"Sustainability" - Concept and definition for Vietnam
From: Paul Brown
Date: 2008/12/22
List,
"Sustainability" is a word that has come to mean everything and nothing due to overuse. The Brundtland Commission has given us a good starting point: "Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" but does not lend itself to
being easily translated in a word or phrase across cultures.
Has any work been done on a corollary word/phrase to "sustainability" in Vietnam or how to transfer the concept?
I am working on a project to introduce urban and environmental sustainability issues in Vietnam and develop opportunities for green technology transfer and investment in green buildings/infrastructure and the like and would appreciate hearing about other similar work and leading practice to date.
Paul J. Brown
Vietnam Program Coordinator
Portland State University
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From: Skyler Wiet
Date: 2008/12/22
Paul,
I would direct you to Viet Nam Agenda 21, which is a mechanism currently being used for mainstreaming 'sustainability' policy into various levels of government planning. Some materials are available at: va21.org There are some additional mechanisms that support technology transfer at various levels of implementation. If this interests you, please contact me off-list to discuss further.
Best regards,
Skyler Wiet
Environmental & Sustainability Consultant
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From: Pam McElwee
Date: 2008/12/23
Dear all,
There has been a great deal of attention in Vietnam to the idea of sustainability and sustainable development since 1992's Earth Summit in Rio and the Agenda 21 that came out of it. The UN funded much of this work in VN through project called VIE/01/021 - which resulted in the va21.org website. The outputs of these efforts are that:
-- The Ministry of Planning and Information has an office devoted to Agenda 21 implementation in Vietnam. They publish colorful brochures on things like "What is sustainable development in Vietnam".
-- In 2004 the government issued a decision (153/2004/QD-TTG) on "Establishing the strategic orientation for sustainable development in Vietnam" which one can get in English on the va21 site.
-- There have been smaller projects in many provinces on mainstreaming sustainable development/Agenda 21 in to provincial planning, and a series of books published on this effort ("Định hướng chiến lược phát triển bền vững" of various provinces published in 2006). I don't believe these were published in English but you can get the Vnese through the MPI Agenda 21 office.
The standard translations are "chương trình nghị sự 21" for Agenda 21, "phát triển bền vững" for sustainable development and "sự bền vững" for sustainability, which is not a great match in my book but that's what everyone uses. I'm not convinced all the paper the Agenda 21 efforts have produced have actually changed much; there no mechanism for monitoring or enforcement of Agenda 21 in either the global accord or in the VN adoption of it. The people I have interviewed working in this sector in Hanoi largely agree. Awareness and use of these terms is now high, but it's not clear what has changed in actual planning practice, particularly at the provincial level.
Pam McElwee
Dr. Pamela McElwee
Assistant Professor of Global Studies
Arizona State University
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From: Nguyen Van Duyen
Date: 2008/12/23
Dear all,
Agreed with Pamela about the Agenda 21 in Vietnam.
The concept of sustainable development was introduced by year 2000 in Vietnam by project VIE/01/021. However, before this, there was also a project called integration environemnt considerations in planing (also with MPI). Even now, the concept is not well understood, or confused. Often, you may see in newspapers they are talking about sustainable development, but that would mean maintaing the economic growth (GDP, income).
The Decision 153 requires provinces and sectors to develop and implement their own agenda 21. Up to now, there are some provinces got their own agenda 21 such as Quang Nam, Ben Tre, Son La which are supported by ODA money. Actually the state budget can also pay for this (as in case of Hai Phong, Soc Trang, etc.) The implementation of the agenda is still weak. The National Sustainable Development Council has not met since then. Perhaps current discussions on other issues such as climate change shall sideline the Agenda 21, even in theory, agenda 21 formulaiton and implementaiton can be used as a tool for integration.
Best Regards
Nguyen Van Duyen (Mr.)
New World, New Vision!
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From: Tom Miller
Date: 2008/12/23
On the issue of urban sustainability, the recently formed Vietnam
Green Building Council (http://www.vsccan.org/vgbc/), which is
affiliated with the World Green Building Council, is developing a
voluntary "Lotus" standard for green building in Vietnam.
Tom Miller