Green Climate Fund helps VN enhance climate resilience

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The sum will be allocated to a project named “Strengthening the resilience of smallholder agriculture to climate change-induced water insecurity in the Central Highlands and south-central coast regions of Viet Nam” (SACCR).

The project will be carried out by the MARD with the support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in six years, benefiting over 222,400 residents, or 10% of the population in the provinces of Dak Lak, Dak Nong, Binh Thuan and Ninh Thuan, especially women and ethnic people.

It is designed to modernize irrigational systems, improve water security and livelihoods, provide knowledge in climate risk and climate resilience agriculture, and strengthen access to agro-climate information, credit and markets.

In addition, the project is expected to assist more than 335,000 indirect beneficiaries through training courses and technical assistance, access to climate risk information and best practices of smart agriculture aligned with climate change.

The non-refundable aid aims to supplement and foster an investment of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in modern irrigational systems in drought-hit provinces in Viet Nam, ensuring benefits of the poor and most vulnerable people, said Caitlin Wiesen, UNDP Resident Representative in Viet Nam.

It also adds up to efforts of the Vietnamese Government to bolster resilience of vulnerable coastal communities to climate change-related impacts, with an ongoing project funded by the GCF since 2017.

The Global Climate Risk Index, published by the German environmental think tank Germanwatch, ranked Viet Nam sixth among countries and territories hit hardest by extreme weather events between 1999 and 2018, with its Climate Risk Index (CRI) at 29.83.

Viet Nam suffered 226 extreme events in 1999-2018 with a death toll of 285 and losses of more than US$2 billion per year.

By Hoang Ha