Preparing for Climate Change in Viet Nam
Viet Nam has always suffered from extreme weather events. Because of climate change, it is likely that droughts will occur more often, and that tropical cyclones will also become more intense. In 2003, the Vietnam Red Cross Society (VNRCS) became one of the first National Red Cross Red Crescent Societies to integrate climate change into its existing disaster preparedness (DP) programmes. The project was a pilot for VNRCS and was designed to investigate how the DP programmes could be adapted so as to take into account climate change risks. In three years,VNRCS managed to establish new partnerships, to understand the complex issue of climate change and its impacts in Viet Name and find ways to adapt to it. The project helped thirty communities in Viet Nam become less vulnerable to climate-related disasters, while the results and lessons learnt are no helping to make VNRCS’s other DP programmes “climate proof”. Published in 2007.