On November 5th, 2025, in Hanoi, the Department of Urban Development (Ministry of Construction) in collaboration with the Swiss State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO), GIZ and AFD organized a workshop on "Safe and climate-resilient urban areas towards green and sustainable growth". This is one of the important events within the framework of the Vietnam Urban Sustainable Development Forum 2025 (organized by the Ministry of Construction in coordination with the Central Strategy and Policy Committee), attracting the participation of many managers, experts, scientists and business representatives.
In his opening speech at the workshop, Mr. Tran Van Giai Phong - Senior Program Officer, Embassy of Switzerland to Vietnam said that recently, many urban areas across the country, from the Northern mountainous region, the Red River Delta to the Central region and the Mekong Delta, have continuously faced serious flooding. This demonstrates that urban resilience and climate adaptation to climate change is no longer a distant concept but is directly linked to people's safety, the city's competitiveness and the country's sustainable development future.
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Deputy Director Nguyen Cao Vien speaks at the workshop.
According to Mr. Phong, over the past two decades, Switzerland has actively accompanied Vietnam on the journey to build safer, greener and more climate-resilient cities. Through this cooperation, the Swiss Embassy to Vietnam has witnessed many impressive advances in urban development in Vietnam, and has gained valuable experience that can help guide policies for climate-resilient urban development.
At the workshop, Mr. Nguyễn Cao Viên, Deputy Director of the Urban Development Department, presented key results that Vietnam has achieved in developing climate-resilient cities during the 2021–2025 period, as well as orientations for 2026-2030 under the Prime Minister’s Decision No. 438/QĐ-TTg dated March 25, 2021, approving the Scheme on “Developing Vietnamese Cities to Adapt to Climate Change for the 2021-2030 Period.” To date, among the 45 localities covered by the Scheme, 43 have issued implementation plans; 19 have developed shared databases; 14 provinces have completed flood-risk maps; and 11 have developed climate atlases. In the next phase (2026-2030), the Scheme will focus on planning for adaptation to extreme climate conditions, reducing greenhouse gas emissions, and developing green and smart cities.
Addressing the issue of urban flooding in coastal provinces of central Vietnam, Mr. Phạm Doãn Khánh, Deputy Head of the International Cooperation Division (Department of Dyke Management and Natural Disaster Prevention and Control, Ministry of Agriculture and Environment), noted that the combination of low-lying terrain, abnormal heavy rainfall, and rapid urbanization make many cities in this region vulnerable. The historic floods of 1999 and 2025 caused severe damage to many localities in both the northern and central regions. To reduce risks, Mr. Khánh proposed a set of integrated solutions such as upgrading drainage systems, expanding permeable surfaces, developing green spaces, strictly managing land use, and strengthening early warning systems.
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International experts speak at the workshop.
Attending the workshop, Ms. Sabina Stein - Head of Governance and Participation (United Nations Development Programme - UNDP) noted that large cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Da Nang are suffering from the double impact of extreme heat, air pollution and increasing flooding. Vulnerable groups including the elderly, outdoor workers, people with underlying diseases and people with disabilities need to be taken into account in the policy-making process. According to her, it is necessary to integrate community voices into planning, ensure social equity in climate adaptation programs, thereby enhancing trust and effectiveness of urban governance.
From a planning and institutional perspective, Mr. Antonie Mougenot - Urban Development Expert of the French Development Agency - AFD said that Vietnam is one of the countries most severely affected by climate change. Extreme weather events are occurring with increasing frequency and intensity, leaving more serious consequences.
Over the past five years, Vietnam has continuously suffered major natural disasters: back-to-back storms in 2020, storms in 2022, heavy rainfall in 2023, and especially the historic floods in October 2025 in Huế and Đà Nẵng, with rainfall exceeding 1,000 mm within 24 hours in Huế and more than 65,000 households affected in Đà Nẵng. In the northern region, the provinces of Tuyên Quang and Thái Nguyên also experienced severe damage caused by flooding in October 2025. These events clearly show that no region in Vietnam can remain “outside” the impacts of climate change. These are no longer “abnormal” phenomena but have become the “new normal” for Vietnamese cities.
Workshop scene.
Through a presentation focusing on climate finance, Mr. Steven Louis Rubinyi - Senior Disaster Risk Management Specialist of the World Bank said that urban areas contribute more than 70% of GDP and 90% of new non-agricultural jobs in Vietnam, but are also the most vulnerable areas to natural disasters. Each year, the damage caused by climate risks is estimated at up to 3.75 billion USD. From the experience of climate-resilient urban projects in Can Tho, flooding time has been reduced by 60% thanks to the application of climate-smart infrastructure. On that basis, he suggested that Vietnam should expand preferential capital sources, label climate budgets and include disaster risk criteria in all public investment decisions.
At the workshop, experts and delegates actively discussed, exchanged, shared experiences and agreed that developing climate-resilient urban areas is an urgent and long-term task, requiring synchronous coordination between policies, finance, planning and science and technology. Putting people at the center, strengthening governance, ensuring social equity and promoting international cooperation will be the foundation for creating safer, greener and more livable Vietnamese cities in the future.