World Bank Approves $90M Credit for Vietnam’s Green Growth Agenda

The World Bank’s Climate Change and Green Growth Development Policy Financing approved on June 24 a $90-million credit for Vietnam’s policy reforms. The funding, which aligned with the World Bank Group’s Climate Change Action Plan, will help Vietnam strengthen its climate change and green growth agenda along with the recently approved Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods Project, marking a new phase in World Bank support as Vietnam continues to focus on inclusive green growth while addressing key climate change vulnerabilities. “Fostering climate change adaptation and mitigation and enhancing resilience is important to Vietnam and the sustainability of its development,” said Acting Country Director for the World Bank in Vietnam Achim Fock. “Supporting this agenda in Vietnam is part of our global effort to respond to climate change, a priority at the World Bank,” he said. To be financed by the bank’s International Development Association (IDA), this is the first in a series of three credits that will support climate change and green growth policy actions under the Vietnamese government’s Support Program to Respond to Climate Change, led by the Vietnamese Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources. With the funding, Vietnam will continue the implementation of policies to improve integrated coastal zone planning and management, public investments related to climate change and green growth, protection of water resources and greater water use efficiency, as well as coastal forest development. It also supports policies in transportation and industrial production that will improve air quality, and in energy efficiency and renewable that will mitigate greenhouse gas emissions. The move will help Vietnam prepare to implement commitments made ahead of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference in which Vietnam pledged to reduce gas emissions by 8% by 2030. (www.worldbank.org June 24)