Seminar on Environment and Development in Vietnam

Friday and Saturday, December 6-7, 1996

Common Room, University House,
and J G Crawford Building, National Centre for Development Studies,
Australian National University

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Environmental management and the policy making process in Vietnam

Abstract

Dr Tran Thi Thanh Phuong,
National Environment Agency, MoSTE, Vietnam

Since the Government of Vietnam has embarked on a reform named "doi moi" to guide the country from a centrally-planned toward a market economy, Vietnam has opened up its economy and has entered the process of trade liberation. This has been successful in generating strong economic growth, but has created threats to the country's environment. In order to maximize the potential positive impacts while at the same time minimising the negative effects of the modernisation and industralisation in the country, it is necessary to take measures now to protect the environment. The ongoing reform process, together with the fact that Vietnam has a unique opportunity to learn from the experiences of its neighbors, creates a good opportunity for the development and introduction of effective environmental management policies and instruments.

This paper aims to describe how environmental management is being implemented and how the policy making process has been made. Existing investment policies emphasise that environmental protection and sustainable use of natural resources should be cornerstones of development in Vietnam. These policies should promote the economic transition, as well as environmental management for sustainable development.

With these policies in place, there is a need to identify the most important environmental issues, including problems to be tackled and measures to be taken. The problems are to find appropriate and effective preventive and treatment measures for pollution, loss of biodiversity, degradation of marine environment, and of environmental quality in urban, rural and industrial areas. To solve these problems, the Government has plans to implement a number of measures. They can be grouped into regulatory (development of institutional and legislative framework, capacity-building, strengthening international cooperation and implication of international treaties), economic (market-based instruments to be applied in parallel with "command-and-control" ones), and communicative (awareness raising, training and education, information management).

Dr Tran Thi Thanh Phuong
National Enviromnent Agency
Ministry of Science, Technology and Environment
39 Tran Hung Dao
Ha Noi, Viet Nam

Tel: +84 (4) 82-40954
Fax: +84 (4) 82-51518
Email: tphuong@nea.gov.vn