1.4 National development planning architecture in Viet Nam

Ho Chi Minh City. Viet Nam is one of the ten countries worldwide most affected by air pollution and there is groundwater contamination from industrial activity, as well as, apparently, some residual effects from Agent Orange, a dioxin, possibly still leaching from the soil at old storage sites.

Viet Nam has seen an increasing frequency and intensity of typhoons. In the last five years, Viet Nam was hit by three consecutive typhoons and more than one million people were affected. Around 89,000 homes lost their roofs, and many were destroyed by the storms.35 The central coast has been devastated by widespread flooding, with at least 114 people killed.

Viet Nam declared COVID-19 as a national epidemic on April 1st, 2020, despite the relatively low number of reported cases (260) compared to neighbouring countries. Viet Nam has contained the virus through timely measures in public information, advocating the practice of social distancing and providing access to testing and appropriate care.36 The success of Viet Nam in responding to COVID-19 is based on its experience in dealing with other outbreaks,37 which led Viet Nam to build a strong response infrastructure and networks for identifying, tracing and reacting to human and zoonotic pandemics, including a strong government focus on public information and communication.

2020 UNDP HDR dashboard38 data show that COVID-19 will mostly impact vulnerable communities, especially those living in extreme poverty or under social protection and labour programmes, and that the most vulnerable economic areas will be remittances and tourism. The recent assessment by UNDP and UN Women on the socioeconomic impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable households and enterprises estimates that the transient national income poverty rate remained at a relatively high level of 70.3 percent in May 2020 for ethnic minority households, while the national average jumped from 4.57 percent to 26.7 percent. Also, due to COVID-19 the exposure of women and children to violence could be on the rise, and mothers are more likely to incur job losses or reduce their hours to focus on childcare or the family. Finally, the participation of women in response and recovery decision-making processes is critical, yet so far limited in Viet Nam.39 In 2020, the unemployment rate rose to 2.27 percent, compared to 1.16 percent before the COVID-19 pandemic, and more than 29,200 enterprises sought to suspend their operations, an increase of 38.2 percent compared to the previous year.40 The latest World Bank report noted that Viet Nam is one of the few countries in the world not to expect a recession, though its growth rate for 2020 will be far lower than the typical 6-7 percent pre-crisis projections.41 The same report noted that the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 crisis will be hard to predict, given the uncertainty surrounding its magnitude and duration.

Viet Nam’s Socio-Economic Development Strategy for the period 2011-2020, adopted at the Eleventh Congress of the Viet Nam Communist Party, constitutes the primary framework for development planning in the country. The core goal of this strategy is to continue promoting industrialization and modernization with a socialist orientation and building human capital. Viet Nam is currently implementing its five-year Socio-Economic Development Plan 2016-2020, which is based on the SEDS 2011-2020 framework, pursuing an inclusive and sustainable development model which balances economic, social and environmental goals, for an equitable share of development gains for all citizens.

35 https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/28/world/asia/vietnam-typhoon-molave-landslide.html. 36 Cumulative data for COVID-19 in Viet Nam from the start of the pandemic until 06 November 2020 was 1,206 cases and 35 deaths. 37 SARS 2003, Bird flu 2003, HIN1 2009, swine fever 2019. 38 http://hdr.undp.org/en/content/global-preparedness-and-vulnerability-dashboards. 39 https://www.unicef.org/vietnam/media/5996/file/UN%20analysis%20on%20social%20impacts%20of%20COVID-19%20and%20 strategic%20policy%20recommendations%20for%20Viet%20Nam.pdf. 40 ESCAP 2020; Assessment of the Impact of COVID-19 on MSMEs, and especially women-led MSMEs in Viet Nam. 41 https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/vietnam/overview.