Since late 2015, Viet Nam was affected by the El Nino phenomenon and the regions of the Central Highlands, South Central Region and Mekong Delta experienced the most severe drought in the past 90 years, with 18 provinces declaring state of emergency. From this event, one million people were in need of food assistance and 1.75 million people lost incomes due to damaged or lost livelihoods. The Government of Viet Nam has also estimated its economic loss to USD 674 million.

With projections of climate change induced disasters such as extreme drought and flooding becoming the “new normal”, FAO teamed up with Viet Nam Women’s Union (WU) to share early warning, early action messages with the financial support from the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).  The main goal is to build farmers’ resilience towards drought or flooding, focusing on the safeguard of agriculture and livestock production. By putting women in the center of prevention and response activities, FAO aims to enhance women’s capacity to manage risks thereby reducing their vulnerability to disasters and climate change as, having limited access to physical, financial, human, social and natural capital, they are often the worst hit

FAO, in collaboration with WU rolled out two 3-day training of trainers in the Central Highlands and Mekong Region to strengthen the capacity of 61 Women’s Union staff members from provincial to commune level in disaster preparedness, response and early warning. The training provided insights on how to develop communication messages, choose which communications methods to use and develop communication plans. The training also provided knowledge on crop-protection messages and behaviors against drought, flooding or other natural disasters. At the end of the training, participants submitted a communication plan for their commune to further roll out a campaign. 

“With Viet Nam’s long and unique geological shape, climates drastically vary among the northern, central and southern parts of Viet Nam, thus disasters affecting farmers are also very different. Therefore, by enabling participants to develop their own communication plan for their commune or district, we were able to localize the communication messages and plan accordingly to the different climates and needs. Additionally, by giving participants more ownership to create the communication plan, we hope that the behavior change messages will be continuously shared with the community, even after the project.” said Ki Jung Min, the Outreach Coordinator of FAO Viet Nam.

After the training of trainers, 18 awareness raising and sensitization sessions were organized in 18 communes in the Central Highlands and Mekong Region, reaching out to 156 022 people in communities vulnerable from disasters. Trained Women’s Unions staff members implemented different awareness raising sessions including theatrical plays, folklores and poems to effectively convey the messages.

“Building the capacity of Women Unions for disaster risk reduction and for the dissemination of behavioral change messages has had a compounding effect as the trained staff is now training other members of the Unions in other provinces regularly affected by disasters to use the approach developed with FAO to share life-saving messages with vulnerable communities.” said Roberta Tranquili, the Emergency Operations Coordinator of FAO Viet Nam.