Sustainability assessment of Vietnam's electricity planning: Using section 1 of the 2009 hydropower sustainability assessment protocol

The Draft Hydropower Sustainability Assessment Protocol (HSAP) was first introduced in Vietnam at the National Consultant Workshop organized by Vietnam Water Partnership (VNWP) in November 2009. Although the structure of HSAP is relatively complex and new to Vietnam, the participants (from Government agencies, experts, investors, and Vietnamese and international civil society organizations) had the impression that the HSAP has the potential to be a useful tool for participatory assessment of the sustainability of a hydropower project and broader planning. With the assistance of the M-POWER (Mekong Program on Water, Environment and Resilience), a national group of experts in multiple disciplines from government agencies, national organisations and NGOs was mobilized to conduct a rapid sustainability assessment of the energy and hydropower development policy and plan in Vietnam. Section I of the draft HSAP 2009 was used as an assessment tool. The assessment focused on the quality of the process of developing and implementing the strategic development of the electricity sector in general and hydropower development of Vietnam in particular. Even though the rapid assessment framework of HSAP was quite new to the Assessment Team and the assessment subjects are broad, the Team and participants in this trial learned positive and negative lessons that can serve as a basis for future assessment exercises to enable deeper and more comprehensive assessment. The assessment report includes four major parts: 1) Introduction and background, 2) Water and hydropower development in Vietnam; 3) Rapid assessment - process and discussion of results; and 4) Lessons learned from the assessment and recommendations for draft HSAP 2009

Socializing One Health: an innovative strategy to investigate social and behavioral risks of emerging viral threats

In an effort to strengthen global capacity to prevent, detect, and control infectious diseases in animals and people, the United States Agency for International Development’s (USAID) Emerging Pandemic Threats (EPT) PREDICT project funded development of regional, national, and local One Health capacities for early disease detection, rapid response, disease control, and risk reduction. From the outset, the EPT approach was inclusive of social science research methods designed to understand the contexts and behaviors of communities living and working at human-animal-environment interfaces considered high-risk for virus emergence. Using qualitative and quantitative approaches, PREDICT behavioral research aimed to identify and assess a range of socio-cultural behaviors that could be influential in zoonotic disease emergence, amplification, and transmission. This broad approach to behavioral risk characterization enabled us to identify and characterize human activities that could be linked to the transmission dynamics of new and emerging viruses. This paper provides a discussion of implementation of a social science approach within a zoonotic surveillance framework. We conducted in-depth ethnographic interviews and focus groups to better understand the individual- and community-level knowledge, attitudes, and practices that potentially put participants at risk for zoonotic disease transmission from the animals they live and work with, across 6 interface domains. When we asked highly-exposed individuals (ie. bushmeat hunters, wildlife or guano farmers) about the risk they perceived in their occupational activities, most did not perceive it to be risky, whether because it was normalized by years (or generations) of doing such an activity, or due to lack of information about potential risks. Integrating the social sciences allows investigations of the specific human activities that are hypothesized to drive disease emergence, amplification, and transmission, in order to better substantiate behavioral disease drivers, along with the social dimensions of infection and transmission dynamics. Understanding these dynamics is critical to achieving health security--the protection from threats to health-- which requires investments in both collective and individual health security. Involving behavioral sciences into zoonotic disease surveillance allowed us to push toward fuller community integration and engagement and toward dialogue and implementation of recommendations for disease prevention and improved health security

Communicating climate change risks for adaptation in coastal and delta communities in Vietnam

PowerPoint presentationMeeting: June 18-20, 2013The presentation illustrates how a shared learning dialogue (SLD) operates when utilized by different groups, and how to facilitate SLD’s for diverse stakeholders in at-risk communities. Application of SLD would need to answer questions towards identifying actors, purposes, messages, channels and tools of risk communication, such as: Who are the targeted audience? Who need to be involved in communication activities? What are the purposes of communication? What are the key messages? What tools and styles should be used? When should we do communication

Technological constraint and farmers’ vulnerability in selected developing countries (Nigeria and Vietnam)

Presented at GLOBELICS 2009, 7th International Conference, 6-8 October, Dakar, Senegal.Parallel session 5: Innovation and technology adoption in agricultureThe process of globalization has continued to generate controversy on its impact on groups that are vulnerable to poverty. In this respect, there is evidence that farmers in most developing countries are increasingly vulnerable to poverty due to a number of reasons. One possible reason could be the limited access to the technologies that assist farmers in improving their production and later in selling their products, or the capacity to introduce them in their productive processes, thus causing low productivity, post-harvest losses and persistently low household income. Using the sectoral innovation system approach applied in agriculture, the paper aims to map out key actors (governmental agencies, public R&D institutions and extension service institutions, etc), and to examine their roles and their interaction in enhancing farmers’ access to technologies in such selected developing countries as Nigeria and Vietnam. From each country’s standpoint and experiences in agricultural development the paper compares how the farmers access the technological innovations in agriculture and its impact on the reduction (or not) of their vulnerability to poverty. To achieve significant reduction in farmers’ vulnerability to poverty, the paper revealed that there is need to replace the existing linear models of agricultural innovation with an agricultural system of innovation with its distinctive feature of interactive learning that engenders active participation of framers and other important actors in the agricultural innovation process

Communicating climate change risks for adaptation in coastal and delta communities in Vietnam - the case of policy makers in Quy Nhon City

PowerPoint presentationMeeting: June 18-20, 2013The presentation consists of communication to policy makers in Quy Nhon City regarding flooding and urban development. Recommendations include: Use participatory models of communication; Use local stories and examples as much as possible; Work through local partners; Build on what people already know/understand; Be conscious of gender

Evaluating capacity for climate change adaptation in the health and water sectors in Vietnam : constraints and opportunities

The capacity to anticipate and respond to climate change can critically shape vulnerability, influencing whether a country experiences harm from exposure to stresses or is able to cope, adapt and realize sustainable outcomes. This paper presents the results of a study that evaluates capacity in relation to the health and water sectors in Vietnam. The study presents informants' views on the adequacy of financial resources, understanding of vulnerability and adaptation, training needs, information requirements and levels of cooperation as well as their priorities to address adaptation. The perceptions of respondents on challenges and obstacles faced in developing adaptation strategies are also examined. Training on vulnerability and increasing funds for adaptation were reported as the top priorities, indicating that the inadequacy of human and financial resources is the most significant challenge to effective adaptation in the study context. Difficult and weak cooperation was also widely considered to be a barrier. The paper concludes that there are significant interconnected constraints on adaptive capacity in Vietnam that are further exacerbated by governance issues, such as inadequate cooperation and transparency in sharing information and data. This paper identifies priorities for action to address the challenge of climate change adaptation.16 page(s

The Agro-Food Sector in Catch-up Countries: A Comparative Study from Sectoral Systems Perspective

Presented at the GLOBELICS 6th International Conference 2008 22-24 September, Mexico City, Mexico