VIETNAM: FY2006 INCLE AND ESF TIP PROPOSALS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 HANOI 000173

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

STATE FOR EAP/RSP, G/TIP, EAP/MLS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PHUM, ELAB, SMIG, EAID, KCRM, KFRD, VM
SUBJ: VIETNAM: FY2006 INCLE AND ESF TIP PROPOSALS

REF: A. 05 State 221411

1. (SBU) Summary and Comment: We received five proposals
for funding aimed at combating trafficking in women and
children in and from Vietnam. Our top priority for both the
INCLE and ESF funding categories is an ambitious proposal to
conduct a nationwide baseline survey to obtain data that can
be used to measure the impact of all future trafficking
interventions in Vietnam. Vietnam currently lacks any
baseline data on trafficking; the entire Vietnamese and
international anti-trafficking community operates on the
assumption that trafficking in Vietnam is a "big problem."
Without decent data on the character and scope of the
problem, the main trafficking vectors, the crossing points,
the victims, the traffickers and the trends, it remains
impossible to gauge the effectiveness of any anti-
trafficking programs. Other good project proposals came in
from the International Organization and Migration and the
Asia Foundation. After a concerted effort to reach out to
faith-based organizations, we received proposals from
Catholic Relief Services and the Evangelical Church of
Vietnam (North) (ECVN) but our review team, which consisted
of representatives from the Embassy in Hanoi, the Consulate
General in Ho Chi Minh City and the USAID office in Hanoi,
did not rank these proposals highly.

2. (SBU) Summary and Comment, cont'd: The Mission's top
recommendation is a local NGO project. If Washington
determines that this proposal has merit, Post will have to
work closely with the NGO to scrub its budget and develop an
effective system of monitoring and evaluation. Encouraging
the development of indigenous NGOs is consistent with our
MPP, and building capacity in the anti-trafficking NGO
sector is essential to fighting the anti-trafficking problem
in Vietnam. This will be more work than an off-the-shelf
proposal from a large expatriate-run NGO or IO, but it will
pay off in results. End Summary and Comment.

3. (U) The proposals we receive conformed to the format
specified reftel. We have limited this cable to summaries
of the proposals and the Mission's observations. We will
provide copies of all received proposals to EAP and G/TIP by
email. Please note that we have ranked one project at the
top of both the INCLE and ESF lists because the baseline
data it offers will be applicable to all projects on both
the law enforcement and non-law enforcement sides.

BEGIN RANK-ORDERED PROJECT SUMMARIES - INCLE
--------------

1. Baseline Data Collection and Analyses for Combating
Trafficking in Persons in Vietnam under the Coordinated
Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking -- USD
450,000 (with the option of reducing the scale of the
project, and thus the cost, to between USD 180,000 and USD
280,000).

This is by far the least "sexy" of the projects but, in
Post's opinion, the most useful and necessary one. The
recipient organization is the small Hanoi-based NGO/think
tank Institute for Social Development Studies. It is run by
Dr. Le Bach Duong, a U.S.-educated researcher who has worked
on trafficking and related issues for years. In particular,
Duong was the author of one of the few decent studies done
on child prostitution in Vietnam.

Duong's project fills a critical need in the anti-
trafficking environment: it aims to provide empirical
information that can be used for planning, designing,
monitoring and evaluating future intervention programs.

At the moment, no good data exist on trafficking in Vietnam.
We have only two kinds of data: anecdotal evidence and a
set of statistics supplied by MPS in 2003 and 2004 that is
based on police records and thus badly underreports
trafficking cases. The international community - and the
GVN - spends millions of dollars on anti-trafficking on the
basis of assumptions and cannot evaluate the impact of
programs due to a lack of baseline data. This project would
improve every other future trafficking project in Vietnam.

USAID agrees that this project proposes an intervention
which addresses a recognized gap in TIP activities, but
notes that the methodology for data collection is weak. In
addition, the project is likely to show snapshot data for
only a limited number of provinces.

2. IOM -- Combating TIP through Capacity Building and
Technical Assistance to the National TIP Steering Committee
and Law Enforcement (USD 260,000)

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IOM has taken a pragmatic approach with this proposal,
focusing its own strengths on well-established gaps in the
existing official approach to TIP in Vietnam. This project
has four main activities/focal points. It:

- provides technical assistance to the bureaucrats in Hanoi
in order to take the good but general National Plan of
Action on trafficking and turn it into a specific,
implementable work plan;

- develops a training curriculum for law enforcement
officers and border guards on TIP victim protection, and
implements it in the six hotspot provinces;

- creates a legal assistance fund to help trafficking
survivors deal with legal consequences of trafficking (for
example, registering children born in another country while
the victim was trafficked) and prosecute traffickers;

- physically upgrades the facilities in key "receiving
points" to allow for more humane treatment of trafficking
victims and easier reintegration into society.

By focusing on both law enforcement and victim protection,
this project creates an important link that has the
potential to improve the GVN's capacity to combat
trafficking while improving conditions and prospects for
survivors of trafficking. This project also builds on
successful UNODC and UNICEF efforts, and operates within the
agreed National Plan of Action on trafficking.

USAID notes that this proposal has a good policy focus, and
IOM has demonstrated past TIP experience. The project also
has low overhead (five percent). The implementation plan
for the legal aid portion could be clearer, and there may be
limited impact from this project due to the small number of
personnel trained and victims assisted.

