A team of experts from Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) recently talked with Quang Ngai Government leaders over a grant to be given by Japanese Governement to Quang Ngai province for realization of a proposal on the area of natural disaster mitigation.
Earlier, the mission had held talks with its local partner, Department of Agriculture and Rural Development over the size and scope of the project as well as items to be included. They had also conducted a field visit to the sites of the reserviors which were supposed to be covered by the grant.
The Governement of Japan should provide Quang Ngai a non-refundable grant of USD 3-4 million for a natural calamity reduction project to be implemented in the province, JICA revealed in the meeting with the provincial authorities. The project would focus mainly on the rehabilitation of about 10 reservoirs, apart from some other sub items such as capacity building, construction of some access roads leading to the reservoirs’ sites, and districts’ centres for management and mitigation of natural disaster.
Quang Ngai is a province in Central Vietnam frequently affected by natural disasters, especially floods and storms, claiming dozens of lives every year and causing immeasurable damages to properties of people.
The province has been granted some natural disaster reduction projects by AusAID, World Vision (an NGO), and other international donors. Most noteworthy was A$ 15 million Quang Ngai Natural Disaster Mitigation Project funded by AusAID that has just been sucessfully executed in several districts of the province. One of the project’s most impressive achievement that should be replicated to other regions was either the flood modelling (digitalized on computer) or Centre for for management and mitigation of natural disaster constructed right in the city.
Over the past years, natural disaster reduction and management has become top priority to be taken into account by local government while making its policy for socio-economic development plan for the province. As planned, Quang Ngai should two days later host a national-level conference on natural disaster mitigation and search and rescue operation.
In this light, Quang Ngai leaders had pledged its strong cooperation and responsiveness with JICA that it would do the best possible to realize the proposal in a most cost-effective and best quality manner.
As required by JICA, the application and all necessary documents should be submitted to JICA by no later than this month end.
N.M.T
