One of the important contents of the National Target Program on new rural development for the period 2016 - 2020 strongly promote the participatory role of rural communities at the village level. To accomplish this content, framework program about fostering and training officials to develop New Rural program 2016 – 2020 period has developed training modules "Fostering community development skills" to the main targeted group is the Village Development Committee (VDC)

          This is a job that's well suited to the actual requirements of current new rural development because the Village Development Committee is the closest to local people. However, the reputation and the enthusiasm of the VDC is not enough to lead the implementation of village development plans. VDC should be fostered and improved the capacity to know how to assess the status, feasibility planning, implementation plans, mobilize domestic resources, monitoring - evaluation and some skills "soft" as propaganda - advocating, organizing meetings, resolve conflicts, build consensus...

In the cooperation program between the Centre for Agricultural Policy (CAP) with the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), CAP has completed the documentation "Capacity Building for Community Development for Village Development Committee "to be used for the training course in the Lao CAI Happiness Program. The contents should be interested in building capacity for village officials for community development activities described in this document are consistent with the current actual needs of the National Target Program on new rural development, especially the lessons learned in the change in thinking, increasing awareness of people and community leaders in the spirit of "diligence, self-reliance, cooperation," New Village Movement (Saemaul Undong) in the early 1970s in Korea.

This manual has two parts:

-       Part 1: Introduction of the lessons learned from the New Village Movement can apply to New Rural development practices in Viet Nam inside emphasizes the role and responsibility of the community leaders and the need for change thinking, attitude of the people. For learners, the readers can absorb and feel, this section also introduces a true story from a village leader on the process of organizing community together to overcome the difficulties and challenges, to succeed with a belief "if you do it will be - we can do it."

-       Part 2 includes 07 specific and practical  lessons for the Village Development Committee: :

o   Lesson 1: Role and responsibility of Village Development Committee

o   Lesson 2: Community propaganda and mobilization skills

o   Lesson 3: Meeting organization and management skills

o   Lesson 4: Community contradiction solving and consensus building skills

o   Lesson 5: Internal capacity analysis and evaluation skills

o   Lesson 6: Village development planning skill

o   Lesson 7: Village development organization, monitoring, evaluation skills

The contents of this document not only apply to the pilot villages of Lao Cai Happiness Program but these can also use all the villages and hamlets in various regions across the country. In addition, CAP also owns a number of video / audio to introduce successful stories of community development in the country and international. These visualization tools will help learners more receptive, especially for village officials.

Authors: Ms. Nguyen Ngoc Luan (Ed)

                PhD. Dang Kim Son (expert)

                Ms. Thai Van Tinh

                Ms. Le Truong Giang

Project: Lao Cai Happiness Program