Located in the tropical Asian monsoon belt, adjacent to the South China Sea and with a coastline stretching over 125km, Hai Phong city is greatly influenced by monsoons, attracting 31% of the storms in Vietnam every year. Hai Phong is also one of the provinces/cities in Vietnam heavily affected by climate change (CC).
Hai Phong City is growing at a very fast pace, with a number of enterprises, mostly small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), playing an important role in the creation of job opportunities and the socio-economic development of the city. However, so far there has hardly been any SME involvement in disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaption (CCA) strategies. Similarly, the local authorities have also hardly paid much attention to this area.
The project ‘Hai Phong City’s Resilience to Climate Change and Disaster Risks’(HRCD) is funded by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Australia (DFAT) and World Vision International. The length of the project is 3.5 years (from March 2014 to September 2017) and is implemented by World Vision International in Vietnam, in collaboration with the local authorities and agencies concerned in Hai Phong City.
The project will focus on creating DRR and CCA strategies for SMEs and communities in selected areas of Hai Phong City to use in the future. The plans created will help improve awareness of disaster risk and climate change, strengthen the capacity of the locality to respond to natural disaster risks, improve livelihoods, as well as work to close gaps and reduce the risks to both inhabitants’ livelihoods and SME sector.
The project is expected to achieve two main outcomes: i) develop public and private collaborative partnerships in DDR and CCA; and ii) promote community-based DRR and CCA.
The Center for Education and Development (CED) is the consultant for the Alliance of Cooperatives and Enterprises (ACEs) and World Vision International in Vietnam (WV), responsible for implementing the initial activities required to help achieve the first outcome. Specifically, CED will conduct surveys, in order to assess the needs required to support program development and help raise awareness and teach skills to enable the enterprises to execute DRR and CCA strategies. The HRCD project focuses on supporting cooperatives and SMEs in the three districts of Ngo Quyen, Tien Lang and Cat Hai. In addition to these three districts, as proposed by ACE, the HRCD project will also review and consider expanding support to vulnerable cooperatives and SMEs in the districts of Hai An, Duong Kinh, Hong Bang, Le Chan, Vinh Bao Son, Thuy Nguyen, Kien Thuy and An Duong.
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