Overview
This report, “The Gender Responsiveness of Infrastructure and the Relationship between Infrastructure and Unpaid Care Work: A Perspective from the North-West of Vietnam” is a collaborative effort by CARE International in Vietnam (CVN) and is part of the Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment in Vietnam (AWEEV) project, funded by the Global Affairs Canada. The study, conducted in November 2021, aims to assess the gender responsiveness of rural infrastructure projects implemented under the National Target Programs (NTPs) from 2016-2020, and their impact on unpaid care work (UCW). This is noted as the first study of its kind in Vietnam.
The scope of work involved a survey conducted with representatives from 236 households in six ethnic minority communes across Hoa Binh, Ha Giang, and Lai Chau provinces. The survey sample primarily consisted of households where the head was from an ethnic minority group (94%), with a significant portion being poor (30%) or near-poor (29.6%) households. To enrich the data, 18 Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) were also held with 20 commune officials and 90 individuals in 12 villages within the survey area.
The study measured the gender responsiveness of infrastructure using criteria related to participation and benefit in work selection, design, construction, maintenance, repair, and use. The findings highlight a significant gap between the perceived gender responsiveness by commune officials and the actual experiences of local people.
Key Findings:
Low Gender Responsiveness Score: The overall gender responsiveness of infrastructure work in the surveyed communes was low, scoring only 34.4 out of 100 points according to household surveys. This contrasts with commune officials’ higher assessment of 55.7 points.
Functionality vs. Participation: While the functionality of infrastructure received the highest score (6.86/10), the quality of local people’s participation in village meetings for work selection and proposal was low (2.31/10).
Limited Influence in Decision-Making: Local people’s priorities were only moderately considered in work selection (4.53/10), and their role in the approval and monitoring of work was almost non-existent (0.7/10).
Inverse Relationship with Work Size: Smaller infrastructure projects tended to be more gender-responsive, primarily because they allowed for greater community involvement in selection, design, and often utilized local labor. Larger projects, often managed by contractors, had less local participation.
Commune-Level Ownership: Infrastructure projects where communes served as investment owners demonstrated higher gender responsiveness compared to those owned by higher-level authorities.
Transportation Work Responsiveness: Rural transportation infrastructure was perceived to have the highest level of gender responsiveness (41.4/100) due to greater local participation in the construction process, often under “State and local people work together” mechanisms.
Policy Recommendations:
Enhance Local Participation: Increase and improve the quality of local people’s participation, particularly in the planning, design, and monitoring phases of infrastructure projects.
Prioritize Local Needs: Ensure that the priorities and needs of local communities are genuinely considered and integrated into infrastructure development.
Promote Community-Based Implementation: Encourage and support mechanisms for community-based implementation of smaller infrastructure projects to maximize local involvement and benefit.
Strengthen Oversight and Accountability: Implement clearer guidelines and oversight to ensure that infrastructure projects are truly responsive to the needs of all community members, not just those in official capacities.
Address Disparities in Larger Projects: Develop strategies to increase local participation and ensure equitable benefits in larger-scale infrastructure projects, which often rely on external contractors.
Focus on Comprehensive Impact: Beyond functionality, assess and improve how infrastructure projects contribute to reducing unpaid care work burdens and increasing economic opportunities for all community members.
The unpaid care work (UCW) burden contributes to gender inequality in Vietnam. A survey by ActionAid Vietnam (AVV) and the Ministry of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs (MOLISA) shows that women spend, on average, 4.06 hours a day doing unpaid care work compared to the corresponding time of men 2.36 hours a day (AVV and MOLISA, 2017). Gender-related evidence in infrastructure investment has confirmed the difference in participation, use, and benefit from the infrastructure work of men and women. Such difference relates to gender inequality in the household labour division, decision-making power, ownership, as well as other cultural barriers (ADB, 2019). Meanwhile, assessments on gender integration in the two National Target Programs (NPT) on Sustainable Poverty Reduction (NTP-SPR) and New Rural Development (NTP-SRD) in 2016-2020 show that infrastructure investment was usually “gender-neutral” (see CVN, Oxfam and SNV, 2018; VWU and UNW, 2020).
CARE International in Vietnam (CVN) is implementing the Project for Advancing Women’s Economic Empowerment in Vietnam (AWEEV) in a number of communes in Ha Giang and Lai Chau. Within the framework of the AWEEV project, CVN carried out a Study on “Assessment on gender responsiveness level and impacts of rural infrastructure on Women’s Unpaid Care Work” to better learn about the gender responsiveness of infrastructure work invested and built within the framework of the National Target Programs in 2016-2020, as well as the impacts of this infrastructure work on women’s UCW. This is the first study on this issue in Vietnam.