Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development welcomed and awarded a medal on “Contribution to agriculture and rural development” for Mr. Howard Bamsey, Executive Director of Green Climate Fund for his efforts to support Vietnam’s adaption to climate change.

At the ceremony, Deputy Minister Hoang Van Thang said that Vietnam was one of the most affected by climate change. With 44% of the labor force engaged in agricultural production, the extreme impacts of climate change had been quite vivid in Vietnam for recent years; disasters with great intensity occurring more frequently threatened the people’s lives. Being aware of challenges posed by climate change, the Vietnam government as well as the people had taken various actions to response and mitigate the impacts of climate change. In particular, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development issued an action plan for climate change response in agriculture and rural development for 2016-2020. In the efforts to reduce risks caused by natural disasters, Deputy Minister said that the Ministry and Green Climate Fund had many issues to address, including ecosystem-based development, and ecosystem restoration. However, that was a major issue, since that was related to transforming people’s livelihoods in a wide area, changing people’s perception on new agriculture production methods in line with new requirements, and enhancing people’s resilience.

Deputy Minister highly appreciated the Green Climate Fund’s sponsorship for the first project in Vietnam on June 26^th, 2017 with the grant of 30 million USD. The project was developed on the basis of the cooperation between the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and Vietnam government. The first two locations in this project were Thanh Hoa and Ca Mau, which were scheduled to start this August. The project was expected to support disaster-prone communities to avoid the impacts of frequent typhoons and floods, and enhance the local residents’ livelihoods.

Speaking in the ceremony, Mr. Howard Bamsey said that Vietnam had developed a well-established institutional system and relationships among ministries and departments. That was the basis to facilitate Green Climate Fund’s support for Vietnam. “I hope that there will be more agricultural projects for Vietnam to response to climate change in the upcoming time” – affirmed Mr. Howard Bamsey.