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V
IETNAM
’
S GROWTH IN
recent years has made the country
a byword for development success stories. Since the doi
moi (renewal) reforms launched in the 1980s catapulted
Vietnam toward a market economy and jacked up growth in
domestic revenues, there has been a marked improvement in
living conditions.
Despite this, some 24 per cent of the population were still living
below the poverty line in 2005,
1
and as many again were
‘temporarily poor,’ hovering just above the poverty line and at
constant risk of falling below it. Reducing the vulnerability of
poor and marginal families is key to reducing poverty. And in
central Vietnam, after crop losses, one of the biggest mishaps a
family faces is damage to their home, or its destruction, by annual
floods, storms and typhoons.
Natural disasters represent an ever-present threat. Their impact
is increasing and levels of economic loss have climbed steadily.
2
Nor is it just news-breaking disasters that cause damage: every
year whirlwinds, lesser storms and flash floods represent a cata-
strophic financial setback for poor families.
As a result of doi moi, many families living close to the poverty
line have struggled to gradually replace their pre-reform precari-
ous shelters with homes built using more durable materials. They
intend these to provide security for their families and possessions
and a safe base from which to work. This investment is typically
by far the largest in kind and cash that a family will make. It is
therefore a cruel twist of fate that house improvements are
frequently and repeatedly destroyed by typhoons and floods.
Paradoxically, it is these very improvements that increase family
vulnerability, insofar as the cost of rebuilding is higher and –
crucially – monetarized.
Since 1989, Development Workshop (DW) has observed the
gradual replacement of traditional rural buildings using local mate-
rials – thatch, bamboo, wattle and daub – with new homes built
with bricks, tiles, and cement, all of which are costly. Fifteen years
later, commune statistics show that some 70 per cent of provincial
and rural housing stock has been replaced.
3
This represents a huge
domestic investment and a vastly increased exposure to economic
loss. The same statistics nevertheless classify many of these more
recent houses as ‘semi-solid,’ i.e. exposed to damage caused by
even lesser disaster events. Visual assessment bears this out.
Why should such levels of damage still occur? Essentially
because basic rules of disaster-resistant construction have been
neglected. Many storm-resistant features of traditional housing
have been forgotten due to misplaced faith in new materials,
economy, or simply because the home has remained unfinished.
So recovery, which had been relatively cheap, now involves the
cost of buying raw materials and building components, and often
of employing skilled builders.
Not surprisingly, Vietnamese preparedness policy has focused
on strengthening and developing infrastructure and protecting
dykes and riverbanks,
4
and the country has a long and commend-
able history of preparation and relief.
5
But faced with growing
economic losses, a disaster management strategy that does not
mobilize all potential resources to reduce risk and vulnerability
is neglecting valuable opportunities. In this context, the people
themselves become a key resource.
A top-down disaster risk reduction strategy does not adequately
consider families and local communities as genuine partners in
the disaster reduction process. DW firmly believes in maximizing
potential at all levels of society. A comprehensive disaster manage-
ment strategy has to involve both state and community in a
partnership that makes local people genuine actors in reducing
their own vulnerability to future storms and floods.
Promoting preventive strengthening
Since 1999, DW has helped communities in central Vietnam to
identify local risks and take preventive action to safeguard their
buildings by incorporating flood and typhoon resistant details
into new and existing buildings. This approach recognizes that the
More to lose: reducing family vulnerability
to flood and storm damage in
central Vietnam 1989-2006
John Norton and Guillaume Chantry, Development Workshop
The case of Madame Phan Thi Yêm
Madame Phan Thi Yêm is a mother of five. Widowed early and with
meagre savings from weaving straw hats, she was able to pay for her
children’s schooling. But once this and basic needs were met, she could
barely afford to live in a frail bamboo shelter. Using savings scraped
together and with help from neighbours, in 1974 she managed to build a
cement-block house with a tin roof, but no reinforcement – only to find
herself homeless in 1985 when the typhoon ripped off all the roofing and
she was forced to purchase fibre-cement sheets to replace it. “That’s why
when I hear a typhoon warning, I’m terrified.”
She heard about preventive strengthening and was understandably
interested. When the village met to select beneficiaries, Madame Yêm took
part and was selected for strengthening with project assistance, to which
she made a small financial contribution. The project has agreed to loan
her a further VND1.5 million (USD96) at an interest rate of 0.3 per cent
per month. With her modest income, she can make the monthly payments
of VND57,000 (USD4). Greatly moved, Madame Yêm tells us that her
house is now comfortable and strong. She is grateful to the project and
hopes that others like her will be able to benefit.