Enhancing the rights of ethnic minorities in Cao Bang

Objectives 

• Relevant information and messages adapted to the needs and capacities of the ethnic groups in Cao Bang are developed and broadcasted via different medias such as radio and television
• Opportunities for political representation and participation of ethnic minority men and women in decision-making bodies, in particular at commune level, are enhanced. 

Budget

585,000USD (EU and HELVETAS Swiss Intercooperation)

Approaches

• Holistic, bottom-up, participatory and inclusive approaches which are discussed and approved by local authorities.
• Dissemination of good practices and lessons learnt made so far in collaboration with the Department of Home Affairs regarding the pilot "Commune Title Planning”, and with the Commitee for Ethnic Minority regarding the "Forums for Ethnic Minorities".

Project Partners

• PPC Cao Bang and the Cao Bang Development Centre (CBDC)
• Department of Home Affairs, Department for Information and Communication, and Committee for Ethnic Minority
• District and Commune People's Committees (PC)
• Cao Bang Radio and Television

Main achievements so far 

• A provincial strategy on improving the participation of different ethnic minorities in local decision making bodies has been elaborated and approved by the Cao Bang People’s Committee;
• 710 commune cadres, village heads, collaborators in 20 upland communes have been made aware of the right to receive information. 163 collaborators at commune and village level obtained have basic knowledge about collecting and providing information for Cao Bang radio program development. More than 20 local journalists trained;
• 5 pilot programs (in the new format) have been approved by the CRTV and tested on radio broadcasting in Mong and Dao languages. Improved half hour daily broadcasts in both Hmong and Dzao languages;
• About 1,500 sets of radios and batteries were distributed with the total number of listeners of 10,000;
• 20 forums on policies and life for ethnic minorities were organized with many valuable comments for policies makers with 873 people taking part in forums, of whom 114 were women;
• 14 ethnic minority commune cadres (H’mong, Yao, San Chi and Lo Lo) have been financially supported to take part in long term and short term training courses based on the training needs assessment of the commune title planning. 50 members from 20 commune monitoring boardsreceived training on community based monitoring;
• A software on personnel management has been developed to monitor the data of local government staff, including ethnic minorities.