International Development
Vietnam – Canada Environment Project (VCEP): Phases I and II
Canadian International Development Agency
VCEP was a highly successful 10-year, $20 million CIDA-funded project, conducted in 2 phases, with the overall goal of enhancing the management and protection of Vietnam’s environment. The purpose of the project was to strengthen the capacities of key national and local institutions in Vietnam in the areas of: 1) environmental monitoring; 2) industrial and urban pollution management; and 3) environmental impact assessment and planning.
ESSA and its consortium partner, SNC-Lavalin, conducted VCEP using a results-based management approach that included training, the design and development of information systems, and technology transfer. The project design evolved through an iterative process of dialogue and consultation among Vietnamese counterpart agencies, the project Steering Committee, and the Canadian Executing Agency (CEA). VCEP I initially worked at the national level and also contributed to building basic environmental management capacity in four provinces (Ha Noi, Hai Phong, Da Nang and Binh Duong). VCEP II focused more specifically on building capacity for industrial pollution management in the four initial provinces and three new provinces (Long An, Hai Duong, Bac Ninh). VCEP supported institutional capacity development of government environment agencies, through work with key industries and line ministries, to develop systematic, sustainable industrial pollution management programming capacity for small-scale problems (e.g., individual small and medium enterprises). Capacity development at the national level focused on the development of regulatory and policy tools, provision of responsive technical analysis for strategic policy issues, and the training of national and provincial counterparts.
ESSA also led the gender equality and community awareness components of VCEP II. Gender equality activities included training in gender analysis for government officials, hands-on gender analysis exercises, the identification of gender impacts of cleaner production activities, the promotion of gender equality in selected industries, the development of a gender checklist for environmental management, and the integration of gender equality considerations in other project activities (e.g., National Pollution Control Strategy). Community participation in VCEP included the design and delivery of a workshop on community awareness and participation in industrial pollution management, and the design and implementation of a community participation initiative to promote industrial pollution management in villages concentrated around paper recycling.
Over its 10-year run, VCEP received repeated recognition for its performance by the Government of Vietnam, the donor community and through independent reviews. According to CIDA’s final evaluation of the project, VCEP is considered to be "CIDA’s best environmental project in Southeast Asia in the past 10 years."