Community participation in urban upgrading project : the case of two neighbourhoods in Nam Dinh City, Vietnam

Participation is nowadays becoming a very important trend in world's development thinking. It has gained adequate attention of powerful international organizations in their development assistance programs. Community participation has been said to be the pivotal solution for local government in conducting their development initiatives towards poverty reduction, social equality and project sustainability at grassroots level. However, turning participation policy into practice is not easy because it has to face so many difficulties on the ground related to the participation performance organ, the community representatives _ community leadership and local diversity. These are the foundations of the research conceptual framework. The research studies a pilot urban upgrading project, implemented in Van Mieu ward, Nam Dinh city. It is targeted for low income areas with an upgrading package including basic services and technical infrastructure improvements identified. Based on community priorities, other social infrastructure can be included as schools, health care, markets, ext. As participatory approach is called as the key project principal, this research's main objective is to learn about the real practice of community participation in the project, in which the attention is focused on four different groups based on gender and socio economic situation _ the poor men, poor women, better off men and better off women, benefits they get from the participatory project and the factors influencing their participation. To see the difference in participation of each group, the research method is explanatory. Both qualitative and quantitative study are used to analyze an embedded case study of Van Mieu ward project. Survey, interviews and desk researches are the sources of data collection. Besides, sources of the researcher's attendance in interviews, working sessions and focus group of another mission with the same topic are also valuable for the research findings. Learning the project doc, interviewing key respondents and especially conducting the survey among community members, the research find out that the mobilization of community participation is mainly assigned to the grassroots officer system, who have the most close and frequent contact with the people. Project staff mainly work with them as the main channel to communicate with the people. Those people are prestigious and supported by the people, but lack of professional performance, resources as well as necessary tools and skills. Regarding the community, though both neighbourhoods of research are low income areas, but there is difference in housing condition and economic background, which has led to difference in their level of project participation. The community members are mainly poor to whom the earning for the living is more urgent. The limited education also affects their active participation in the project. While the better off have less worries about daily life and can contribute more to the project in regards of time, material (land) and local supervision. The interesting thing is that the rate of participation in the project is nearly 100% because all of them have to pay the in kind contribution. However, the level of collection varies according to the difference of each neighborhood. Based on the findings and analysis, conclusions are made on the participation of each groups, the benefits they perceive from the participatory project and factors influencing the participation. Recommendations are finally reached to overcome current shortcomings, for better participatory implementation based on local context in future projects.