ISSUES RECEIVING A VARIETY OF CONSIDERATIONS DURING THE VERIFICATION PROCESS OF THE LAW PROJECT

1. ISSUES RECEIVING A VARIETY OF CONSIDERATIONS DURING THE VERIFICATION PROCESS OF THE LAW PROJECT ON PREVENTING, PROTECTING AGAINST, AND MILTIGATIING DISASTER H.E. Mr. Nguyễn Vinh Hà Vice Chairman of the Committee on Science, Technology and Environment

2. The Committee has been assigned by the Standing Committee of the National Assembly (NA) the following tasks: (i) leading the verification of the Law project on preventing, protecting against, and mitigating disaster; (ii) taking into account opinions, assisting the Standing Committee of the NA. on revising the Law for the NA’s approval. During the Law verification process, the Committee has been studying various national and internationalrelevant documents and Laws. The Committee has also organized 8 site visits to selected provinces and cities being under severe impact of disasters. The verification report of the Law has been already provided to the members of the National Assembly.

3. In the scope of this presentation, we would like to focus on 06 issues receiving different opinions during the Law verification process: • On applicable entities of the Law project • On principles of preventing, protecting againts disaster (PPD) • On the Government’s policy on PPD • On the Government’s policy on PPD • On activities on PPD • On the structure of the Government management organization for PPD

4. 1. On applicable entities of the Law project It is known that Vietnam is among the most countries suffering frequent natural disaster damage 1.1. There have been a variety of disasters occurred in Vietnam, categorizing by regions and 8 specific geographical areas: a) Disasters occurred in specific regions: North of VN: mostly flood, gust, earthquake, soil erosion, flash flood in several northern mountainous provinces Central VN: mostly flood, gust, thunderstorm, typhoon, regional flood South of VN: water rising, coastal flood, riverbank erosion…

5. b) Geo-disasters in 8 areas (in order of frequency): 1) • Northern mountainous area:frequent flood, splash flood, gust, thunderstorm, drought, soil erosion, earthquake, typhoon. 2) • Northern west area in North Vietnam:frequent flood, splash flood, gust, drought, earthquake, thunderstorm, soil erosion, coastal flood. 3) • Red river delta:frequent typhoon, flood, gust, thunderstorm, regional flood, drought, soil erosion, water rising, coastal flood. 4) • Coastal area in northern Central Vietnam:frequent typhoon, flood, splash flood, drought, regional flood, gust, coastal flood, soil erosion, water rising, desertification, earthquake, tsunami.

6. b) Về đặc thù của 8 vùng địa lý (tiếp theo): b) Geo-disasters in 8 areas (continued): 5) • Coastal area in southern Central Vietnam:frequent typhoon, flood, splash flood, drought, regional flood, gust, thunderstorm, soil erosion, water rising, coastal flood, desertification, earthquake, tsunami… 6) • Western Highlands:frequent flood, splash flood, drought, typhoon, gust, thunderstorm, soil erosion, desertification, earthquake… 7) • Eastern South of VN:frequent flood, splash flood, drought, typhoon, gust, thunderstorm, soil erosion, water rising, coastal flood, desertification, earthquake. 8) • Mekong delta:frequent flood, coastal flood, regional flood, soil erosion, typhoon, gust, thunderstorm, drought, water rising, desertification.

7. 1.2. Applicable entities in current normative legislative documents: • Follow ordinance for preventing, protecting against flood and typhoon 1993: 10 kinds of applicable disasters • Follow ordinance for preventing, protecting against against flood and typhoon 2001 and Decree No. 14/2008/NĐ-CP: 13 kinds of applicable disasters 1.3. Law draft on PPD: 18 categories of applicable disasters and “other disasters”: • After studying international standard and terminology of disaster (defined by the United Nation’s office for disaster risk reduction – UNISDR) and examining actual disasters occurred in VN, in our opinion the determination of disaster categories in the current Law draft is appropriate. • However, there have been other opinions considering that only popular and severely-damaged disasters shall be selected to assign adjustment in the Law. Some other opinions consider inserting “other disasters” beside 18 disaster categories for flexible adjustment of response to weather abnormal and current situation of climate change.

