Hai Phong City – A workshop was held in Hai Phong on November 6^th, 2012 launching the project named “Building partnerships for Improving Vietnam’s coastal communities’ adaptive capacity to impacts of climate changes”. The project is under a partnership between the People’s Committees of Hai Phong City, Nam Dinh and Thai Binh provinces, and the Centre for Marinelife Conservation and Community Development (MCD).

The PRC project, implemented by MCD and Oxfam, is a part of the Community-based Climate Change Action Grants Program funded by The Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through non–governmental organizations in Vietnam.

The launching conference attracted 75 delegates from the involved localities, different agencies of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Vietnam’s Man and Biosphere Committee (MAB), media partners, and donors.

In the workshop, the delegates agreed on the joint action program and the principles of collaboration, which target 11 selected coastal communes of Hai Phong, Thai Binh and Nam Dinh provinces.

Through the project’s duration from September 1^st, 2012 to December 31^st, 2014, it is expected to raise awareness of climate change, reduce natural disaster risks, and improve adaptive livelihoods for up to 21,000 of the most vulnerable coastal people to the impacts of climate change (of which more than half are women). Lessions learnt and experiences from the project are expected to contribute to the improvement of community-based climate change adaptation and natural resource management practice and policy.

‘Preventing disaster risks and improving capacity to adapt to impacts of climate change are activities that deserve no delay and cannot be done individually. The fact that the project launching and the roundtable dialogue promoting collaboration between the two Biosphere Reserves of Red River Delta and Cat Ba archipelago were jointly organized by the three partners strongly expresses the sound partnership and commitment of these local government authorities to assist local communities and integrate of the project interventions into the local plans’, said Ms. Nguyen Thu Hue, Director of MCD.

While the majority of initiatives in Vietnam under the Community-based Climate Change Action Grants Program by AusAID are for Mekong River Delta provinces, this project is part of the first steps for the Red River Delta. The project was designed by MCD and its partners based on their achievements and lessons learnt from previous efforts in the region. The project, therefore, is expected to make significant contributions to overall goals of the program by increasing the resilience of people who are most vulnerable, especially women, to climate change and disasters in coastal areas.