Provinces and cities, especially those located in the Central Coast Vietnam due to unsustainable development processes, will face serious risks of dramatic impacts from climate change. There is a need to integrate environmental protection and sustainable management of natural resources into 5-year socio-economical development plans through ananylis, integration and selection of concrete and appropriate measures and strategies to ensure effective sustainable development.

Issues that need to be addressed to support local governments in developing 5-year socio-economical development plans:
1. Lack of or unfamiliarity with information, awareness and knowledge environmental issues, particularly climate change issues at many localities
2. Limited skill to integrate environment protection and sustainable management of natural resources issues in general, and adaptation and reduction strategies to cope with climate change in particular, and:
3. Lack of actions and flexible approach to mobilize participation by the civil societies and community-based organizations so as to promote and strengthen people?s participation and interference and people-centred decision-making.

The central coast offers favourable geographical and climate conditions for typical ecosystems such as coral reefs, seagrass and lagoons. Vietnam currently has 1,300 km2 coral reefs most commonly seen in the Central Coast and Truong Sa and Hoang Sa islands. There are 14 species of seagrasses belonging to 4 families and 9 genes covering total area of 16,000 hectares, which is distributed mainly in Quang Ninh, Hai Phong, Nam Dinh, Thua Thien ? Hue, Khanh Hoa, Da Nang and Con Dao and Phu Quoc islands.
Lagoons are mostly located along the Central Coast (from Thua Thien ? Hue to Ninh Thuan province) accounting for 447.7 km2. Vietnamese lagoons are generally swallow at 2-4 m depth and salinity 1 - 32? depending on the rainfall (dry season or rainy season).
The coastal people make a living by various ways such as fishing, crop plantations, livestock raising, handycraft and salt-making. However, 80% of the coastal households make a living from fishing and/or related activities since the coastal communes are usually short of agricultural land. Fishermen?s livelihoods are easily affected by the weather and damage caused by heavy storms and migration. In other words, the coastal communities are heavily dependent on coastal resources and vulnerable to changes in the natural resource conditions and ecosystem services. Majority of the poor coastal people are involved in small-scale fishing, aquaculture and salt-making.
There is strong linkage between poverty, coastal environment and ecosystem services. Poor Vietnamese coastal people are increasingly vulnerable to changes and coastal disasters like flooding, storms and climate change.
The project is a pilot one of its type. It will target the major officers of relevant government agencies at provincial and district level, including Government and Civil Society?s agencies in the Central Coast region from Thanh Hoa to Binh Thuan province (Target group) in Ha Noi, Thanh Hoa, Thua Thien ? Hue, Ninh Thuan, Da Nang and Binh Dinh.

This target group will be selected to participate in awareness-raising and decision-making with an integration orientation through training, seminars. They will be guided to hear community?s opinions and be involved in policy dialogues and useful study tours. The views and approaches in intergrated management and sustainable use of natural resources and the environment, international and national legal context, national programs approved by the Government will be conveyed to the target group in the following themes:
1. Integrated management and sustainable use of natural resources in the Coastal area;
2. Adaptation and reduction strategies to natural disasters and climate change;
3. Energy security;
4. Environmental pollution and;
5. Role and participation of civil society and the community.

Project approach

If the provincial decision makers? awareness and skills are strengthened, can have positive impacts on the planning process and the actualization of plans to meet requirements for sustainable development and contribute to the implementation of the relevant national target programme.

The selection of the project target group will largely base on assessing the (direct and indirect) role of those involved in developing the 5-year soci-economical plan (for example the provincial advisory departments), committment and capability of participating partners in the whole process.

The targe group will be provided with information in a vivid and effective manner through participation in high-quality Fora on the relevant subjects, which are founded on the National Action Plan on climate change and relevant information selected from domestic and international sources.

Each province will take turn organize a campaign on the subjects that match the local conditions. Subjects will be grouped into thematic areas such as biodiversity, climate change, land degradation and international waters. The non-organizing provinces will be involved and play a certain role in such campaigns. It is expected that these campaigns will benefit the various groups in terms of information and methodologies, negotiation and skill to integrate information into the respective local planning process.

These activities will provide the groups members with diverse information and opportunities to play different roles and share information.

After participating in the various activities in different provinces, members from each province will apply learnt skills to organize similar activities in all necessary thematic areas, integrate the issues in provincial ?level meetings and actively collect information from their own communities.

These activities will be accompanied by relevant advocacy campaigns with clear and effective message to attract wide public attention, which creates preparedness for the planning process and the subsequent implementation.

Objective:
By 2011, capacity of the target groups in the 5 Central Coastal provinces (Thanh Hoa, Thua Thien ? Hue, Ninh Thuan, Da Nang and Binh Dinh) is strengthened as evidenced by proactive and participatory integration of sustainable development into the 5-year socio-economics plan (2011-2015) in a well-informed and skillful manner.
Output 1. The group of 20 key officers that will be directly involved in 5-year socio-economics planning is provided with information on sustainable development and training on skills to organize campaigns to integrate the issues into the planning process.
Output 2.
Senior provincial leaders, central-level policy-makers and the general public are interested in and support the intergration of sustainable development into 5-year socio-economics plans in a participatory approach and effective communication.
Major activities:
- Planning workshops
- 3 awareness-raising and training campaigns at 3 representative provinces in different thematic areas (1 week/campaign)
- Key provincial officers organize events at localities to integrate development issues into planning process
- Advocacy on mass media