A meeting was held on September 17 in mountainous Lao Cai province to review the project, which has been carried out since 2010 at a total cost of more than 45 billion VND (more than 2.1 million USD) provided by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.


In Lao Cai alone, it has benefited thousands of people in Nam Khanh, Duong Quy, Hoa Mac, and Gia Phu communes, a report showed.

The project, aiming to increase local residents’ resilience to natural disasters, focuses on vulnerable groups, including women, children, people with disabilities, the elderly, and those living in disaster-prone areas.

It ran a number of communication campaigns to help the public identify risks posed by natural disasters and improved the capacity of local authorities and Red Cross staff to undertake community-based mitigation efforts.

The project improved infrastructure by building roads, bridges, clean water systems and flood-proof houses, whilst also equipping facilities with the necessary tools, such as rescue boats, lifebuoys, and first-aid kits.

On September 18-19, the project’s managing board will embark on a fact-finding tour to beneficiary communes in Lao Cai.

Data shows that over the past three decades, natural disasters killed approximately 500 people in Vietnam and injured thousands more every year, costing the country 1 – 1.5 percent of its gross domestic product each year.