The Vietnamese government should design a clearer national action plan on green growth, a representative from the World Bank (WB) said at a recent conference in Hanoi. The WB representative made the appeal at the seminar on July 12 to kick-start a project to help the implementation of a master plan on developing Vietnam’s green growth strategy. The WB emphasized the need for the country to focus on three important targets, namely institutions, policies and capacity improvement, for sustainable development. The project, mainly funded by the Korean International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), aims at green growth at provincial levels, enhancing capacity as well as policy assessment during implementation. South Korea, which pioneered and is pursuing the green growth model in Asia, has been accompanying Vietnam in building and materializing its green growth strategy. The project is regarded as an approach to restructuring the country’s economic growth models to make them more efficient to tackle climate change impacts and reduce green house emissions. Addressing the event, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen The Phuong underscored the vital role of green growth in fulfilling other development goals, which include avoiding the middle income–classified nation trap and ensuring a sustainable environment and ecosystems. Vietnam is the first developing country in the Asia-Pacific region to independently formulate its own green growth strategy as rapid economic development over the past decades has resulted in serious environmental degradation. Under the National Strategy on Green Growth, Vietnam targets to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 8-10% by 2020 and energy consumption by 1%-1.5% each year. (vietnamplus.vn July 12)
