Vietnam Mekong Delta to Quicken WB-funded $370M Climate Resilience Project

Vietnam’s Mekong Delta will speed up the progress of the “Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods (WB9),” which costs an estimated VND8.58 trillion ($369.8 million) in loans from the World Bank (WB), said the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE). Deputy Minister Tran Quy Kien chaired a working session with a delegation from the WB in Hanoi on May 27 to discuss the progress of four sub-projects of the WB9 project. At the working session, Ms. Stefanie Stallmeister, Operations Manager for the World Bank in Vietnam, lauded Vietnam’s efforts in carrying out the sub-projects despite the negative impacts of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). It is expected that 50% of long-term data and two-thirds of major parameters, such as underground water, surface water, and land erosions at river banks and coastal areas, will be widely shared. The WB side asked the MoNRE to build a user-friendly data-sharing method to optimize the project. Deputy Minister Kien noted that the first sub-project on upgrading and completing the surface water resource monitoring and supervision systems in the Mekong Delta is expected to be basically finished by end-2020 or early 2021. The second sub-project on upgrading and building underground water monitoring network in response to climate change will enter the second phase. By the middle or end of 2021, all data may be transferred to a sole center. The third sub-project on using satellite technology to build a system on supervising changes at riverbanks and coastal areas will provide images by 2020. Meanwhile, the fourth sub-project on building a data center of the Mekong Delta is hard to deal with, as Vietnam has yet to have a sample model for reference, which needs support from WB and relevant parties. Deputy Minister Kien asked agencies to focus resources to ensure the progress of the sub-projects, to deploy all four by 2021 and process the final steps on the data center in 2022. (Bo Tai Nguyen Moi Truong, monre, Nhan Dan)