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The representative of the local authority gives a household in Thi Nai ward wastebaskets to carry out the family-based rubbish classification program. Photo V.H |
The Binh Dinh Management Board for “Strengthening environmental management and land administration program” (SEMLA) held a meeting on reviewing the program implementation. Deputy Head of the management board, Dang Trung Thanh, talks more about the issue.
Could you reveal the results of the SEMLA implementation in Binh Dinh?
Binh Dinh is one of four provinces selected to join the SEMLA program. It kicked off in July, 2006 with eight projects, including pollution prevention, control and rehabilitation, cleaner production, chemical safety, environmental impact assessment and strategic environmental assessment systems (EIA and SEA), environmental and land information systems (ELIS), land use planning, land registration and real estate market development, and provincial human capacity building and public awareness raising.
The program has the total capital of VND23 billion, of which Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) finances nearly VND18.9 billion and Binh Dinh contributes the rest.
Initially, the program was carried out quite slowly, but eight projects have been effectively implemented so far thanks to the steering of the provincial People’s Committee and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
The program helped Binh Dinh enhance the capacity for the environment management and land administration. Officials who joined the program improved their knowledge of land and environment management.
Also, it contributed to raise the awareness of the staff in the environment and natural resources sector about strategic environment assessment.
What did people benefit from the program?
It has brought many benefits to people in the province because its main objective is to establish an effective and efficient system of environmental and natural resources management that contributes to meet the country’s sustainable development demands - economic growth associated with poverty alleviation, natural disaster control, environmental protection and various social issues.
SEMLA promotes an integrated approach to natural resources, including land and environmental management.
The programme links national policy development, drafting of legislation and preparation of technical guidelines on the one hand and the application of policy and legislation at the local levels.
This is done through the implementation of pilots and demonstration projects and feeding back the relevant experience to the policy level.
The direct beneficiaries of SEMLA are the poor in rural and urban areas. The programme aims at strengthening the land use rights and the provisions of land related services to these households, as well as mitigating the hazards from pollution and degradation of natural resources.
The “Pollution prevention, control, rehabilitation” project, for example, helped to build regulations on environment protection and family-based rubbish classification program in Thi Nai ward.
Accordingly, each household will be provided with two dustbins. Housewives will use those dustbins to contain organic and non-organic waste which will be taken every day for recycle.
The project also contributed to propose the regulations on the community-based environment protection in Phu Cat district’s Ngo May town. It was then popularized in districts of An Nhon, Phu My, Vinh Thanh, Van Canh, and An Lao.
“Cleaner production” was also implemented successfully in Hoai Hao, Binh Tan, and Nhon An, reducing the environmental pollution and improving their production capacity.
What must be done to maintain the effectiveness of the program?
The SEMLA program was implemented effectively. To maintain its effectiveness the provincial People’s Committee should continue to popularize effective models on a larger scale.
Also, we asked the provincial People’s Committee to steer local authorities and functional bodies to carry out activities under the SEMLA program.
The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources needs to adjust policies on land and environment, popularize the results of the program on the mass media, and create favourable conditions for further activities after the program has ended.
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