Vietnam officially opened for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) with the introduction of the Law on Foreign Investment in 1987. The attraction of FDI to Vietnam was significant by 2007 when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organisation. From that time onward, the flow of FDI to Vietnam grew strong and quickly. In 2020, Vietnam was among the 20 most attractive destinations for FDI globally. FDI has been a crucial driver of Vietnam’s recent economic success. 

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High-rise buildings in the city. Photo by Huynh An. Available on pexels.com.

Socio-economic development, on the one hand, contributes to improving living conditions for people; on the other hand, however, it creates pressures and negative impacts on the environment—such as increasing the consumption of raw materials and energy, creating waste and pollution, and reducing access to natural resources and ecosystems.

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Morden Vietnam today. Photo by Peter Nguyen, available on Unsplash. 

Investment in public infrastructure has been one of the key driving forces for Vietnam’s economic development over recent decades. Infrastructure accounted for 53% of total Official Development Assistance (ODA) received between 2010-2017. Vietnam has heavily invested in transportation, particularly roads, airports, and seaports. Vietnam’s public and private investment in infrastructure reached 5.7% of GDP in recent years, the highest in Southeast Asia and second highest in Asia after only China. 

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Hochiminh on the rise. Photo by Tuan Nguyen, available on Unsplash. 

In 2020, 82.97% of Vietnam’s energy consumption came from fossil fuels. Vietnam relies primarily on coal to meet its energy needs, with coal making 51.4% of energy consumption. Because it is known that energy production and consumption from fossil fuels is the leading cause of global greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, there has been a push to shift to an energy mix dominated by low-carbon energy sources. However, growing energy consumption due to population and income increases makes this energy transition much more difficult, and Vietnam is not an exception.

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Windmill field in Binh Thuan province| Photo from triphunter.vn

Vietnam is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the world, given its 54 recognized ethnic groups cohabiting in a relatively small landmass. Only seven of these groups—Kinh, Tay, Thai, H’mong, Muong, Nung, and Khmer—have populations over one million, while up to 12 ethnic groups count fewer than 10,000 members, 5 count fewer than 1,000 people including the Brau, O Du, Romam, Si La, and Pu Peo.

 A visualization provides basic information about the 54 ethnic groups living in Vietnam, highlighting selected distinctive cultural and spiritual features of each.

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A stamp collection of 54 Vietnamese Ethnic Group issued in 2005 | Image provided by the Vietnam Stamp Company

A story map represents 17 typical ethnic minority traditional festivals in Vietnam recognized as national intangible cultural heritage by the Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism.

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Thai ladies dancing stalls at “Xen ban, Xen muong” festival Photo from dantocmiennui.vn

Mekong Delta of Vietnam has recently faced the most severe periods of drought and saline water intrusion in the last 100 years—notably in 2015–2016 and even more devastatingly in 2019–2020. Dry season droughts have become increasingly severe year over year, forcing the Government to declare a state of emergency and issue a call for international support. Increased salinity hit 10 out of 13 provinces in the Mekong Delta during the 2019 and 2020 seasons, affecting 58,000 hectares (ha) of rice, 6,650 ha of fruit trees, 1,241 ha of vegetables, and 8,715 ha of aquaculture. Up to 96,000 households or 430,000 people faced a shortage of daily use water.

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Photo from moitruongvadothi.vn.

Vietnam is one of the most disaster-prone countries in the world. S-shaped with a 3,440 km coastline, its unique geographic location in the monsoon belt of Southeast Asia and diverse topography means that Vietnam suffers from many different types of natural hazards, including typhoons, tropical storms, floods, drought, salt water intrusion, landslides, and forest fires. More than 70% of Vietnam’s population is at risk from natural hazards, particularly the rural and urban poor.

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Photo by Alan & Flora Botting via Flickr. Licensed by CC BY-SA 2.0.

In 2010, the Vietnam government established a rural development strategy, implemented through the National Targeted Program on New Rural Development. The program is intended to support more than 9,000 communes across the 63 provinces of Vietnam to upgrade services and infrastructure in their communities, raise their incomes and productivity, and reduce the still significant socio-economic disparities between rural and urban areas in Vietnam. 

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Photo: A newly built commune gate, recognizing “new rural commune” title achived. Sourced from Wikipedia.

From one of the world’s poorest countries in late 1980s, in a period of 15 years, Vietnam transformed from an agricultural – based economy into a transitioning lower-middle income country. Poverty rates declined sharply from 79.7% in 1992 to 6.6% in 2018 (US$3.2/day PPP). The speed of this transformation outpaced its peers such as Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

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Busy Hanoi at night| Photo by Florian Wehde| Licensed by Unsplash

Vietnam recorded the country’s first COVID-19 cases on January 23, 2020. As of April 27, 2020, there were 270 confirmed cases.

The Government of Vietnam’s COVID-19 response has involved a series of initiatives from the central to the local level since late January 2020.

