The first memorandum of understanding on coping with climate change was signed yesterday between the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Vietnamese Non-governmental Organisations and Climate Change (VNGO&CC) and the Climate Change Working Group (CCWG).
Under the MoU, tentative activities for 2012 include a dialogue on mainstreaming climate change adaptation and disaster risk education into the socio-economic development plan at local levels, and exchanging information and experiences in applying community and ecosystem based approaches to adaptation.
Nguyen Thi Bich Hop, chairwoman of VNGO&CC, said the MoU would be a favourable premise for participation and contributions by non-governmental organisations together with the Vietnamese Government in efforts to cope with climate change.
“We elected the two provinces of Ben Tre and Quang Nam to carry out pilot projects on community-based adaptation and improving public awareness for ecosystem-based adaptation,” said Nguyen Thi Yen, chair of the CCWG.
To date, 11 out of 63 provinces and cities have finished their coping-with-climate-change plans, most of which are central coastal and Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta coastal provinces. These plans fall under the national target programme to respond to climate change, said Truong Duc Tri, deputy head of the Department of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change.
The department planned to compile strategies for young people from the primary to the postgraduate levels on how to approach information relating to climate change, he said.
He added that the support programme to respond to climate change would receive nearly US$265 million in aid donations from the Japan International Co-operation Agency, the French Development Agency, the World Bank, the Australian Agency for International Development and Korea Eximbank in 2012.
More than 80 per cent of the population and all Government staff will receive basic information about climate change and its impacts by 2015, one of the key targets under the National Target Programme to respond to climate change.
The budget for implementing national target programme activities in the 2009-15 period is estimated to reach VND1,965 billion ($93.6 million), with 50 per cent coming from foreign sources.
