Background
In June 2007, the Aid Monitoring Group (AMG) was initiated by a group of international and Vietnamese NGOs, who have been involved in aid effectiveness activities and the official development assistance (ODA) agenda for several years.
The AMG was initiated with the purpose of developing and carrying out independent monitoring of the implementation of aid in Vietnam, in order to enhance the accountability of donors and government to citizens in Vietnam, and ensure that donor strategies and programmes reflect the priorities of the Vietnamese people - particularly poor and vulnerable members of society. By enhancing coordination among NGOs and civil society organisations (CSO) in the monitoring of aid, the AMG also seeks to strengthen the dialogue and interaction between development actors and donors in Vietnam.
Co-chairs & Members
The AMG is organised on a voluntary basis and co-chaired by the VUFO-NGO Resource Centre (NGO RC) and the Vietnamese NGO Centre for Cooperation & Human Resource Development (C&D) . A number of international members of the NGO RC are part of the AMG, as are members of the newly established Vietnam Development Forum (VDF), which consists of six different CSO networks.
Networks
At the regional level, the AMG is linked to the NGO Forum on the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Bank Information Centre (BIC), which are both involved in work on multilateral development banks, and in particular, safeguard policies.
Future activities
The AMG is in process of designing an independent monitoring initiative, which will link national-level, policy-focused work with community-level, people’s monitoring activities. The outcome of this initiative will be a report, which will be submitted to the National Assembly (NA) and form part of the ongoing capacity building of the NA in relation to aid monitoring. This process is expected to start in November 2007.
