1. Documentation and dissemination of the lessons learned by the Ha Tinh Poverty Alleviation Programme (HTPAP) . This web site is one part of a wider communication strategy aimed at maximising the impact of the lessons learned from the HTPAP. There are two components of this strategy.
   • The first involves identifiying and targeting high priority audiences within Vietnam, interviewing them about their information needs, then addressing those needs.
   • The second involves identifying means by which unknown audiences with an interest in poverty alleviation in Ha Tinh can identify themselves, and then how their information needs can be met. There are two ways in which this will be done.
     • The first is by identifying training courses in management that are already being provided within Vietnam. We will then look at how their course contents could be enriched by case study material from Ha Tinh.
     • The second is to set up this web site, to enable unknown audiences to identify information that is relevant to their needs, and then obtain that information. Requests by email will enable ongoing contact with those self-identified audiences.
     The overall approach involves a mix of demand and supply driven provision of information. The targeted interviews involve asking people what they want to know, within pre-defined boundaries (public infrastructure, savings and credit, and agriculture, not education or health, but also including poverty policy). The web site will be complimentary in function, enabling more user driven choice, including requests for information on subject areas not chosen as main topics (above) to be communicated to targeted groups

2. Outward accountability. The secondary aim of tis web site is to encourage, by trial and error, a form of outward accountability to the public at large in both in Vietnam and in the wider world. This is meant to supplement traditional forms of upward accountability,oriented to governments, donors and their constituency; and less frequently, downward accountability to their intended beneficiaries. Outward accountability should be enhanced by aid agencies being more transparent about the planning, operation, monitoring and evaluation of development aid projects. See Listing Policy below, for more details on the kinds of documents that are publicised on this website . This website is consistent with existing initiatives taken by NGOs such as ActionAid Vietnam (AAV) who have already developed what they call dislosure policies.

3. Area-based aid cordination This web site is also an experiment in area-based coordination of aid activities. To what extent is it possible to pull together information about the whole range of development aid initiative taking place in the same location? What sort of picture emerges when this is done? Can this form of reporting encourage improved aid coordination at a local level in a way that complements more deliberate and planned sector-wide approaches and national poverty alleviation policies?

4. Preserving access to history In many development aid organisations history began about three years ago. That is the date when the current project or country programme or strategy was developed. Access to information about prior projects, programmes and strategies is not easy to find and there is usually minimal interest inpreserving access to that information. This leads aid organisations to behaving like people who have a particular form of brain damage, only having access to short term memory. They end up having to repeat a lot of things. This web site may make a small contribution towards helping SCF, Oxfam, ActionAid, DFID and all those associated with the HTPAP develop a longer term memory. Perhaps some of the achivements will be remembered for a longer period of time. And some of our mistakes will also be accessible a little longer.

Managers

This web site is being managed by Rick Davies, with support from Ger Clarke. Both are Centre for Development Studies consultants under contract to DFID. Their brief is to provide monitoring and evaluation support to the HTPAP, since 1998. Their contact addresses are as follows:

• rick@shimbir.demon.co.uk Web site: http://www.swan.ac.uk/cds/rd/rd1.htm
• g.clarke@swansea.ac.uk Web site: http://www.swan.ac.uk/cds/staff/staffpgs/clarke/staffpg.htm

Listing policy

• The documents listed on this web site as being publicly available are those:
  • That have already been exchanged between organisations, or
  • Which have already been made publicly available on the Web.
  • Excluded from this list are all email and mail communications between organisations

• This site does not list any documents produced by the Government of Vietnam, except:
  • Those that have already been reported on other web sites, or
  • Those which already form part of existing aid agency documents, such as the proceedings of district, provincial or national level workshops, which have already been distributed to other organisations.

• Additional information on development aid inputs into Ha Tinh province may be available from Vietnamese authorities within Ha Tinh province. See:
  • The Ha Tinh Information Centre, within the Ha Tinh Foreign Economic Relations Department of the Ha Tinh province administration
    • Contact: Mr Manh Loc Khoa, Tel: 039 856689; email: dnht@hn.vnn.vn