Drought in the Mekong Delta (Photo VNA)Tra Vinh (VNA) – The Mekong Delta provinces of Tra Vinh and Ben Tre have worked to ensure the implementation of a project on climate change adaption.
Country Director of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) in Vietnam Thomas Rath expressed his pleasure at the positive outcomes of the project at a meeting with local authorities in Tra Vinh on November 17.
He said the the two provinces should speed up the project by focusing on improving community-based adaptation capacity in the long run and increasing quality of agricultural and aquaculture practices.
Tra Vinh and Ben Tre should enhance experience exchanges to expand effective models while strengthening coordination with specialised institutions such as the provincial Department of Science and Technology, Department of Industry and Trade, Department of Environment and Natural Resources, and the private economic sector, to implement livelihood models.
Cornels Hubrencht Blok, a delegate from the IFAD, said that during the implementation of the project, the two provinces have integrated climate change adaptation and natural disaster risk management into socio-economic development plans. However, the solutions are just applied in the short run, he said, advising the pair to build future scenarios.
Vice Chairman of the Ben Tre People’s Committee Nguyen Huu Lap and his counterpart from Tra Vinh Kim Ngoc Thai, pledged to create the best conditions and arrange capital to support the project.
Sponsored by the IFAD, the project is being carried out from 2014 to 2020 in 30 communes of eight districts in Ben Tre and 30 communes of seven districts in Tra Vinh.
The project worth more than 1 trillion VND (44 million USD) aims to support sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor and to strengthen the adaptive capacity of target communities and institutions to better contend with climate change.-VNA
VNA
