GOVERNANCEBRIEF

MARCH 2018
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HUMAN RIGHTS
IN FOCUS

GROWING THE SPACE FOR HUMAN

RIGHTS AWARENESS IN VIETNAM
Since 2010 the NTF has supported the World
Bank’s work in Vietnam through three grants
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focused on realizing citizens’ rights. This work

suggests an interesting model for engaging on
human rights issues in sometimes sensitive
contexts, by taking a constructive,sensitive
approach focused on both the supply and
demand sides of human rights.
Human rights are clearly embedded in Vietnam’s Constitution
as well as numerous other policies, but as is often the case,
a gap has existed between legislation and implementation.
The World Bank team in Vietnam has taken a multi-pronged
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approach to strengthening the capacity of Government Flower Hmong Women, Northern Vietnam. Photo: © Tran Thi Hoa / World Bank

to ensure the rights of Vietnamese citizens and to raise

citizens’ awareness of their rights and how to claim them.
This approach included engaging the media as an ally in
awareness raising and providing training to elected officials
and civil servants to build their capacity to respond to citizen
claims. Most recently, the work has focused on the right to
information as a key entry point for realizing citizens’ rights
in Vietnam and provided timely contributions to the approval
of the Law on Access to Information in 2016, after several
suspensions.
ENGAGING THE MEDIA AS AN ALLY IN
AWARENESS RAISING
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panel ensured all parties were comfortable with the final
presentation while also maintaining the integrity of the human
rights messaging.
The media was further engaged through trainings
on citizens’ rights,which built upon existing work to train
journalists on related issues such as discrimination and
stereotyping. In 2012, the Ministry of Information and
Communications, which is responsible for the press and
granting journalists’ permits, also held the first-ever workshop
for journalists on reporting on human rights. The training
aimed to make journalists more comfortable talking about
human rights in order to better educate the public.

New ground was broken with the production and national
television broadcast of the first-ever human rights education
program in Vietnam. This raised public awareness of human
rights and addressed the misconception that human rights
are purely political. Topics covered in the 12 episodes of the TV
program included the rights of women and children, health,
education, and basic services, and even expanded into areas
such as access to information, access to justice, and SOGI
issues. “These TV programs are important in the sense that
they set the stage for human rights issues, which used to be
considered too ‘sensitive’ to be discussed openly in Vietnam,”
said Mr. Dang Dung Chi, Director, Vietnam Institute of Human
Rights. To assuage any discomfort from the client around
the topics, a panel consisting of members from Government,
the World Bank, civil society, and think tanks was convened
to provide final approval on each of the programs. The expert
Transparency has become a popular topic pursued by the
media and the public in Vietnam. Journalists who participated
in trainings under the present grant even created a Facebook
group called ‘Information Transparency’. The Facebook group
has about 4,500 members who actively post events and
updates on issues related to the right to information. This is
a particularly good medium for reaching urban dwellers and
encouraging them to exercise their human rights under the
Law on Access to Information.
BUILDING GOVERNMENT CAPACITY
As part of this work public officials were surveyed to gauge
their awareness of human rights issues. The survey showed
that awareness among officials was low. This led to the
development of a Training-of-Trainers module by the Institute
of Human Rights of the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy for
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trainers at both national and provincial Political Schools
focused on human rights principles. Training for officials
covered the Constitution of Vietnam, its laws and provisions,
and how these entail duties upon Government to deliver certain
rights. Training materials were also developed for the Institute
of Human Rights of the Ho Chi Minh Political Academy to
support training of the People’s Councils which represent
citizens in holding the administration to account and play an
important role in Vietnam’s accountability framework.
Various training courses were also provided to high-level
government officials to improve their knowledge on human
rights issues, especially on the right to information. They were
also encouraged to engage in discussion with other stakehold-
ers in the rights space in different ways, in addition to speaking
on human right issues in the TV series described above. Their
engagement increased public awareness and helps encourage
awareness and understanding of citizens’ rights among low-
er-level public officials, as well as creates confidence in public
discussion and pursuit of rights.
In addition to building the capacity of public officials, a
reference book on human rights was developed for policy
makers, public officials, and citizens and made available
through different channels. This support was particularly
timely as Government was putting forth a number of laws on
pertinent human rights issues, including access to information
and freedom of association.
ENGAGING CITIZENS THROUGH THE RIGHT TO
INFORMATION
Building on the strong progress, the NTF provided funding for
a follow on project with an emphasis on transparency and the
right to information which will run midway through 2017. This
grant is being implemented in tandem with a recent trust fund
from the UK Department for International Development (DfID)
to promote transparency in Vietnam, further maximizing the
impact of this work.
The research which initially started with government offi-
cials has been expanded to include citizens’ awareness of their
human rights, particularly the right to information. With the
new law on access to information becoming effective in 2018,
media education programs will remain a critical component.
The messages and format of these campaigns are directly
informed by the research on awareness among officials and
citizens, and by the strong partnerships built with civil society
anizations. Simple, visual messaging will be employed to target
urban and rural residents to encourage them to exercise their
right to information under the new law as a building block to
realizing other rights. The Government continues to receive
training and support to enable officials and civil servants to be
ready to respond when the law takes effect.
Since 2010, the NTF’s support has helped foster a greater
MARCH 2018
HUMAN RIGHTS
IN FOCUS
openness to discussing the ‘value added’ of human rights
among both Government and citizens in Vietnam. It has also
strengthened ongoing World Bank work on governance in the
country, particularly through the incorporation of human rights
perspectives to transparency and accountability. “By employing
a constructive approach sensitive to the country’s context, the
efforts have contributed to gradually growing the space for
public discussion about rights issues in Vietnam,” said Huong
Thi Lan Tran, Senior Public Sector Specialist for the World Bank
in Vietnam. This sets a positive precedent for how the World
Bank can continue to engage clients in expanding the space
for human rights and realizing the important contribution that
human rights make to fostering development.
In 2016, the Nordic Trust Fund (NTF) continued to provide a vibrant
venue for human rights related debates, discussions and learning
among World Bank staff, management and partners. Through the
knowledge and partnership program and an internal grant system,
work focused on pursuing the NTF’s objective to develop a more
informed view of how human rights relate to the work of the World
Bank.
The knowledge and partnerships program continued to support
the objective of international knowledge sharing and deepened
relationships with key external stakeholders such as governments,
NTF donors, the Special Procedures of the UN Human Rights
Council, other multilateral organizations, and NGOs active in
human rights. It is the aim of the NTF that through these linkages
World Bank teams will become more familiar with human rights
initiatives in their spheres of work, as well as more comfortable
with incorporating human rights standards and principles into their
day-to-day work at the World Bank. The NTF also continued to
benefit from excellent collaboration with the offices of the World
Bank Executive Directors for the Nordic and Baltic constituency
(Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden) and Germany.
The grant program under which task teams across the World
Bank Group receive financial and technical support to explore and
operationalize human rights in their particular tasks.
For more information, please contact the NTF Secretariat:
nordictrustfund@worldbank.org Internal Website: humanrights/