Vietnam should bolster activities to cope with climate change byincluding strategic investments in low-carbon growth in socio-economicdevelopment and budget planning in the next five years.

Theinitiative was proposed in a report released by the Ministry of Planningand Investment (MPI), under the support of the World Bank (WB) and theUnited Nations Development Programme (UNDP), in Hanoi on May 21.

Addressingthe event, Deputy Minister Nguyen The Phuong said Vietnam is one of thefirst countries in the region to implement green growth and the newinitiative will further strengthen the country’s ambitions in greeninvestment.

He added that Vietnam will strive to obtain itsMillennium Development Goals in 2015 and has prioritised activities toalleviate climate change and boost green growth.

According to theWB’s Country Director in Vietnam, Victoria Kwakwa, the inclusion ofclimate change in budget planning will help to increase Vietnam’sadaptability to the impacts of global warming and pollution and help thecountry progress towards a greener and more prosperous future.

UNDP’sCountry Director in Vietnam, Louise Chamberlain, said governmentsaround the world are coping with climate change by improving theirnational budget planning systems and public spending quality.

TheVietnamese government has allocated funding from its budget for climatechange activities and green growth, and built a target programme withstrategies and plans of actions on this field, but the programme has notyet met its full potential due to insufficient funding.-VNA