (Reed et al., 2009). Building action groups is also a suitable way of interacting with others stakeholders and gaining approval from donors. This is an innovative community approach which respect local knowledge and skills, and that can lead to sustainable development (Reed, 2008). According to (IFC, 2007), building action groups is one of appropriate strategies to deal with environmental, heath and safe issues in communities which need a participation and collective action from all community members . As analysed and discussed above, rubbish, sewages and disorder advertisement boards at the Hue City can be dealt with if we get local community’s participation to solve this issue, and that action can be done through building environmental action groups on location.
In order to build environmental action groups, the project will utilize a dialogical approach methodology in community development throughout the projects lifecycle. This is because dialogical approach allows project workers to connect with people who have the same concerns/interests together to build a web of relationship in order to take a movement from private concern to public actions and then reach local community’s participation. According to Peter Westoby and Gerard Dowling, the dialogical approach is a kind of collective methods of community development (Westoby and Dowling, 2009). This approach starts with a micro method of community development. The micro method firstly is to make a connection with local people, then establish a purposeful relationship with local people. The focus of the micro method is “bonding”. It means nurturing purposeful interpersonal relationships through dialogue. It requires the loving practice of hearing a person or people’s stories; articulating with them and understanding the key issues that they are struggling with; exploring with them the possibility of sharing their story and trying to do something public about it (Westoby and Dowling, 2009). With this perspective, this approach is one of the most suitable methods to get local community participation and then to build environmental action groups. This is because the micro method can creates a space in which people can come and share their environmental concerns. It also allows the stakeholders a chance to meet and listen to others; meeting the purpose of the project.
The dialogical approach then continues to the mezzo method of community development. The mezzo method is to take a purposeful and participatory action. It is a process in which the project worker facilitate target people in order to create a movement from private concerns to public actions. The mezzo level involves the banding process (Westoby and Dowling, 2009). The banding process involves local people sitting down together in relationships of mutual trust, agreeing to do something public together as a group, conducting analysis of what are the issues, the stakeholders, the possibilities, and the tactics and strategies that might best reach their objectives (Westoby and Dowling, 2009). With this opinion, after establishing environmental action groups, members within each group work in partnership with other stakeholders to devise an action plan to address the problems that they have most concern and which is within their capacity. This approach allows participation from community to deal with the problems such as collecting rubbish on the street or preventing activities that can contaminate city environment.
In practice, there are many exemplary environmental problems solved by using this kind of strategy-environmental action groups. For example, in case of Nagoya in Japan, analysis of six factors of the innovative community by social capital’s Mikiko and Akinori shows that building action groups can establish multi-stakeholder partnership and participation from the community, with that action contributing to the success of solid waste reduction project (Mikiko and Akinori, 2008). In addition, there are many environmental organizations using the strategy of action groups to deal with environmental problems such as South East Regional Centre for Urban Landcare (SERCUL) in Australia. This organization activity is based on Bicton Environmental Action Group and has achieved success in terms of urban environmental protection (CURCUL, 2010).
By using this dialogical approach, the project will firstly start by organizing workshops and meetings about environmental problems at café shops to build relationship between local people, help them establish action groups with others who have the same concerns regarding particular environmental issues. The groups are then trained in the basic knowledge about environmental protection issues. The objective of this training is to build capacity for group members in terms of environment protection. After that, group members will work together to set up an action plan and will partner with other stakeholders to dealt with the problems collectively. During periods of building groups to working with other stakeholders, the project workers will work alongside the groups, assisting and supporting them when needed. Thus, this approach can reach project goals in encouraging community’s participation to take a collective action in order to deal with the rubbish, sewages and disordered advertisement boards on the streets and that will keep the city greener, cleaner and more beautiful.
Project outline
After discussing how to establish the environmental groups, and how to deal with the problem by using the dialogical approach, the project staff have finalized the outline of the project as following:
By applying the dialogical approach and using the micro and mezza methods, there are three stages in this project. The first stage of the project is to build environmental action groups. There are two activities in this stage: establishing a relationship with local community. While establishing relationship with community and building groups, the project worker will organize informal meetings/workshops about environmental protection and living environments surrounding the communities in café shops. The objectives of these activities is to create a space in which every person can come and share their thoughts about the cities environmental issues, connecting people who have the same concerns about environmental issues. In terms of building groups, the project workers will link the people who have the same stories and interests and then, build specific groups based on their desire and concerns. There are about seven meetings and workshops during this stage. The meetings/workshops will let people share their concerns and connect with people who have the same issues. The final workshop is to build groups, vote group leaders and secretaries. The expected results/outcome of this stage is a list of participants for each group (see meetings/workshops details plan below).
The second stage of the project is about providing short training courses on environmental protection issues for environmental action groups. In this stage, the project workers will provide some short training courses for members of each group. The project workers will also partner with Faculty of Environment and Ecology, at The University of Science-Hue University to provide these training courses. The project also invites the representatives of Hue Resource and Environment Department to participate in these training. There are three training courses for three groups. The objectives of this activity are to build capacity for participants such as basic knowledge about collecting rubbish and sewage processing, develop skills and knowledge to negotiate with other stakeholders; assist groups to work out their action plan to deal with the specific problems that concerns them. The expected outcomes of this stage are that each group can work out and hold an action plan to deal with the problems.