8. 2. On principles of preventing and protecting against disaster 2.1. Role of the Government: • There have been many opinions arguing that the Government plays the main role in preventing and protecting against disaster (PPD), supplementing by individuals, organizations, and community. • Otherwise, some argues that in PPD each individual must act actively before the supports of community and the Government. The Government only focuses in particular areas such as forecasting, warning; developing and implementing plan for response, recovery…

9. 2.2. On the policy “4 on-site solutions”: • On the one hand, some argues that this policy is significantly important in PPD. On the other hand, at some local areas visited by the Committee’s working delegation some argues that this policy was not necessarily true during the whole operation of PPD, especially when disaster occurred in large scale, effected area was separated in parts…

10. 3. On the Government’s policy in preventing, protecting against disaster Considering issues: 3.1. There have been many considerations about land-use plan, people living in regions frequently damaged by disaster, evacuation of households in those regions and resettlement. • (Actual site visit to Tùng Quá Lìncommune (Lai Châu province), the local government had evacuated 100 households out of the soil-erosion area, however, after a period of time people returned for reasons of way of living, shortage of productive land, resettlement to land inappropriate for cultivation or belong to another commune).

11. 3.2. Disaster insurance issue: • Experience from foreign countries: damage insurance in USA. For the case of Sandy hurricane, the damage estimation was about USD 30-50 billions, however, it was estimated that the insurers have to pay USD 10- 20 billions. In Japan, the earthquake and tsunami in Mar, 2011 causing Fukushima accident was estimated to cause USD 197 -308 billions damage and the insurance amount paid by insurer was estimated USD 21-34 billions. • It is stated in the Law draft that “the Government policy is to encourage insurance company in having permission of founding and doing disaster insurance business in Vietnam. …” • Nevertheless, for current conditions of Việt Nam the Law necessarily assigns in more detail the preferential policy for company doing disaster insurance business because of the high risk of this kind of business.

12. 4. On resources for preventing, protecting against disaster 4.1. Finance • Clarify the role of government budget in PPD: usage for what activities? What is the appropriate budget portion in the socio-economic conditions of Vietnam? • PPD fund: Currently divided into 02 categories: + Local fund for preventing, protecting against flood, typhoon founded at province-level after the decree 50/CP (1997) + Fund from voluntary organizations, individuals, eg. Fund for disaster damage support in Central Vietnam.

13. Need to assign in details on building PPD potential, human resource usage in PPD, appropriate treating regulations… • Assign training, maneuvering for disaster response of civilian and rescue force. 4.2. Human resource:

14. 5.On PPD activities 5.1. Information of disaster warning: • Need to assign in the Law “the determination of disaster risk level” and “disaster warning level”. • Clarify responsibility of warning organization and warning level. • (Actual site visit in Quảng Bình province shows that when people’s committee decided to evacuate civilian out of the region effected by typhoon, people did not obey the order because several post failed warnings had caused expenses)

15. - Need to build up early warning system, evaluation of disaster risk and network for providing information to AHA Center in the case Vietnam joins the ADDMER agreement (Currently, disaster map has been constructed in several provinces, for example the submerged region map in Cần Thơ, flood map in Quảng Bình…) 5.2. On rescue, life saving: • Clarify the role of military force • Add the regulation for international aid and relief • Add the regulation for the rights and obligations of intn’l organizations in disaster aid and relief

16. 6. On structure of PPD organization At central level: • Central Steering Committee for PPD (Standing office located at MARD); National Committee for seeking and rescue (Ministry of Defence) At local level: • Based on actual conditions, the 02 committees can be combined into Executive Committee for preventing, protecting against flood, typhoon and seeking, rescue at local levels. However, the members of the Committees work part-time only, and also the assisting human resource for the Committees at central as well as local level is very limited.

17. In some countries, organizations in charge of PPD/state of emergency were established from central level to local level such as in USA, China, Russia… • In other countries, the model of one government management agency and steering departments were established, along with system of professional organizations on PPD such as in Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, Japan…

18. Recommendation of the model appropriate with conditions in Vietnam: • Enhance ability, function, task for specialized offices of current steering committee, executive committee for preventing, protecting flood, typhoon and rename to Central Executive Committee for preventing, protecting against disaster, Steering Committee for preventing, protecting disaster and finding, rescuing life at province, district and commune levels. • Clarify responsibility of relevant Ministries • Establish regulation for co-operation mechanism in the task of PPD.

19. In summary, we have presented 06 groups of issues receiving a number of considerations and recommendations. In our opinion, those above-mentioned issues need continuously analyzing, investigating at different view points. Based on the concluded results, we will select optimal solution for solving the issues during the process of taking into account recommendations and revising the Law draft.

20. At this conference, we are very happy to invite several experienced international experts working many years on disaster risk management to present their useful and helpful presentations. In our opinion, the above-mentioned issues will be made clear by the experience exchange of the international experts and all your considerations after the conference. Sincerely thank you!