On the afternoon of May 22nd, in Hanoi, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha had a meeting with Mr. Yvon Collin, Senator, Special Envoy of the French Senate’s Finance Committee. Two parties have spent time discussing about the cooperation in the framework of Support Program to respond to climate change (SP - RCC) of French Agency for Development (AFD) and Vietnam.
AFD is the main sponsor of the SP - RCC
Addressing at the meeting, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha said that, French Agency for Development is one of two main sponsors of SP - RCC in the form of budget support over the years.
In the framework of SP - RCC, AFD focuses on policy actions related to energy saving, efficient use of energy and renewable energy. Each year AFD supports this program in the form of loan with a budget of 20 million Euro. Until, the total borrowed fund of AFD is 60 million Euro.
In addition, AFD also supports SP – RCC in a number of items related to technique such as: Reviewing research on the framework of policy matrix in compliance with national strategy on climate change; reviewing the financial mechanism of the program, etc.
In particular, regarding the framework of the policy matrix in 2013, AFD supported Vietnam in the construction and issue of Circular on regulation of process, procedures of establishment and approval of wind power. Currently, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment are consulted by sponsors and the ministries, departments about the framework of policy matrix in the period 2014-2015.
Overview of the meeting
To continue to develop SP - RCC, recently, Prime Minister has agreed to receive the 4th loan worth 20 million Euros and assigned Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to host and coordinate with concerned agencies to effectively organize this program.
As far as concerned, besides AFD, other sponsors such as World Bank, Eximbank, JICA, AusAID have also begun discussions with Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment and other ministries of Vietnam, pledging to sponsor SP - RCC in the next stage based on implementation result on the framework of policy matrix in 2013, which was approved by the Prime Minister in Decision No. 1628/QD-TTg.
At the meeting, Mr. Yvon Collin, Senator, Special Envoy of French Senate’s Finance Committee highly appreciated the results of SP - RCC that Vietnam has achieved in recent years. He also said, it was expected that at the 21st UN conference on climate change held in France, AFD will have many proposals to raise the level of support for SP - RCC of Vietnam.
Improving the role of in response to climate change
At the meeting, two parties frankly discussed about improving the role of people in response to climate change.
Mr. Yvon Collin, Senator, Special Envoy of French Senate’s Finance Committee, said that, in France, the government has been particularly concerned to raise awareness of people in response to climate change. And so far, the French people were very active and enthusiastic about participating in the activities; thus the role of people is improved in response to climate change.
In Vietnam, he noticed that, people are still not well equipped in knowledge related to this field, most of climate change issues are only limited to the micro level, they are considered as the duty of the Ministries, departments, yet people are not really active in responding to climate change.
Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha concurred with the comments of Mr. Yvon Collin. Besides, said Deputy Minister: Currently, the Government of Vietnam has issued many policies, specific action programs to raise people's awareness. Most recently, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in coordination with AFD organized the conference "Managing, monitoring and assessing the efforts of the state budget to respond to climate change: Sharing experience between France and Vietnam".
Besides raising awareness of the people, the Government of Vietnam also focuses on the projects directly and long-term supporting the people, who are under the impacts of climate change with a desire to stabilize people’s lives and support people in economic development, damage mitigation caused by climate change.
Also at the meeting, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha suggested AFD to consider appropriate measures to support SP - RCC in the next years with a more favorable interest rate and condition; enhancing the technical support for the policy enforcement agencies of Vietnam…