The third stage of the project is to deal with the problems. In this stage, each group will actively work in partnership with other stakeholders such as Hue Environment and Urban Work Company and Hue Environment and Resource Department to devise a strategy as to how to solve the problems more effective. These include how to collect the rubbish at trade centres, the processing of sewage and reordering advertisement boards. Methods and approaches to improve and address the problems more effectively are based on an agreement between each group and the stakeholders, especially local government and Hue Work and Sanity Urban Company. During this the time, the project workers will work alongside each group and help them if needed, providing advice to facilitate the project. The expected outcomes of this stage are that the rubbish and sewages are removed, and the advertisement boards are reordered, and streets become cleaner.
Possible risks and risk management
Risks are something that may happen and if they don’t, will have a positive or negative impact on the project. Analysing, identifying and managing the risk are an important part of the projects success (WorldBank, 2003). Risk analysis will be done to identify what may go wrong during the implementation of the project in order to reduce its influence to achieve the project’s goal (Heitzmann et al., 2002). For this project, the project staff have conducted a risk analysis as well as examined some research results. The project staff have decided that the risks can be initially identified and divided into three types: (1) risks directly associated with project design and implementation; (2) community risks; and (3) risks from external factors.
- Risks directly associated with the project design and implementation
In terms of risks to the project itself, there may be a possibility of excessive time necessary for building the groups and the number of project staff may have to increase. Issues of implementation time and number of the project staff can be serious weaknesses for dialogical approach. Particularly if this approach is completely new for the project staff. In order to response to this weakness, the project will employ seasoned community development workers who have been working at this community for a long time. The project will provide training courses in dialogical approach such as dialogical skills and community analysis skills for these staff before carrying out the project. This kind of risk management strategies have applied and showed effective in some projects (Yokoki et al., 2008).
- Community risks
For risks to local community, there may be the possibility of lose of collaboration and cooperation between Hue Resource and Environment Department (HRED), Hue Transportation Department (HTD), and Hue Environment and Urban Work Company (HEUWC). There may also be a difficulty while the groups work with other stakeholders in order to establish effective collaboration. This is because the groups are not official organizations which have been established by Vietnamese Government. To be able to address this challenge, the project will look for help from local government, women unions and youth unions to convince other stakeholders to participate in and contribute to environmental problem solving. According to (Ochoa et al., 2010) the project will be safer if it is linked with community development organizations (CBOs).
- External risks
In relation to external risks, there may be difficulties while dealing with the environmental problems due to previous regulations of local authority such as local environmental regulations which may differ from district to district. There may also be challenges for the project in undertaking environmental problem solving due to growing city area. To reduce these difficulties, the projects workers will actively negotiate with Hue Environment and Resource Department who is legally responsible for dealing with the environmental issues at the city to get supports from them. The project will partner with other non government organizations such as JBIC to support the project in terms of human and financial resources in case of the project extended.
- Risk Management Framework
Based on identifying three kinds of risk that may occur while currying out the project, a risk management framework has been developed in order to respond to these risks and make sure the project success.
Risks | Preventive responses | Developmental responses | Corrective responses |
Excessive time necessary for building the groups | Using seasoned CDWs | Training CDWs | Partnering with youth unions and women unions while doing the project |
Lose of collaboration and cooperation between HRED, HTD, and HEUWC | Working with these institution employers and get an agreement before doing the project | Partnering with youth unions and women unions at these institutions | Linking environmental programmes of these institutions together |
Barrier of previous regulations of local authority | Gaining an agreement from local authorities before doing the project | Workshops on environmental issues | Setting up a new regulation on environmental protection |
STT | Activities | Contents | Objectives | People in charge | Time | Expected outputs |
1 | Meeting | Understanding environmental problems | Establishing relationship with local people | Thang Viet Lai Khanh That Ton Tin Xuan Bui | 1/5 | List of people who are interested |
2 | Meeting | Understanding environmental problems | Establishing relationship with local people | My Dieu Thi Duong Minh Quoc Bui Vinh Quang Le | 8/5 | List of people who are interested |
3 | Meeting | Understanding environmental problems | Connecting people who have the same concerns | Hoang Quang Truong Tuan Viet Nguyen Sen Thi Hoang | 15/5 | List of people who are interested |
4 | Meeting | Understanding environmental problems | Establishing relationship with local people; connect people who have the same concerns | Nam Van Le Chung Van Nguyen Vu Ngoc Vo | 22/5 | List of people who are interested |
5 | Meeting | Understanding environmental problems | Establishing relationship with local people; connecting people who have the same concerns | Ha Dung Hoang Uy Ngoc Cao Que Hong Hoang | 29/5 | List of people who are interested |
6 | Workshop | Understanding environmental action group roles | Building environmental action groups | Anh Cao Do Sau Quang Tran Hai Thanh Le | 29/5 | Lists of groups Name of group leaders, secretaries |
7 | Workshop | Understanding environmental action group roles | Building environmental action groups | Phuong Lan Le Huyen Thi Nguyen Hien Thanh Le | 5/6 | Lists of groups Name of group leaders, secretaries |
Note:
- People in charge to run meetings/workshops are project staff/blog members (22 people including me-team leader)
- This project plan is written based on what blog members discussed and shared on hungblogger.blogspot.com, personal emails, chat, and telephone.
- Thus, there are two kind of collective action. The first one is between blog’s members/project staff. They shared their concern and decided to take a collective action by building this project. The second one is that when the project operates, local people will participate in and move from individual concerns to common action in environmental protection as mentioned in outline of the project plan.
