Green Innovation and Development Centre
Project Title: Promoting community alternatives energy solutions in Ca Mau province to contribute for better Mekong water governance, phase 3
Background and Justification:
Built up on success of local energy planning approach championed in the Red river Delta, since 2014, Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID) has been working with Ca Mau Women Union to introduce this approach with funding support from Oxfam Australia and Vietnam. Nguyen Phich commune, one of the four poorest communes of U Minh district was selected to be the first beneficiary community of our project. After three years’ implementation, the project made significant contribution to improving the capacity of local partners as well as livelihoods of local people in the community.
In the period of 2017-2018, GreenID continuously expanded the Local Energy Planning in Tan Hung Dong commune because we recognized that this area has a lot of environmental and energy issues similar to Nguyen Phich. In Ca Mau, there are still a lot of communities which has the similar situation like Nguyen Phich commune. Tan Hung Dong commune in Cai Nuoc District is one of those communities. This is one of a typical commune which has a population of 16,205 people, and there are 3,658 households divided into 12 hamlets. according to the statistical data of the Communal People Committee in 2017, the main livelihoods of people in the commune comes from shrimp farming and small business. There are still about 40% of households in Tan Hung Dong commune have not access to the national grid. Some of these households are using electricity from their neighbours at higher price which lead to many difficulties for their life. Power shortage limited local people’s access to information on technology, education, and employment opportunities. Lacking power always leads to the poor access to water and hygiene sanitation for local people. The women union in this commune is very keen in applying the local energy planning and sustainable solutions implementing in Nguyen Phich commune. Therefore, sustainable alternative solutions promotion is critical to address above challenges. There have sustainable alternative energy solutions introduced and applied in 02 communes contribute significantly in improving the livelihoods of villagers and proving the multiple benefits of LEP; 03 local technical team are formed including the local technician groups on biogas, improved cook stove and LED lighting bulb. They help to reduce the investment cost, create local market, increase solution access for local people, job and income for women and members of groups. At the end of this period, more than 2000 villagers have access to information on benefits of sustainable energy solutions via 12 communication events organized at the village level by women union and LET. To date, more than 323 households in 02 communes and two public facilities including one primary school have been applying different sustainable energy solutions including biogas, improved cook stove, solar lantern, LED light bulb, waste treatment.
As a result, a thousand of people and students in 02 communes have benefited from the project and the local environment especially water resource was improved. The project’s results also convince provincial stakeholders on the relevance of LEP and alternative energy solutions with provincial existing programs including new rural development program, green growth and science and technology program. Besides, the findings from LEP evaluation showed that LEP has a big potential to be integrated into existing policies and program which were implementing at the commune level. In 2018, through a series of meetings with provincial agencies such as Department of Agriculture and Rural and Development (DARD), Department of Industry and Trade (DOIT) and Department of Science Technology (DOST), we receive their proposal to cooperate with them in promoting our sustainable energy solutions for other communities in the province via their annual communication program.
It is a good opportunity to expand LEP approach and result at provincial level. At the same time, it is important to continue building good and sustainable practices at grass-root level. Tan Hung Dung commune still has 786 households which have difficulty in electricity access. They have to face with unsafety and expensive payment for small usage. Tan Hung Dong has people 246 people with disability. Most of them belong to low income group (about 23 USD per household per month) and also face challenge of energy access. Their life based of the government subsidies. So in this phase of the project, we would like to explore the opportunity to bring benefits of sustainable energy solutions for this group to ensure the inclusion.
Together with existing LEP communities in Tan Hung Dong, we will conduct the Green School in 02 secondary schools in Tan Hung Dong commune. From 2 017, GreenID also has developed the concept note of Green School and piloted in some of schools in An Giang and Hanoi. The program is modified from 50/50 model of EURONET. This program is implementing in 13 countries for 98.000 students. It contributes to save energy and invest renewable energy solutions. GreenID is one of pioneering organisation in Vietnam to conduct this program under the name Green School. Our concept focused on 04 topics including sustainable energy; water conversation; air quality and waste treatment. We use combining methodology among knowledge teaching and skill improvement in order to build up student become global citizens. We believe that, this program will be successful and interested. Moreover, the local people in both two communes as well as in the Mekong Delta is facing another layer of threat from the hydropower dam developing in the upstream of Mekong river. Therefore, sustainable alternative solutions promotion is critical to address above challenges. Green School also contribute to water and environmental protection by behaviour change from students. They learning by doing and become global citizens.
With above mentioned objectives, we believe that Green School program and LEP communities will contribute an important part in demonstrating the SE benefit to different stakeholders especially in Mekong delta and for long term would be a valuable practical example for scaling up at higher level that GreenID and its partners are trying to achieve. It also contributes to use of sustainable nature resources and water governance.
Objective: The project aims to promote alternative energy solutions in the Mekong Delta, Vietnam especially among households of or with people with disability for sustainable and inclusive development in Mekong Delta, including:
Key activites follow each objective:
Objective 1: Promote to apply the sustainable energy models for low income households and households with people with disability in Tan Hung Dong commune in order to meet electrification objective, energy access and inclusion of people with disability development process through local business.
Objective 2: Implement the Green School in order to improve knowledge and skills for students about relationship between climate change and energy in Tan Hung Dong commune.
Project duration: From 01/01/2019 to 30/09/2019
The project is implemented under the sponsorship of Oxfam Vietnam
