Desktop Study on - Regional Climate Change Adaptation ...

<strong>Desktop</strong> <strong>Study</strong>
capacity, including the new support of data from Viet
Nam’s own satellite (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert,
2007).
Institutional responses
A National Target Programme on Poverty Reduction
during 2006 to 2010 has been set up with the goal
to reduce the poverty rate from 22% in 2005 to 10
or 11% in 2010 (Viet Nam News, 2009). A national
report presented in October 2009 by the Ministry of
Labour, Invalids and Social Affairs indicates that Viet
Nam is on target to achieve a 10% reduction already
by the end 2009, the poverty rate being 12.8% (2.2
million people) at the end of 2008. The funds of the
program are used for building infrastructure in most
disadvantages coastal and island areas, providing
the poor with credit loans and reduced fees for
vocational training, health insurance, houses, as
well as free legal aid. However, the report also
concluded that more people are becoming poor
due to Viet Nam’s socio-economic context, which
leads to an inaccurate assessment of the number of
poor households, due to insufficient administrative
capacity of the involved agencies, which makes
further efforts necessary (Viet Nam News, 2009).
Gaps Identified in Programs and
Studies
Viet Nam could achieve important progress in
its disaster early warning systems in the past
years, including a national typhoon warning
system, broadcast via media and loudspeakers,
and a continuous monitoring of dykes during the
typhoon season (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert, 2007).
Nonetheless, large losses are still occurring. Overall,
collection and communication of information within
the disaster early warning system still need to be
improved (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert, 2007).
Also, whereas the better-off households have seen
a reduced vulnerability to disaster risks through
improved sea defence, the poor population
still remains extremely vulnerable due to their
livelihoods’ dependency on agriculture and fishery
and the inability to individually cope with disaster
risks due to the lack of alternative economic
opportunities (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert, 2007).
Furthermore, the national report recently published
on the mid-term review of the National Target
Program on Poverty Reduction puts forward that
due to insufficient administrative capacity of the
agencies involved in the program, not all households
living below the poverty line have been listed as poor
(Viet Nam News, 2009). Besides the need for capacity
building for the involved administrative agencies, it
is proposed to consider a variety of criteria in the
regularly to be updated list of poor households, not
only the income level (Viet Nam News, 2009).
Chaudhry and Ruysschaert (2007) identified that
the government’s home relocation program faces
barriers such as delays in the realization of the large
scale program as well as resistance from the part
of the concerned population. The new settlement
locations limit the access to the people’s fields and
canals, not only in flood but also in non-flood times,
which curtails the people’s fishing activity that is a
critical livelihood strategy. In general, resource rights
and opportunities are unequally allocated between
well-off households and the poor, which represents
a primary constraint for the poor to effectively adapt
to climate change. Overall Viet Nam’s population that
is most at risk from climate change is the rural poor
in the most affected province. For those, there is
still insufficient information, financial and technical
support for climate change adaptation (Chaudhry
and Ruysschaert, 2007).
Although the threat of climate change has started to
be acknowledged, information and awareness are still
insufficiently developed (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert,
2007). Potential impacts and adaptation needs are
to be made known to Viet Nam’s population beyond
the experts and development workers and some
agencies. Communication needs to be strengthened
and long-term research on potential impacts on Viet
Nam’s economy and development goals, especially
concerning poverty reduction, as well as projections
regarding climate refugees due to sea level rise are
needed (Chaudhry and Ruysschaert, 2007).
Recent Projects with Socio-Economic
Sector
According to the matrix of climate change activities
elaborated by the World Bank (2009b), the following
projects were identified for the socio-economic
sector: (i) Evidence Based Natural Disaster Risk
Management, An Empirical Application from Viet
Nam, is being funded by GFDRR and implemented
by MARD. Among its objectives are, estimating the
welfare and economic growth costs associated
with different natural disasters and developing
a disaggregated vulnerability map reflecting the
percent of people likely to fall below a certain poverty
threshold in the future; (ii) carried out by UNDP (with
MoNRE), the Scoping research on Climate change
and the Poor in Viet Nam project is a technical study
of the linkage between climate change and poverty;
(iii) the UNDP has also the project Climate change
and Gender study, that studies the implications and
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