Hanoi (VNA) –Vietnam has madeprogress in water environment management in river basins thanks to a projectfunded by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).
A coordination mechanism in waterenvironment protection in the basin of Dong Nai River, along with a new riverbasin commission have been established, heard a meeting of the steering boardof the “Strengthening capacity of water environment management in river basin” projecton May 10.
Ichiro Adachi, chief advisor of theJICA expert team, stressed the significance of the project in terms ofsustainable management, saying a coordination mechanism is one of the mostimportant factors in water environment management for river basins.
At the working session, JICA expertssuggested extending the duration of the project, which was previously scheduledfor 2016-2018, to May 2019 to effectively transfer its outcomes.
Besides, the building of legaldocuments and establishment of river basin organisations are overdue. Moreover,the Vietnam Environment Administration is restructuring its organisation,leading to a change of agency in charge of managing river basins, they said.
The project aims to improve centraland local government's capacity in water environment protection in theprovinces of Bac Ninh, Bac Giang and Thai Nguyen in the Cau river basin and HoChi Minh City, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces in the DongNai river basin.
The project is expected to calculatepollution load capacity in the area which will be used as a base for localitiesto coordinate water environment management and development activities.
According to Vo Tuan Nhan, Deputy Minister of the Vietnamese Ministry ofNatural Resources and Environment, Vietnam’s rivers, especially those flowingthrough cities, industrial parks and trade villages, are seriouslycontaminated.
Toaddress the problem, Vietnam has promulgated many policies, mechanisms andlegal documents in the field, and sought international assistance, of which theJICA project is an example, Nhan said.-VNA