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Highlights

• Agriculture (consisting of livestock husbandry, crop cultivation, forestry and fishery/aquaculture as the main sub-sectors) is one of Viet Nam’s key economic sectors, contributing to about 14.6 percent of its GDP in 2018 (USAID and UNDP, n.d.) and employing about 35.6 percent of the labour force of the country (Nghia, 2017).

• The observed and projected negative impacts of climate change are likely to be detrimental for the agriculture sector and pose challenges for sustaining the livelihoods of the people dependent on this sector.

• Viet Nam highlighted several priority actions and key strategies under both adaptation and mitigation components in their nationally determined contributions (NDC), but also emphasised that adaptation to climate change is a priority of the government to reduce vulnerabilities and risks faced by climate change.

• The National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS) is the main national-level document that supports the development and the implementation of all major climate change-related initiatives in the country. An advisory committee called the National Committee on Climate Change (NCCC) supports the Prime Minister by proposing strategic responses and mobilizing resources for climate change-related activities.

• The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) is the leading agency working on agriculture development in Viet Nam. The country is currently in the process of developing a National Adaptation Plan (2021-2030) as part of its plan for implementation of the Paris Agreement.

• Through stocktaking, vulnerability and climate risk assessments, loss and damage analysis, monitoring and evaluation indicator development, cost-benefit analysis (CBA), adaptation prioritisation exercises, and mainstreaming gender and other capacity development activities, NAP-Ag helped strengthen technical knowledge and capacities of ministerial staff to integrate adaptation planning into budgeting, and national and sub-national planning processes for the next five-year sectoral development plan and strategic vision for 2030. These activities have also helped to identify entry points and potential linkages between the NAP and the NDC priorities.

• MARD has developed a roadmap for adaptation planning in the agriculture sector, which provides a comprehensive picture of Viet Nam’s adaptation efforts for guiding policy makers, planners and development partners to effectively identify and design interventions for the agriculture sector. The roadmap can be used as a guiding document or tool to ensure that the agriculture sector is adequately reflected in the national policy frameworks, in line with the NAP and NDC goals and targets.

• Coherence of work and coordination among different ministries and stakeholders at different scales, as well as lack of access to data, still pose significant challenges for mainstreaming climate change adaptation planning at different levels.