VietNamNet Bridge - The Learning Center on Environmental and Social Sustainability was recently established in Hanoi to foster knowledge exchange and capacity building relating to environmental and social safeguards and standards in Vietnam.

The center was established with initial funding support from the Australian Government and technical support from international partners, including the World Bank Group (WB), the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the US Agency for International Development (USAID), and the Asian Institute of Technology Center in Vietnam (AIT-VN).

The learning center, housed at the Asian Institute of Technology Center in Vietnam, will offer capacity building to project management units, district and provincial authorities, consultants and other stakeholders in social and environmental issues.

Given the surge of investments in infrastructure sector and Vietnam’s challenges on environmental pollution and climate-change related vulnerability, the center is expected to play a critical role, in building long-term capacity on environmental and social aspects of development projects and programs in Vietnam on a sustained basis.

“Vietnam’s SEDS seeks more environmentally and socially sustainable development. This requires attention to environmental and social safeguards in executing the country’s huge infrastructure development program. The mission of this center is to help fill the gap in Vietnam’s social and environmental safeguards capacity,” said Ms. Victoria Kwakwa, the World Bank Country Director for Vietnam.

“Vietnam has taken great strides in recent years in introducing legislation dealing with social and environmental safeguards, and is rightly seen as leading the way in Asia in  areas such as payment for forest ecosystem services,” said Tomoyuki Kimura, Country Director for the Asian Development Bank.

“The challenge now is to ensure that the country develops the necessary technical skills and capacity to effectively implement its safeguard requirements. ADB is delighted to be supporting the learning center and believes it has a major role to play in developing highly skilled safeguard professionals in Vietnam, and so contributing to the country's move towards a path of environmentally sustainable growth,” he added.

"Investments in Vietnam's infrastructure will be more durable and effective, and benefit from a lower risk of serious problems, if Vietnam finds ways to incorporate social and environmental safeguards. The Center will help provide the country with the latest information and capacity building to achieve this, as will other efforts like USAID’s to support a broader base for decision-making," said USAID Vietnam Mission Director Joakim Parker.  

Right after its establishment, the center successfully held the “Environmental and Social Impact Assessment Training of Trainers Program” (ESIA ToT) on June 08-16, 2015. The course trained 25 potential trainers in the principles and conduct of ESIA applying World Bank and Asian Development Bank policy and guidance; based on performance in the course, select a target group of trainers from the ESIA ToT to conduct training in Vietnamese, initially in collaboration with expert ADB and WB staff or consultants, for Project Management Units (PMU), consultants and others to conduct and implement ESIA and to continue to train the selected target group through mentoring, experience on-the-ground with donor projects and additional follow-on training with the result that they will be competent to train the target audiences, without supervision by donor staff.

The training team members, from WB, ADB and AIT-VN were experienced experts in the field of environmental and social impact assessment, and training of trainer.

The workshop used the combination of different training methods such as participatory learning approaches (PLA), application-oriented and adult learning method.

The course included short lecture, group discussion, field visit followed by presentation of group’s findings from the field, questions and answers and developing lively discussions among course participants and trainers.

PV