On October 12, the representativse of SRD participated in the 8th Session of the Multi-stakeholder Core Group on the VPA/FLEGT Agreement chaired by the Vietnam Administration of Forestry.

       At the meeting, representatives of FLEGT and Lacey Standing Office updated the implementation of the Agreement from the time of 7th session of the Multi-Party Core Group to September 30, 2020. The consultant team developing the VPA/FLEGT Framework for impact assessment and monitoring gave a general introduction to the TOR and the roadmap for developing a Monitoring and Evaluation Framework (M&E) on VPA/FLEGT implementation in Vietnam; proposed “Vietnam's Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for VPA/FLEGT implementation”; proposed “VPA impact indicators for Vietnam”; proposed the next roadmap for completing the Monitoring and Evaluation Framework for VPA / FLEGT implementation is submitted to the JIC for approval.

      Following is the discussion of participants in the session. The representatives of SRD, Mrs. Vu Thi Bich Hop and Mr. Nguyen Phu Hung, made their speeches and comments on the M&E framework. Accordingly, the M&E Framework has been supplemented and revised, with the comments of stakeholders, especially the opinions of CSOs in the discussion version at the end of July 2020. These are also general opinions of the delegates attending the meeting. However, this version still needs to clarify the following issues:

- Clarify that the project of the consulting package to develop the Vietnam VPA Monitoring and Evaluation Framework is to assess the impact of the VPA only or totally include the assessment of the VPA implementation process in Vietnam.

- Although in the stakeholder consultation framework for the VPA there was a supplement on the Focal Point of Non-State Organizations, it should be made clear how this will provide information (frequency, mode, etc)

- Clarify the indicators in the VPA impact monitoring index matrix for Vietnam. Currently, indicators or groups of indicators have not been clearly presented yet

- It is necessary to present the method of determining the indicators. In SRD’s point of view, different methods of determining indicators possibly give different results, which generally affects the overall results on the impact assessment of VPA

- It is advisable to rearrange the columns in the matrix and clearly annotate each column: for example, in the column "Index", indicators are symbolized as 1A1, 1A2, 1B1, ... so it is necessary to clearly note these symbols. what specifically; the column "Index content" needs re-defining the purpose of the transfer in the content of this column (i.g, if there are specific numbers as in the matrix, these can be understood as indicators, but if these are understood as indexes then there are too many indicators, etc. So it is recommended that the consultant team should consider redesigning the index matrix table.

      FLEGT/Lacey Standing Office and consultant team have received comments and will make additional corrections to report back to stakeholders at the next meeting in November 2020.