UNDP and UNDESA have been supporting Viet Nam in the development and application of a CLEWs model since 2017 in response to requests from the National Centre for Socio-economic Information and Forecast (NCIF) of the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
A workshop to refine the analysis took place from the 7–10 of October 2019. Initial remarks were provided by the Deputy Director of the NCIF, Mr. Tran Thi Hong Minh and 10 analysts, mostly from the Ministry of Investment and Planning, and a technical officer from the National Center for Hydro-Meteorological Forecasting took part in the workshop. During the training, the participants engaged in hands-on exercises using the CLEWs integrated framework of Viet Nam to analyze sustainable energy policy scenarios. Most of the participants had taken part in the previous workshops and rapidly caught up with the model updates and related visualization tools. At the end of the workshop, the core group had moved on to designing more complex scenarios using the full Viet Nam CLEWs model, exploring the applications of the methodology and making notes on the scenarios to be formally developed to inform current sustainable development policy concerns.
Bilateral meetings were also held with Mr. Tran Thi Hong Minh, who emphasized the importance to have the CLEWs analysis to inform the 10-year Viet Nam strategy; as well as with the Vice President of the NCIF, Dr. Luong, Van Khoi, who remarked the importance of developing an assessment of competing water uses and availability in the Mekong Delta, which has been under environmental pressure and requires urgent attention.
A final training will be conducted in the first quarter of 2020 to focus in the development of the specific policy scenarios of interest to the participating institutions and engage in analytical discussions to draft policy notes.