Massive changes in land and water resources are expected in the next two decades in the Red River Basin, the second most important river basin of Vietnam. This has the potential to contribute greatly to development, but also to environmental degradation and further marginalization of particular groups and their livelihoods. This calls for national, regional and international support for evidence-based knowledge to guide this rapid development.

This project will strengthen and expand relevant capacities of the Red River Basin (RRB) focused cohort of critical and engaged young scholars and practitioners of water governance and regional development, and link these to researchers to other Greater Mekong basins, through a multi-country/multi-basin collaborative fellowships program and organizational capacity building to improve teaching/training curricula on water governance and effective communication. A particular cross-cutting focus of the project is research on gender and other forms of social marginalization. It also intends to build a learning community amongst these scholars and practitioners, and link them with similar initiatives in the Ayerwaddy, Mekong and Salween basins. The project will foster collaboration among regional networks and organizations that have common interest and experience such as M-POWER and SUMERNET.

Lead: Vietnam Academy for Water Resources, Ministry for Agriculture and Rural Development, Vietnam
Nguyen Tung Phong (phongicd@gmail.com)

Partners: Institute of Meteorology and Hydrology, Hanoi, Vietnam (IMHEN), Institute for Technology and Resources Management in the Tropics and Subtropics (ITT), Cologne University of Applied Sciences, Germany

More project information And http://vawr-mk33.com/community-based-water-quality-monitoring-a-multibenefit-approach-to-water-governance-in-the-red-river-basin-vietnam.html