Description

The report was launched on 11^th March in a workshop organized by the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). It reviews the allocation of climate change budgets from 6 ministries (i.e., Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), Ministry of Transport (MOT), Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT), Ministry of Construction (MOC), Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST)) and 28 provinces and a nationally-managed city of Cần Thơ in the period of 2016 – 2020. Sources of climate change budget include domestic and Official Development Assistance (ODA) resources.

It shows that most of the climate budgets were for climate change adaptation. The majority of investment in climate change adaptation is from public sources, while investment in mitigation measures is mainly from private sources. The allocation of the climate change budget for 2016 – 2020 has increased compared to the previous period of 2011 – 2014. However, it requires to invest more in adaptation, particularly “from international sources and private sector”, says UNDP Resident Representative in Việt Nam Caitlin Wiesen. Additionally, it needs to “integrate climate budget coding and tracking into the planning and budgeting process” to enable transparent tracking and reporting on the delivery of climate change commitments.

Provincial climate change budgets

The share of the climate change budget accounted for 16 – 21% of the total provincial budget. The average climate budget was 18,000 billion VNĐ per year. However, the individual budget increased over the year from 15,000 billion VNĐ in 2016 to 24,000 billion VNĐ in 2020.

The dominant climate change expenditure is for adaptation measures, which make up more than 90% of the climate budget. The foci of more than half of the climate change delivery are four tasks including transport, residential and city area resilience, irrigation, and river dyke & embankments. These interventions are considerably expensive because they are mostly infrastructure-related. Most of the budget allocation under the National Climate Change Strategy relates to food and water, sea-level rise, forest development, and Green House Gases emissions. There is a lack of attention on awareness-raising and capacity building for climate-related interventions.

Ministry climate change budgets

The share of total climate change budgets from the six ministries ranges from 26 – 38% of the combined total ministry budget, representing from 8,000 to 13,500 billion VNĐ per year. More than 90% of the budget “was targeted at the climate change delivery pillar”, the “remainder was from Science, Society and Technology (ST) and Policy and Governance (PG)”. The budget also focuses mainly on adaptation measures. More than half of the climate budget allocation to the National Climate Change Strategy is associated with food and water. MARD and MOT are the two ministries having a dominant allocation of climate change budget. While MARD focuses on food and water, MOT focuses on Green House Gases reduction.

The report is available here:
https://www.vn.undp.org/content/vietnam/en/home/library/environment_climate/climate-public-expenditure-and-investment-review-of-viet-nam.html

Sources & further information: “Việt Nam must scale-up budget for climate change adaptation” at https://vietnamnews.vn, “Ministries earmark 70 percent of budget for climate change adaptation: workshop” at https://en.vietnamplus.vn, and “Climate public expenditure and investment review of Vietnam” at https://www1.undp.org.