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Handover of resilient houses to poor households in Quang Nam Province

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Viet Nam
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UNDP
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Quang Nam, February 4, 2021 – The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Department of Construction of Quang Nam province organize the handover of the first batch of resilient houses to poor households in time to celebrate the Lunar New Year. This is one of the activities of the UNDP project “Response to disasters in Viet Nam” to repair 3,323 houses and build 20 new houses (10 in Quang Nam province and 10 in Quang Ngai province).

Quang Nam is one of the coastal provinces which have to suffer from strong storms annually. According to the province's statistics, just for the storm No. 9 in 2020, the total number of houses damaged was more than 27,000 and more than 26,000 houses were partially damaged, affecting the lives of thousands of people.

Directly handing over newly-built safe houses for the local people, Mr. Nguyen Van Manh, Head of Department of Infrastructure Management, Quang Nam Provincial Department of Construction said, “We are very pleased to cooperate with UNDP to build more safe houses which can withstand storms and floods for the poor to celebrate Tet, especially those seriously affected by natural disasters in 2020. We hope to continue to receive UNDP support in the future to be able to build more such houses.”

Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, Ms. Caitlin Wiesen, Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Programme, was unable to participate in the handover of these houses to the local households. In her Tet greetings sent to the households, she wrote “After a period of urgent construction and repair, with the direct support of the local people, we are very pleased to hand over the houses to the families. We hope that in 2021, the year of the Buffalo, this safe house will be of great support for the families to overcome your difficult situations in life. We wish you good health and luck, and especially reduced burdens caused by the storms and floods.”

Building on the success of the project “Improving the resilience of vulnerable coastal communities to climate change related impacts in Viet Nam” supported by the Green Climate Fund, the Government of Viet Nam and UNDP, 3,500 resilient houses which can withstand storms and floods have been built since 2017 in coastal provinces including Quang Nam, which prove to be very successful in protecting local people's lives and assets. We are delighted to hand over more newly built safe houses in Quang Nam province before the Lunar New Year, ”said Mr. Dao Xuan Lai, UNDP Head of Climate Change and Environment Unit of UNDP Viet Nam.

Also during this period, UNDP also collaborated with the Red Cross Associations in Quang Nam and other 4 project provinces to support the local people affected by storms and floods. More than 1,500 out of 3,323 houses damaged by storms and floods have been repaired and reinforced to be more resilient, to help the poor and near poor households prepare for a new year.

Mr. Phan Cong Ry, Vice Chairman of Quang Nam Red Cross Association said, “Right from the end of last October, the Red Cross Association received timely support from UNDP. We worked together to implement emergency assistance activities for the local people such as conducting trainings on house repairing and reinforcing to withstand floods and storms, directly assessing damages, monitoring the process of house repairing.”

The project “Response to disasters in Viet Nam” is funded by the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF). The project helped to repair and reinforce more than 3,323 houses, and provide 3,323 gender-responsive household kits in 5 provinces, namely Quang Tri, Quang Binh, Quang Nam, Thua Thien Hue and Quang Ngai.

For more information, please contact:

Phan Huong Giang

Media and Communication Analyst, Climate Change and Environment,

United Nations Development Programme

Mobile: 0948466688

Email: phan.huong.giang@undp.org