The World Bank In Vietnam

Vietnam’s shift from a centrally planned to a market economy has transformed the country from one of the poorest in the world into a lower middle-income country. Vietnam now is one of the most dynamic emerging countries in the East Asia region.

World Bank’s partnership with Vietnam since 1993 has contributed to achieving notable results.

As of March 2017, the World Bank has provided $22.5 billion in grants, credits and concessional loans to Vietnam. Vietnam’s existing portfolio consists of 50 IDA/IBRD operations and four stand-alone trust funds projects, with total net commitments of almost $9.5 billion.

Vietnam received the first loan from the IBRD, the Bank’s lending arm for middle-income countries, in 2009, to support a program of public investment reforms. Today, IBRD has committed more than $3.3 billion to Vietnam, helping the country advance more quickly on its development path.

With World Bank funding and expertise, in just 4 years Vietnam has expanded access to full-day preschool to 84 percent of five-year-old children – up from 66 percent in 2011.

Urban upgrading programs have improved the living conditions of millions of urban poor. In many cities, low-income areas suffer from frequent flooding and poor sanitation, posing serious health and environmental risks. The Vietnam Urban Upgrading Project, active in Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Ho Chi Minh City and Can Tho, address these challenges. Benefiting some 7.5 million people, the project provided 95,000 microcredit lines for home improvement and income generation to families whose incomes were in the bottom 40 percent.

Every day for the past ten years in Vietnam, 9,000 more persons were connected to the grid for the first time. In only five years, the country doubled its power generation capacity to 25,000 MW in 2010. Under the Second Rural Energy Project, more than 2.7 million people in some of Vietnam’s poorest areas gained access to electricity.

Forest plantations are important sources of income for low-income families. From 2005 to 2015, more than 43,000 households in six provinces in central Vietnam received micro credit and technical support for small-holder plantation development. The Forest Sector Development Project, involving some 76,500 hectares of forests, is the first, and to date, the only project in Vietnam using the approach of lending to small-holder plantations – an option proving to be much more sustainable than the traditional approach of subsidizing plantationю

Water supply and sanitation facilities have expanded. Urban water supply has doubled in small towns. Rural access to clean water has seen an increase from 36 percent to 70 percent. The World Bank has helped support this development through investments in rural water and sanitation in the Red River Delta Region, and through innovative programs such as the Global Output-Based Aid funded project in partnership with the East Meets West Foundation. Households received access to low-interest loans to build or rehabilitate more than 48,000 hygienic toilets and sanitation facilities, increasing the percentage of households with hygienic toilets from 25 percent to 87 percent.

The Third Rural Transport project is helping poor and marginalized in 33 provinces, particularly some of the most difficult mountainous regions of Northern Vietnam, connect to better markets and services. Today, over 90 percent of the population is now connected by all-weather roads. Averaging 4.5 percent of GDP investment, Vietnam leads Asia in its investments in roads infrastructure.

On September 25th, 2018, Ms. Anna L Wielogorska Lead Procurement Specialist of the World Bank in Vietnam will participate at the Vietnam Economic Infrastructure Development Forum to discuss upcoming business opportunities in Vietnam.

Original source: World Bank
Published on 19 April 2018