Vietnam is joining efforts to prepare for Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions (NAMAs) in agriculture. The project “Enhancing NAMA Readiness: building capacity in integrated food and energy systems in Vietnam - UNJP/VIE/054/UNJ” has been officially endorsed by the Government of Vietnam, and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is assigned to implement the project over the three year time period from March 2014. On the special occasion of the official launch, national experts and policy makers from various departments within MARD participated to support the NAMA initiative and numerous experts from international organizations joined to celebrate the launch of the new project.

Vice Minister Tran Thanh Nam shared his hopes for the project to contribute to the Government’s programme on reducing greenhouse gas emissions in agriculture to 20% by 2020 and the implementation of the National Green Growth Strategy with the crucial policy and technical support of FAO. The FAO Representative in Viet Nam, Dr. JongHa Bae, emphasized the important roles of agriculture sector to create synergies in adaptation and mitigation of climate change and wished the project will contribute significantly to fulfill such an important objective.

Viet Nam has urgent needs to curb climate change in agriculture as a largest emitting sector in the country, as according to the Second National Communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Vietnam’s agriculture accounts for 43% of greenhouse gas emissions of the country. NAMAs are believed to be one of the most effective mechanisms to achieve large scale emissions reductions in developing countries however there is currently no NAMAs developed in agriculture in Vietnam yet.

The project will contribute to design a NAMA framework for agriculture in Vietnam through based on integrated food and energy systems and enhance capacity of policy makers and national technical experts throughout trainings and exchanges of knowledge. In order to enhance communications among stakeholders within the country, various channels of communication will be devised including the NAMA Working Group in MARD and the Annual Plenary Meeting on NAMA Development.