The RIM Initiative in Vietnam: ‘Prioritise Rapid Results rather than Publishable Results’

The 2009 Rapid Impact Monitoring (RIM) initiative in Vietnam was one of a number of studies undertaken in East Asia and Pacific countries to assess the initial poverty and social impacts of the global economic crisis. In Vietnam, the exercise was undertaken by the Centre for Analysis and Forecasting (CAF) of the Vietnamese Academy of Social Sciences (VASS). A favourable response to the findings led to additional RIM exercises in 2010 and 2011. It has been suggested that it should become a permanent feature of the policy process in Vietnam, assessing the impacts of both external shocks and major policy initiatives. This case study was intended to assess the RIM as an RTM tool, and more generally to assess the potential value of qualitative RTM exercises. The key finding was that such exercises can play an important role in situations where current, reliable data from other sources is lacking.