The partnership has been initiated to facilitate the complex task of enhancing cross-sectoral collaboration in developing and implementing intergrated policies, strategies and programs across agriculture, fisheries, environment and industries that effectively address the challenges of sustainable and productive development, poverty alleviation and food security through comprehensive and sustainable integrated water resources management (IWRM) in Vietnam.

In the workshop, a Memorandum of Agreement regarding the institutional arrangement and implementation of the project has been signed by Mr. Le Van Minh, Director General, International Cooperation Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development of Vietnam and Mr. Hans Hoogeveeen, Director General, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands.

“Development of a consistent national strategy on Water for Food and Ecosystems (WFE) and the concerted integration of various relevant sectoral policies and programs in its implementation is key to achieve sustainable IWRM in Vietnam” said Mr. Hans Hoogeveen, Director General, Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality of the Netherlands, emphasizing the imperative need for relevant ministries and sectors to effectively collaborate with each other to that end.

Under the coordination of a national steering committee, the initiative will be implemented by Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development along with other minisitries such as Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, Ministry of Industry and Trade and representatives of NGOs and businesses that presently are Vietnam Water Partnership (VNWP) and Electricity of Vietnam (EVN).

In this inception phase, the partnership will begin with bringing together different ministries and sectors through the establishment of a steering committee and a task force to jointly assess and identify the bottlenecks and issues concerning the projected future use of water resources in Vietnam by their respective sectors. That is followed by jointly exploring, developing and evaluating new approaches, tools and techniques that may be applied within and across the sectors to address and resolve the identified issues by conducting a selected number of case studies.

It is expected that outputs including the formation of a multi-stakeholder taskforce; a comprehensive needs assessment for integration of WFE in Vietnam’s water management policy; a national multi-stakeholder workshop with a detailed action plan; a water partnership study and a framework document for the Water Partnership will be achieved for the movement into the implementation stage of the WFE strategic approach for IWRM in Vietnam.