END RANK ORDER SUMMARIES - INCLE
--------------

BEGIN RANK ORDER SUMMARIES - ESF
--------------

1. (repeated from INCLE section above) Baseline Data
Collection and Analyses for Combating Trafficking in Persons
in Vietnam under the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial
Initiative Against Trafficking -- USD 450,000 (with the
option of reducing the scale of the project, and thus the
cost, to between USD 180,000 and USD 280,000).

This is by far the least "sexy" of the projects but, in
Post's opinion, the most useful and necessary one. The
recipient organization is the small Hanoi-based NGO/think
tank Institute for Social Development Studies. It is run by
Dr. Le Bach Duong, a U.S.-educated researcher who has worked
on trafficking and related issues for years. In particular,
Duong was the author of one of the few decent studies done
on child prostitution in Vietnam.

Duong's project fills a critical need in the anti-
trafficking environment: it aims to provide empirical
information that can be used for planning, designing,
monitoring and evaluating future intervention programs.

At the moment, no good data exist on trafficking in Vietnam.
We have only two kinds of data: anecdotal evidence and a
set of statistics supplied by MPS in 2003 and 2004 that is
based on police records and thus badly underreports
trafficking cases. The international community - and the
GVN - spends millions of dollars on anti-trafficking on the
basis of assumptions and cannot evaluate the impact of
programs due to a lack of baseline data. This project would
improve every other future trafficking project in Vietnam.

USAID agrees that this project proposes an intervention
which addresses a recognized gap in TIP activities, but
notes that the methodology for data collection is weak. In
addition, the project is likely to show snapshot data for
only a limited number of provinces.

2. The Asia Foundation - Strengthen the Legal Framework to
Combat-Trafficking in Persons in Vietnam (USD 193,500)

This project is slightly less coherent than the previous
two, and does not target Vietnam's needs as precisely. It
is mainly a capacity-building project for two agencies TAF
identifies as key to anti-TIP efforts in Vietnam: the
Ministry of Justice and the National Assembly. (It also

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works with the National Legal Aid agency and the Women's
Union, which are better partners in this effort, but they
play a distinctly secondary role.)

This project builds slightly on TAF's excellent work
bringing province-level authorities from Vietnam and
Cambodia and Vietnam and China together to address
trafficking, but this seems as though it is less important
to TAF than the Hanoi-based capacity building (including the
dreaded study tour) for the National Assembly and some MOJ
officials. We are concerned that TAF overestimates the
National Assembly's role in the policymaking process.
Devoting this many resources to building the NA's capacity
to do something they are not ultimately empowered to do in
the GVN system may not be the best way to allocate
resources.

On the positive side, the funding mechanism is in place,
TAF's professionalism and capability are not in doubt, and
NA/MOJ capacity building could help with some of the USG's
other legal reform goals in Vietnam.

USAID concurs that it is a good idea to expand cross-border
information sharing, but also questions whether Vietnam
needs new legislation or increased enforcement of existing
legislation. The first two objectives are far reaching, but
limited activities (three one-and-a-half day workshops for
stakeholders, one two-day Vietnamese-Cambodian workshop plus
accompanying reports) seem unlikely to achieve the
objectives. We are unimpressed with this project's
performance indicators.

3. CRS - Enhancing Local Capacities to Stop Human
Trafficking (USD 185,000)

Catholic Relief Services has produced a relatively well-
crafted project, with an impressive (and credible) list of
outputs, which include:

- research on trafficking;
- meetings and coordination among relevant staff and
agencies;
- capacity building for officials;
- training seminars and awareness raising;
- media campaigns;
- economic empowerment through grants; and,
- support for at-risk families.

In addition, CRS is an experienced and capable operator in
Vietnam. Unfortunately, this project is very narrowly
focused; the entire project takes place in only two
districts of Vinh Long province, in the center of the Mekong
Delta. It is a worthy project, but we believe our Mission
trafficking goals may be better served through one of the
other projects.

USAID notes that it is the only project with a grassroots
approach, and the only project with cost sharing. Its
narrow focus can also be seen as a targeted approach.
However, CRS has limited previous TIP experience and this
proposal lacks strong links to ongoing projects. It is also
unclear whether activities will achieve objectives, and
whether CRS will have a person based full time in the
province.

4. ECVN - Trafficking Victim Protection and Advocacy (USD
450,000)

The Evangelical Church of Vietnam submitted this proposal
after we encouraged our faith-based organization contacts to
apply. This is a very ambitious proposal that would
essentially create a new anti-TIP NGO in Northern Vietnam
under ECVN's umbrella. ECVN does not pretend to have this
expertise already; much of the budget for this project is to
hire well-paid Vietnamese staff members and train and equip
them. ECVN proposes to do community-level awareness raising
and (though this is not clear) recruitment of volunteers in
40 separate communities, through a network of paid
representatives who will spread the word. This "missionary
style" awareness raising will also include a victim referral
service, where any TIP victims the ECVN staffers identify
will be directed to other NGOs for assistance.

Leaving aside the difficulty of funding ECVN's outreach
efforts directly, and the lack of monitoring and evaluation
in this project, the project itself is a very expensive
awareness-raising campaign that does not offer the benefits
of any of the other projects. However, it would (if we
could convince the GVN to allow us to fund this
organization) allow us to build up Vietnamese civil society

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in general and one of the more dedicated faith-based
organizations in particular.

This proposal would require substantial revision if it is
considered for funding.

END ESF PROJECT SUMMARIES.

4. (SBU) Post would appreciate the Department's initial
comments on submitted proposals as soon as possible in order
to respond to the hopeful applicants.

BOARDMAN