World Bank to Fund $384M for Vietnam’s Climate Change Resilience Proj by 2022

Officials from the World Bank said at a conference held in Vietnam’s southern city of Can Tho that the bank will finance $310 million worth of soft loans to Vietnam to help the country conduct a $384-million climate change resilience project in the Mekong delta by 2022. Speaking at the event held on Dec 1, the World Bank’s Agricultural Practice Manger Nathan Belete said that the project aims to help Vietnam improve its capacity in building scenarios in coping with climate change in the fragile area of Mekong delta. The Mekong Delta Integrated Climate Resilience and Sustainable Livelihoods project aims to enhance tools climate-smart planning and improve climate resilience of land and water management practices in selected Mekong delta provinces, he said. The five-component project focuses on (i) monitoring systems to enhance Mekong delta knowledge base; (ii) infrastructure and information systems for enhanced decisions; and (iii) mainstreaming climate resilience into planning processes. The beneficiaries include nine provinces, namely An Giang, Dong Thap, Ben Tre, Tra Vinh, Vinh Long, Soc Trang, Bac Lieu, Ca Mau, and Kien Giang. The loan is part of international supports to Vietnam amid severe natural disasters caused by climate change. According to Nguyen Trung Hieu, deputy head of the Southern Steering Committee, said that prolonged droughts in the Mekong delta have caused losses worth more than VND15 trillion ($661 million) in the region, leaving 290,000 households in water shortage and 254,000 hectares of land left idle. (Nguoi Lao Dong – Laborer Dec 2 p2, Thoi Bao Kinh Te Sai Gon – Saigon Economic Times Dec 1)