Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance – Vietnam

Using resilience data for resilience action

The Program

2021-2024, 2024-2027

Geographic scope: Vietnam

Partners:Thua Thien Hue Standing Office of the Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention and Control, Binh Dinh Climate Change Coordination Office (CCCO), Binh Dinh Standing Office of the Steering Committee for Disaster Prevention and Control, Binh Dinh Department of Environment and Natural Resource, Dragon Institute – Can Tho University

Funder: Z Zurich Foundation

Monitoring, Evaluation + Learning (MEL)

Program Design + Implementation

Resilience Tools + Frameworks

Applied Research

Technical Consultancies

Overview

The Zurich Climate Resilience Alliance (the Alliance) is a multi-sectoral partnership focusing on finding practical ways to help communities in developed and developing countries strengthen their resilience to climate risk. ISET-International Vietnam joined the Alliance in 2021, working in 12 communities in Thua Thien Hue, Binh Dinh and Can Tho provinces. In 2024 we expanded to a total of 15 communities.

ISET also collaborates with Plan-International in Vietnam, who deliver the program in Quang Tri province, on a number of joint activities at the national level, including advocacy for the resilience approach in disaster risk management.

What we deliver

The Alliance takes an approach which centers communities in the process of generating resilience data. This data is then actively used to build resilience in and with those communities. This approach, the Climate Resilience Measurement for Communities (CRMC), is the Alliance’s participatory approach to measuring climate resilience at the community level. The CRMC — which consists of a conceptual framework and an associated practical tool for implementing the framework in practice — guides users through a structured process for generating evidence about the ways in which a given area or community is and is not already resilient to climate hazards and provides insight into what is needed to further build resilience.

In our community work in Vietnam, ISET has applied the CRMC to understand flood risk and opportunities for building climate resilience, connecting the work to government mandated community disaster risk management planning and complementing our community work with knowledge generation and active advocacy across scales. Beginning in 2024, we expanded our work to also address extreme heat and tropical storms. Our goal is to integrate resilience thinking and climate risk reduction into Vietnamese planning and development across scales.

Key outcomes/results

Improved DRR/DRM capacity of local partners and communities as a result of trainings and provision of tools and equipment.
Strengthened the existing provincial database in Thua Thien Hue province for early flood forecasting and warning in ways that also support a deeper understanding of how urban development is related to and contributing to changing flood risk.
Improved early warning systems (EWS) through the co-funding of smart flood-monitoring towers and equipment for delivering EWS messages.
Piloted detailed digital maps for flood and storm evacuation planning in Binh Dinh province.
Built familiarity with the resilience thinking approach and worked with partners to integrate that thinking into their work, including in commune/ward disaster risk reduction and preparedness plans.