Editing Community development (section)

==== Vietnam ====
International organizations apply the term community in Vietnam to the local administrative unit, each with a traditional identity based on traditional, cultural, and kinship relations.<ref name="Yen 329–340">{{Cite journal|last1=Yen|first1=N. T. K.|last2=Luong|first2=P. Van|date=2008-07-01|title=Participatory village and commune development planning (VDP/CDP) and its contribution to local community development in Vietnam|journal=Community Development Journal|language=en|volume=43|issue=3|pages=329–340|doi=10.1093/cdj/bsn018|issn=0010-3802}}</ref> Community development strategies in Vietnam aim to organize communities in ways that increase their capacities to partner with institutions, the participation of local people, transparency and equality, and unity within local communities.<ref name="Yen 329–340"/>

Social and economic development planning (SDEP) in Vietnam uses top-down centralized planning methods and decision-making processes which do not consider local context and local participation. The plans created by SDEP are ineffective and serve mainly for administrative purposes. Local people are not informed of these development plans.<ref name="Yen 329–340"/> The [[participatory rural appraisal]] (PRA) approach, a research methodology that allows local people to share and evaluate their own life conditions, was introduced to Vietnam in the early 1990s to help reform the way that government approaches local communities and development. [[Participatory rural appraisal|PRA]] was used as a tool for mostly outsiders to learn about the local community, which did not effect substantial change.<ref name="academic.oup.com">{{Cite journal|last1=Yen|first1=N. T. K.|last2=Van Luong|first2=P.|date=2008-06-05|title=Participatory village and commune development planning (VDP/CDP) and its contribution to local community development in Vietnam|journal=Community Development Journal|language=en|volume=43|issue=3|pages=329–340|doi=10.1093/cdj/bsn018|issn=0010-3802}}</ref>

The village/[[Commune (Vietnam)|commune]] development (VDP/CDP) approach was developed as a more fitting approach than [[Participatory rural appraisal|PRA]] to analyze local context and address the needs of rural communities.<ref name="Yen 329–340"/> VDP/CDP participatory planning is centered around Ho Chi Minh's saying that "People know, people discuss and people supervise."<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> VDP/CDP is often useful in Vietnam for shifting centralized management to more decentralization, helping develop local governance at the grassroots level.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> Local people use their knowledge to solve local issues.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> They create mid-term and yearly plans that help improve existing community development plans with the support of government organizations.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> Although VDP/CDP has been tested in many regions in Vietnam, it has not been fully implemented for a couple reasons.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> The methods applied in VDP/CDP are human resource and capacity building intensive, especially at the early stages. It also requires the local people to have an "initiative-taking" attitude. People in the remote areas where VDP/CDP has been tested have mostly passive attitudes because they already receive assistance from outsiders.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/> There also are no sufficient monitoring practices to ensure effective plan implementation. Integrating VDP/CDP into the governmental system is difficult because the Communist Party and Central government's policies on decentralization are not enforced in reality.<ref name="academic.oup.com"/>

[[Non-governmental organization]]s (NGO) in Vietnam, legalized in 1991, have claimed goals to develop [[civil society]], which was essentially nonexistent prior to the [[Đổi Mới]] economic reforms.<ref name=":052">{{Cite journal|last=Gray|first=Michael|date=October 1999|title=Creating Civil Society? The Emergence of NGOs in Vietnam|url=http://www.michaelgray.ca/writing/articles/VNGO.pdf|journal=Development and Change|via=School of Oriental and African Studies, London|access-date=2018-05-06|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180507085221/http://www.michaelgray.ca/writing/articles/VNGO.pdf|archive-date=2018-05-07|url-status=dead}}</ref> NGO operations in Vietnam do not exactly live up to their claimed goals to expand civil society.<ref name=":222">{{Cite journal|last=Mercer|first=Clare|date=2002|title=NGOs, civil society and democratization: a critical review of the literature|journal=Progress in Development Studies|volume=2|pages=5–22|doi=10.1191/1464993402ps027ra|s2cid=154384357}}</ref><ref name=":052" /> This is mainly due to the fact that NGOs in Vietnam are mostly donor-driven, urban, and elite-based organizations that employ staff with ties to the Communist Party and Central government.<ref name=":222" /> NGOs are also overlooked by the [[Vietnamese Fatherland Front|Vietnam Fatherland Front]], an umbrella organization that reports observations directly to the Party and Central government.<ref name=":052"/> Since NGOs in Vietnam are not entirely non-governmental, they have been coined instead as 'VNGOs.'<ref name=":052"/> Most VNGOs have originated from either the state, hospital or university groups, or individuals not previously associated with any groups.<ref name=":052"/> VNGOs have not yet reached those most in need, such as the rural poor, due to the entrenched power networks' opposition to lobbying for issues such the rural poor's land rights.<ref name=":222" /> [[Authoritarianism]] is prevalent in nearly all Vietnamese civic organizations.<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal|last=Wischermann|first=Jorg|date=July 2013|title=Civic Organizations in Vietnam's One-Party State: Supporters of Authoritarian Rule?|url=https://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/publication/civic-organizations-in-vietnams-one-party-state-supporters-of-authoritarian-rule|journal=GIGA Working Papers|volume=228|via=German Institute of Global and Area Studies}}</ref> Authoritarian practices are more present in inner-organizational functions than in organization leaders' worldviews.<ref name=":02" /> These leaders often reveal both authoritarian and libertarian values in contradiction.<ref name=":02" /> Representatives of Vietnam's NGO's stated that disagreements are normal, but conflicts within an organization should be avoided, demonstrating the one-party "sameness" mentality of authoritarian rule.<ref name=":02" />