The overarching objective of the USAID Green Annamites Project is to assist Vietnam’s transition to climate-smart, low emission, and resilient development that protects people, landscapes, and biodiversity in Vietnam’s priority forested provinces. This will be achieved through increased application of climate-smart development practices and enhanced biodiversity conservation in the Central Annamites. To achieve its objectives, USAID Green Annamites Project combines the development of appropriate economic incentives, improved livelihoods, development of value chains, direct assistance to the vulnerable population farmers, and the development of alternative public and private resources, all under a gender and social inclusion framework.

Forests play a critical role in Vietnam by protecting watersheds, preventing soil erosion, mitigating climate change, and building resilience for communities. Yet, less than one percent of Vietnam’s primary forest remains. They are also home to rare and endemic species found nowhere else in the world. Unfortunately, Vietnam’s forests, and the species that live in them, are depleting at an alarming rate due to conversion into other economic uses, as well as from activities of surrounding forest-dependent populations who lack alternative economic means. Over 80 percent of the total forest area in Vietnam is already severely degraded. The remaining intact forests are highly biodiverse and contain a stored carbon stock critical for mitigating global climate change. The Government of Vietnam (GVN) has developed various strategies and policies to reverse trends, including the Vietnam Green Growth Strategy. However, the government faces challenges to implement the strategies, particularly at the local level. USAID’s strategy in Vietnam seeks to assist Vietnam’s transition to climate smart, low emission, and resilient development that protects people, landscapes, and biodiversity. The Green Annamites activity led by USAID/Vietnam will accomplish this by supporting interventions in Central Annamites landscapes that are focused on: (1) increasing application of low emissions land use, (2) strengthening biodiversity conservation, and (3) increasing resilience for vulnerable communities.

By focusing on these three areas of interventions, Green Annamites will increase application of climate smart development practices in priority forested provinces in Vietnam (primarily Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue). The Activity was designed around three main tasks: 1. Increase application of low emission land-use; 2. Strengthen biodiversity conservation; and 3. Increase resilience for vulnerable communities. In order to achieve the expected results, the scope of the Activity is primarily limited to two target geographies: (1) Quang Nam and (2) Thua Thien (TT) Hue provinces. These provinces are two of three in Vietnam with the highest carbon density and where the last globally-significant remnants of primary forest still exist.

The majority of activities conducted under this Activity will directly benefit these two provinces, even if some undertakings are held outside of this specific geographic region. Some limited national-level actions may be included as well. The USAID Green Annamites Project will primarily benefit marginalized rural populations, particularly vulnerable ethnic minority populations, women, and the poor who rely on protected forests for their livelihood, and provincial and local government officials and stakeholders associated with managing protected areas in Quang Nam and TT Hue.

To date, the program has worked with the DARD, DONRE and other key stakeholders in both provinces to perform baseline assessments and activities that would lay the basis for full program implementation. The main assessments relevant to this assignment are the Livelihoods and the Biodiversity assessment for Quang Nam and Thua Thien Hue Provinces done by Vietnam-based organizations for the USAID Green Annamites program.