Data about COVID-19 consolidated by ODV team is available here

A woman labour| Picture taken by Thomas Gerlach. Licensed given by Pixabay.

In Vietnam, ethnic minorities are supported by a network of non-governmental organizations, known as “civil society”. Civil society includes international non-governmental organizations, Vietnamese mass organizations, Vietnamese umbrella organizations, Vietnamese NGOs, community-based organizations, and professional organizations, although professional organizations work rarely related to ethnic minority issues. Together they work to promote inclusive growth, and protect indigenous knowledge and religious customs. However, their work occupies a sensitive space marked by difficulties.

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Photo taken by Adam Cohn. Licence under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

The Vietnamese Government recognizes 53 ethnic minorities. Other counts suggest the existence of more than 90 groups, amounting to approximately 10 million people, or nearly 10% of Vietnam’s population. Most ethnic minorities inhabit remote areas of Vietnam and have their own belief systems which are heavily tied to land.

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Photo taken by Philip Turner. Licence under CC BY-NC 2.0.

The agriculture sector plays a crucial role in Vietnam’s economy and society. In Vietnam, the sector includes crop production, livestock, fisheries, and forestry. Vietnam’s tropical climate, fertile soil, abundant water supply and rich biodiversity means that after 40 years of Doi Moi economic reforms, the country has developed a diverse commercial agriculture sector to meet domestic and global demands. At present, a comprehensive restructuring program is being promoted as the sector stands at a crossroads of both opportunities and challenges.

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Photo by Dennis Jarvis. Licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Key Laws: Circular No. 34/2009 / TT-BNNPTNT on the criteria for determining and classifying forests (2009); Decree No.117/2010/ND-CP on Organization and Management of the Special-Use Forest System (2010); Land Law (2013); Law on Forestry (2017)—replaced Law on Forest Protection and Development (2004).

All land and the natural resources found under or on it is owned by the people through the state in Vietnam. However, the state recognizes long-term, alienable usage rights over both land and resources. Those with these usage rights in forest land are known as “forest owners.”

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Photo by Richard Allaway – Licence used by CC BY 2.0

The Government of Vietnam considers forests an important ecological resource, valuable for the socio-economic development and well-being of communities throughout the country. Forests play a major role in adapting to climate change as well as in regular environmental functions such as preventing erosion and maintaining water circulation. Both forest and non-timber forest products (NTFPs) are important sources of nutrition. Forests also have a social function, contributing to job creation and incomes. At present, there are about 25 million Vietnamese people for whom 20%, or by some estimates up to 40%, of their annual income comes from the forest.

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Photo by Richard Nyberg|USAID license CC BY-NC 2.0

Vietnam is considered a multi-ethnic country, made up of 54 ethnic groups. The Kinh ethnic group makes up 85.4% of Vietnam’s population, or 78.32 million people. The remaining 53 ethnic groups make up only 14.6% of the country’s population.

Although Vietnam voted in favour of UNDRIP, the government does not recognize ethnic minorities as indigenous peoples. Instead, the government uses the term “ethnic minority” to refer to everyone but the Kinh majority. The focus of the Vietnamese government is on “unity in diversity”.

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Photo: Wagner T. Cassimiro “Aranha”  via Flickr, license CC BY 2.0

Vietnam’s population and housing census is conducted every ten years and begins on April 1st. The country has conducted four population and housing censuses since the revolution in 1975, specifically in April of 1979, 1989, 1999 and 2009.1 The fifth population and housing census in 2019 will aim to collect information about national indicators and some sustainable development indicators.

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Photo: sasint via Pixabay, license CC0 1.0

Vietnam is vulnerable to CC. It ranks the fifth in climate risk in the Global Climate Risk Index for 2018 (CRI) and eighth in the Long-Term Climate Risk Index (CRI), a list of the 10 countries most affected by extreme weather events from 1997 to 2016 (annual averages).

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Photo: Pisauikan via Pixabay, license CC0 1.0

International aid plays a significant but decreasing role in Vietnam’s national expenditure. The nature of development assistance has changed a lot over time. Previously aid came largely from developed countries members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC), however recently, China, Arab countries, multilateral organisations, and private philanthropy is having a larger influence on how aid is accessed in Vietnam.

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Nhat Tan Bridge, Hanoi – a typical ODA project. Photo: Quang Ha Praha  via Pixabay, license CCO 1.0.

At the end of 2015, Vietnam had only met 3 of the 8 Millennium Development Goals. Now as they report on the first Voluntary National Review at the 2018 High Level Political Forum the work over the last two years to align Vietnam’s Sustainable Development Goals are highlighted in this examination of the localisation and monitoring progress of Vietnam. 

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Lotus, Vietnam national flower | Photo by Hoang Khai Nhan via  Flickr | CC.BY.NC 2.0

Join the Mekong information ecosystem by contributing important and relevant data on pressing topics related to Vietnam and its people. 

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Photo: ODV, license CC BY SA 2.0