With significant economic growth over recent decades, Vietnam is widely considered a development success story. Once one of the poorest nations in the world, the country of almost 100 million citizens is now lower middle-income with aspirations of becoming industrialized by the year 2020.
Vietnam is making strides towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals set out under Agenda 2030. However, as for many others, climate change has the potential to derail the development process and unravel the gains made.
Due to its location, topography and concentration of people and assets in the coastal lowlands and deltas, Vietnam is extremely vulnerable to extreme weather events.
Unfortunately, the risk is increasing with climate change. Along the country’s long, mainly low-lying coastline, people face more intense and unpredictable typhoons. They also face the impacts of increased flooding, salt-water intrusion and, of course, sea-level rise.
Meanwhile, in poorer ethnic minority highland areas, more erratic rainfall is making life harder for farmers who are often dependent on high-risk rain-fed agriculture.
Several megacities, including Hanoi (pop. 7.5 million) and Ho Chi Minh City (also known as Saigon, pop. 8.6 million), are invulnerable delta regions.
The main challenges in addressing climate change in Vietnam
The Government does take climate change seriously, but like anywhere, prioritizing investment can be tough when there are other pressing development priorities. This is a key challenge.
Another challenge is getting the right balance between climate change adaptation (what we need to do to fix climate change impacts) and mitigation (what we can do to stop further climate change).
Vietnam’s actions to address the impacts of climate change on communities
The Government of Vietnam has been very active in mainstreaming climate change into plans and policies at all levels. They take their commitments to the Paris Agreement seriously and see the benefits for the economy and for local communities of better handling climate risk.
UNDP’s support to Vietnam Government
Vietnam is working with UNDP to help strengthen climate resilience.
Within the Green Climate Fund-supported program, they are working together to strengthen a community-based disaster risk management assessment and planning process. The aim is to integrate climate change science and to help communities make more informed decisions on how they can adapt.
The partnership with the Government is grounded in community-based partnerships, but it also extends to helping key ministries develop plans and policies that can ensure adaptation becomes part of core government work.
UNDP provides technical support to community resilience-building efforts, but also to innovations around generating and using climate data more effectively, and to supporting the Government’s decision-making and interaction with the global UNFCCC process.
Under the One Plan 2017-2021, UNDP is supporting Vietnam to accelerate its transition to a low-carbon economy, and enhance its adaptation and resilience to climate change and disaster risk.
On September 25th, 2018, international financial institutions and representatives of worldwide development agencies will meet for the Vietnam Economic Infrastructure Development Forum to discuss upcoming business opportunities as well as climate change adaptation in Vietnam.
Original source: UNDP
Published on 7 May 2018
