Project for Adaption to Climate Change in the Mekong Delta in Ben Tre and Tra Vinh Provinces

The goal of this project is to support sustainable livelihoods for the rural poor in a changing environment, strengthening the adaptive capacity of target communities and institutions to better contend with climate change.

The project is to be implemented in two provinces in the north-east Mekong Delta Region of Viet Nam. Thirty communes have been selected in each province based on their poverty ranking, vulnerability to climate change and overlap with communes covered by the government's National Target Programme on New Rural Development.

The two main components of the project are:

• Building the capacity for climate change adaptation with participating communities, institutions and provinces for the agriculture and rural development sector
• Investing in sustainable rural livelihoods by providing the financial means and facilities to scale up the results of community-based research and development in this sector.

The target group for the project includes poor and near poor rural households with and without land or other productive assets, and rural people without marketable skills. Ethnic minorities receive priority within the target group, and the project proposes specific measures to ensure women's participation in relevant activities, including minimum participation rates in community and commune-level planning.