The Success factors of Rural Development Program: A Comparative Case Study on Sam Sang Project in Laos

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to inquire into the success and failure factors of Sam Sang project and its beneficiary from this project. The Sam Sang project makes an effort to achieve to improve citizen living standard in local community that had focused on rural villages which are poor, not be good infrastructure, low income and other facilities

and also for creating new conditions and new requirements of developing country, achieving targets to reduce poverty of households to below 10% and achieve MDGs by 2015

to graduate the Nation form Less Developing Country (LDC) by 2020. The comparative case study is examined depending on qualitative data from field survey based on Sam Sang project implementation in Pakseuang village, Luangpabang district and Nayangneua village, Nambak district, Luangpabang province, Lao PDR. The study discloses Sam Sang project implementation synopsis, influential factors of succeed and failure, and the particular roles of actors how be influenced the Sam Sang implementation in village level among two villages and how Nayangneua case is more successful than Pakseuang case. A set of fourteen issues based on local government leadership and villages participation with the respective success factors of implementing project such as roles of district chief, and roles of public organization in district level

and villagers participation, and working process that played important roles on implementing Sam Sang project to create village as development unit. The comparative analysis uncovers a several numbers of significant differences on these four independent variables among Pakseuang village is less success or failed and Nayangneua village is more successful. Especially, the issues of clear understanding of Pakseuang village failed on public officials in district facilitated to stimulate job creation such as supporting capital sources and job training

and villager participation on solving problem, decision-making with the issue that happened on Sam Sang implementation period. By contrast, Nayangneua case did not have any these problems as Pakseuang village. These essential differences are the most important achievement of the study and consequently theoretical advancement was created for forward research and development in the field of rural development and local government administration. In practical circumstances, if the major findings and implication of the study are applied to other districts or provinces in Laos considering the independent variables as identical in nature of uniqueness of rural development perspective, it may contribute to better improvement of Sam Sang project implementation. The local government may consider the recommendations for sustainable development and improvement of Sam Sang project in phase II. The comparative study makes space to forward research and development and speeds up more profound analysis of research problem by using the theories, methods, concepts and contents used. Besides that, a comparative study could be made between two consecutive Sam Sang cycles of the same province or among two or more districts of different areas for Sam Sang project implementation in future. Finally, the study can be utilized by local government officials, policy implementers, researchers and development partners in the field of rural development programs in Laos.