The benefits of a development planning tool for project implementation

Since the start of its socialist-oriented market economy programme 25 years ago, the Vietnamese economy has made outstanding progress. Socioeconomic planning activities, and monitoring and evaluation at various levels, have been especially important components, organised as part of a “Socio-Economic Development Planning” (SEDP) process. However, how to elaborate an SEDP process that is realistic and practical, and incorporates market as well stakeholder participation, is a question that still has to be solved. The holistic “Market-oriented Socio-Economic Development Planning” (MoSEDP) approach was designed to cover the whole process with a set of tools, guidelines, tables, forms and samples that would help stakeholders, and particularly the members of the Vietnamese Communal People’s Committee, build their annual communal socio-economic development plans. Hundreds of provincial, district, communal and village level staff have now been trained in MoSEDP. In turn, they have run hundreds of training courses for other staff and facilitated a large number of meetings.