VZCZCXRO6457
RR RUEHHM
DE RUEHHI #0173/01 0192327
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 192327Z JAN 06
FM AMEMBASSY HANOI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 0573
INFO RUEHHM/AMCONSUL HO CHI MINH CITY 0371

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) 
 
HANOI 00000173  002 OF 004 
 
 
 
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 
 
HANOI 00000173  003 OF 004 
 
 
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 
 
HANOI 00000173  004 OF 004 
 
 
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