What is pro-poor policy? What are the political conditions under which it can emerge? How can we improve our understanding of pro-poor political change in Vietnam and Cambodia? This paper, written by the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), discusses the political history and policy processes of Cambodia and Vietnam, and proposes how this might be researched. Issues of pro-poor policy orientation and state capacity were explored in particular through examination of the policy process in the three sectors of land management, forestry, and health.
The first difficulty is in defining pro-poor policy: a policy could be deemed pro-poor by national policy makers but not by donors, or vice versa; and policy intention and outcomes with regard to poverty may not always coincide. A review of the empirical and theoretical literature was used to draw attention to the following points:
- The use of three levels of political analysis – political regime, traditions and institutions – seems a useful basic structure for examining processes of political change.
- The idealised distinction between formulation and implementation is always blurred in practice. Developing policies which favour the poor is the first hurdle: getting them implemented in the face of low state capacity or vested interests is equally problematic.
- In both countries, external actors such as donors have often found it hard to understand the workings of the policy process, although the reasons for this difficulty differ between the countries concerned.
- Looking at the policy process in historical context is important. Cambodia and Vietnam have substantially different political traditions, the former slightly more autocratic (and complicated by post-conflict political reconstruction) and the latter more akin to Chinese Confucian values (in which autocracy is balanced with “mass-regarding” ideological imperatives).
- In terms of political competition, the more pluralistic regime seen in Cambodia in the 1990s has not to date proved to be manifestly better at generating pro-poor policies or outcomes. While Vietnam has exhibited a monopolistic system which sometimes makes it slow to respond to problems, it has also been remarkably effective in reducing poverty over the 1990s.
- In practice, many policy makers continue to perceive the poor as ignorant and illiterate and having little to contribute to the political process.
The Inception Report proposed the following in terms of country research:
- In each of the sectors, to focus on an intermediary level (subsectoral policy issues) rather than either the sector as a whole or merely a particular policy decision.
- To define pro-poor policy for analytical purposes primarily by outcomes, but to identify when and why outcomes do and do not align with intention.
- To address how policy-makers perceive the poor, and how this affects the policy process.
- Having mapped out different possible approaches, to be guided, through dialogue with UK Department for International Development Country Teams, in the approach taken to researching sub-national aspects of the political and policy system
- In structuring the analysis and presentation of research findings, to use themes rather than sectors as the focus; and to balance accounts that focus primarily on the policy system with an integrative (“livelihoods”) perspective that begins with the needs of the poor.
