Project News

On 05 May, the first Project Steering Committee (PSC) meeting was held in Hanoi to discuss and agree the project work plan and its progress. It was chaired by Dr. Ha Cong Tuan, Deputy Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD), and attended by approximately 60 persons including representatives from Provincial People's Committees, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE), MARD's related departments, Embassy of Japan to Vietnam, JICA Headquarters, JICA Vietnam Office and the project experts.

The meeting started with presentations on the project work plan (including overall plan and annual plan for 2017) and its progress. As reported, the project was launched in August 2015 but was recently approved after some delay in project approval process. However, the implementation of its activities, which started long before the project approval, has progressed smoothly without major problems thanks to the support and cooperation of counterpart agencies. Following presentations, many opinions were voiced by participants, one of which was the request from the provinces for data sharing on ODA grant disbursement and allocation of counterpart budget for implementation of the project.

As the project engages a wide range of stakeholders for numerous activities, i.e. from policy support to both MARD and MONRE to on-site activities in five provinces, this 1st long-awaited PSC meeting is significant in bringing all relevant stakeholders together for the first time and laying the groundwork for further information sharing and collaboration between stakeholders during the project implementation.

Participants contributed to an active discussion under the chairmanship of Dr. Tuan, Vice Minister of MARD. The project has progressed without major problems.

Mr. Miyazono - Chief Technical Advisor of the project - reported the project progress while the project work plan was presented by Management Board for Forestry Projects (MBFPs), the central counterpart organization of this project.