Vietnam is a middle income country. The economic growth was 5.9 per cent in 2011. But there is still widespread poverty, particularly among ethnic minorities. Extreme poverty among minorities is almost 30 per cent, nine times more than other population groups. The country is still a major aid recipient but Norway has reduced the aid in recent years.

These are the Norwegian priorities:

• Support to the civil society organisations
• Technical and institutional assistance, with special emphasis on management of natural resources, climate and the environment
• Cooperation with the business sector

Business sector

Business Match Making Programme (BMMP) is financed by Norad with the purpose of poverty alleviation. The aim is to create workplaces through binding economic cooperation between companies in Norway and Vietnam. The programme’s distinction is a close cooperation between companies and advisors in Norway and Vietnam, the programme managers at Innovation Norway in Oslo and the Hanoi office

Objectives of the project:

• Increased wealth creation and profitable cooperation
• The cooperation will have a long-term nature and will involve transfer or exchange of capital, know-how, expertise and technology
• The programme prioritises sectors in which Norway has particular expertise such as energy, maritime sector, marine sector and the environment

BMMP-Vietnam was launched in 2010. By the end of 2011, 37 companies had joined the programme. In 2011 work started to bring into market more Norwegian companies in the fields of oceans surveillance and oil spill response planning. The following are among the companies that have made agreements through BMMP-Vietnam and followed up with cooperation, establishment or transfer of expertise: Destino (ICT), Malthe Winje (water purification), BMS Davinci (Cranes/Winches), Steinsvik (maritime), Espeland (meat production), Kongsberg Seatex (sensors), Bulldog Workware (workwear), Conexus (training/competence building)

Education

Norway supported a Unicef project for bilingual teaching in mother language which is run in three provinces. The project has succeeded in developing teaching methods that give children of the ethnic minorities better access to education. Reading skills and less drop-out percentage have changed the authorities’ attitude towards children from minority backgrounds.

Climate

Natural disasters may cost the international community almost 1300 billion NOK annually by the end of this century. ”Prevention is a lot cheaper”, says World Bank. Vietnam is among the countries hard hit by natural disasters and it is a pioneering country when it comes to prevention. Rising sea level can also have catastrophic consequences for Vietnam’s food security. Norway is working for raising awareness on the environmental challenges and climate change. The objective is to enable Vietnam to better prevent natural disasters and also to manage the destruction, should a disaster strike.

Cooperation between Vietnam National University and Norwegian Geotechnological Institute has contributed to achieve the following:

• Competence building among the Vietnamese researchers around prevention of destruction caused by natural disasters
• Charts have been prepared; landslide protection for hydroelectricity plants at Cua Dat and Hanoi is in place and steps have been taken to protect coastal areas from erosion 

Health

Biosafety involves preventing spread of contagious diseases, also from animals. Keywords here are physical safety under transport and in the laboratories. Norway is supporting work for preparing systems for maintaining biosafety in Vietnam. As part of this work a survey of needs was done in 70 different laboratories. Books and documents have also been translated to Vietnamese in order to facilitate access to information.

Energy

Norway wishes to help establish sustainable and effective management systems for health, environment and safety in Vietnam’s oil and gas industry.

Project for health, safety and environment has contributed in the drafting of new rules that have now been introduced in the state-owned company PetroVietnam.

Support to Vietnam’s petroleum industry was concluded in 2011 with a seminar for sharing experiences. With Norway’s assistance the industry has developed a governmental management system for health, safety and environment for the entire oil industry. The system is equivalent to most others in the world.

Good governance

Norway is supporting a programme for modernisation of the public administration. This programme relates to providing people better access to public services as well as strengthening the government’s anti-corruption work.
In Ninh Binh women’s competence level has been raised, administrative systems have improved and more people are joining in preparation of plans to combat poverty. The programme is likely to be included in the national programme that is currently being developed by UNDP and the government. Other provinces are using experiences from Ninh Binh in their work. An evaluation will be done in 2012.

Aid to Vietnam

The Norwegian embassy mainly uses Vietnam’s management systems, a factor that causes delays – but also provides opportunities. Due to the way this work is carried out there is a greater opportunity for dialogue about transparency and ownership.