Quang Tri province, Viet Nam. Based on the forecast of the intensity and the flood risks posed by Typhoon No. 4 (international name as Typhoon Noru) from the Viet Nam Meteorological and Hydrological Administration, as well as the regional and international weather stations, FAO, together with Viet Nam Disaster Management Authority and the Provincial Commands for Disaster Prevention and Control (PDPC) of Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue provinces, have decided to activate the Anticipatory Actions, and carry out anticipatory activities just before the typhoon is expected to hit the mainland.

Specifically, on September 26 and 27, FAO project with the People's Committees of the participating communes, and the PDPCs of the two provinces have been urgently implementing specific activities, including:

For Thua Thien Hue province: 300 sealed water-proof plastic containers with capacity of 220 litres have been distributed to the poor households in the low-land areas of 3 communes of Quang Phu, Quang Thai and Huong Xuan; each commune has received 100 containers.

For Quang Tri province: 300 sealed water-proof plastic containers with capacity of 200 litres and 300 cash packages, each of 1 million Vietnamese Dongs, have been distributed to the poor households in the low-land areas of 3 communes of Hai Phong, Trieu Trach and Trieu Do. Particularly for Trieu Do commune, an evacuation camp for livestock, which was already established in the Anticipatory Action exercise in late August this year, has been put into operation.

These FAO-supported actions are implemented within the framework of the Project “Increasing Capacities and Scale for Anticipatory Action including through Social Protection Systems”, a regional project involving 5 countries, including Viet Nam. The Component implemented in Vietnam has a total estimated budget of US$1.7 million from the ODA grants supported by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (DG ECHO) through the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO). In Viet Nam, FAO collaborates with Viet Nam Disaster Management Authority (VNDMA), the Commands for Disaster Prevention and Control at different levels, and the provinces to develop an Anticipatory Action Plan, and to promote its integration into the disaster management system in Viet Nam.

The Project’s objectives are to protect the livelihoods, food security and nutrition for the vulnerable households in the rural areas through forecasting the impacts of natural disasters, using a unified approach to humanitarian assistance efforts, enhancing the governance and the preparedness in disaster risk reduction in Viet Nam, including the connections with and support to the national social protection system. This will strengthen the resilience and recovery of the vulnerable households in the rural areas, and protect the achievements of the socio-economic development against natural disasters.

The project locations are the central coastal provinces, starting from the first year with three provinces of Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien Hue, and intended to expand to Quang Ngai and Phu Yen provinces from the second year. The expected implementation period is three years, from August 2021 to July 2024. The natural disasters that the project aims to control are typhoons and the post-typhoon flooding. To date, after the various consultations from the regional to the community levels in the 3 provinces with 9 selected communes, the project has been focusing on developing an Anticipatory Action Framework, with three proposed options of: (i) Providing sealed plastic containers to store food, seeds and key assets; (ii) Providing multi-purpose cash transfers to help the local residents to buy food and essential commodities in anticipation of a typhoon/flooding; and (iii) Providing evaluation camps for livestock in anticipation of flooding.

An exercise for the implementation of some selected Anticipatory Actions at the commune level was successfully conducted in Trieu Do commune of Trieu Phong district, Quang Tri province in late August 2022.

In the coming time, the project will continue to finalise the Anticipatory Action Framework and the Procedures for Implementing the Anticipatory Actions against typhoons and post-typhoon flooding, based on lessons learned from the exercises and the actual implementation of the anticipatory action against Typhoon Noru for the three project provinces, while expanding the scope to include two more provinces as mentioned above. The ultimate goal of the project is to develop an Anticipatory Action Framework and to promote the integration of the anticipatory actions into Viet Nam's disaster management system.