On January 16th, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) officially launched the Vietnam Forests and Deltas Program (VFD) in Quat Lam town of Nam Dinh Province. The launch event received representatives from MARD, related Ministries and the provincial leaders of Nam Dinh, Thanh Hoa, Nghe An and Long An. The project aims to supports Vietnam’s goals for climate-resilience, low emission, sustainable development by improving land-use planning, forest and natural resource management and engaging communities in development of action plans to address climate change impacts.
The Vice Minister of MARD giving opening remarks
The project will put into practice the national policies and strategies on responding to climate change and sustainable development, with a focus on reducing emissions from forestry and agriculture sectors and strengthening climate-smart livelihoods and settlements. The project’s objectives are addressing long-term climate change risks and gender vulnerabilities in both forest and delta landscapes. Present at this launch, SRD was part of the five implementing partners including Winrock International, the Netherlands Development Organization (SNV), American Red Cross and Vietnam Red Cross.
The project launch combined exhibitions of different materials and documents on issues and good practices relevant to the projects’ objectives, including topics such as sustainable landscapes, disaster risk management, climate change adaptation, and adaptive livelihoods. Participants also had a chance to visit 3 sites that showcased the issues which the project will be tackling. These included a broken sea dyke, a mangrove forest, and area that local people have to change their livelihoods, in response to the changes of weather and water regime.
A farmer explaining his troubles caused by climate change
During the launch, SRD displayed a number of its popular publications of good practices on topics such as climate change, adaptive livelihoods, System of Rice Intensification (SRI), and disaster risk reduction. Many attendees took great interest in SRDs publications and works, and registered to receive the publications through email for their use in future.
The mission director of USAID stopping by the SRD booth Engaging the public with SRDs publications
The project launch was a great success, which not only gave the opportunity to introduce the VFD program to local partners, to show the experience of the implementing partners but also to share commitment of all the stakeholders. Following with this official launching, stakeholders will work together to prepare a detailed work-plan, a management structure as well as relevant mechanisms, in order to quickly put the program into implementation.
A celebratory toast to close the launch A group photo after the site visits
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Centre for Sustainable Rural Development (SRD)
No.31, Alley 19 Kim Dong Street, Hoang Mai District, Ha Noi
Phone: +84 24 3943 6676/78 | Fax: +84 24 3943 6449
